Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Hoot if you hate the vuvuzela!
Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! Hooooooooooooooot! No this is not the sound of Hoot car insurance blowing its own trumpet, nor is it the mating call of an unreconstructed male, nor is it the sound of the world's angriest traffic jam.
It is, in fact, the sound of the vuvuzela; ubiquitous to the living rooms of Britain ever since the start of the 2010 World Cup – and isn't it horrible?
I don't mean to sound culturally insensitive to an ancient cultural tradition – after all it's been blowing people up the wrong way since the 1970s – but I must admit that I've been enjoying the World Cup in spite of, not because of, the horrific horn.
And what of the madcap souls who actually buy and blow the things. If I'd spent hundreds of pounds on a World Cup match ticket the last thing I'd be doing is placing a ruddy great horn square in front of my face, obstructing my line of sight while also sending my hearing to high heaven.
Let's just hope it doesn't become a staple of all football matches in the future.
Image © Eustaquio Santimano via Flickr under Creative Commons Licence
Monday, June 21, 2010
The breatharian car?
The Indian man terms himself a breatharian and says that he hasn't eaten or drunk anything since 1940 and adheres to a strict routine of yoga and meditation.
Yes, we've had solar-powered cars before, but so far they've been way too dependent on clear skies and blistering sun. They're not particularly fast and have an alarming tendency to conk out mid-journey.
On these counts, I guess you could say that they'd be pretty cheap-car-insurance friendly: they don't go fast, you can't do many miles in them and they can only be driven in ideal driving conditions.
All this could change with the advent of the oxygen-sun powered vehicle currently being worked on by combustion chemists in the USA and Switzerland.
Who knows, perhaps they could learn something from our septuagenarian breatharian?
Image © Still a Fan of FOTC via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Monday, June 14, 2010
Caravan thief steals more than he bargained for
The vehicle, which was stolen in Australia, had been parked at a caravan dealer's yard and was attached to a car that still had its keys in the ignition.
The opportunist thief snuck into the car while the dealer was showing an elderly couple the inside of the caravan. While the dealer managed to jump clear of the car, the elderly couple were left inside.
The thief drove the caravan out of the dealer's yard, crashing it several times and running it over kerbs at speed with the terrified couple still in the back.
Not wanting to be condemned as a kidnapper as well as a car thief, the suspect abandoned the car and caravan with the elderly couple still inside before running off.
Thankfully the couple were uninjured in the accident and were just left rather shocked by their ordeal.
No doubt the thief will struggle to find cheap car insurance after his caravan stealing fiasco.
[Image MGSpiller via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence]