Cars

©  2008  Rose George

I am thinking of writing a book about cars. Please don't ask, "what about cars?" because the answer will be "I don't know. Just cars." For this reason, I attended the British Motor Show at Excel two days ago. I went by bike. It was not too difficult, once the hideous Grove Road had been overcome, as those nice London cycle-way building people have built a cycle path all the way from Poplar High Street to Excel. The show was dull. There were many shiny cars. The green theme was everywhere, except on the Bentley stand. Even Dyson had a stand, selling in-car vacuums, obviously. The Co-op had sponsored an electric village of little cars, most of which aren't in production and won't be for years. I attended two launches, one for a Peugeot something or other and one for a Lightning something or other. There were girls, dry ice, and rock music. And champagne and wine at 11am. I had juice and laughed. The one highlight on the programme that looked vaguely interesting was a Honda Dreamscape 30 minute show. I wanted to see Asimo. But it was two hours away and I gave up and returned to my lonely bike, parked in the multistorey car park next to one other. Though the police had cycled there too, on Smith & Wesson bikes. Later I looked up Smith & Wesson. They make bikes for police forces, emergency ambulance technicians, and other manly jobs that require eight hour days and might involve a variety of rugged terrains like far-off Docklands. They cost over £500 each but presumably you get a deal if you also buy weaponry. By the way, has anyone noticed that we now have an armed police force?

On the way back I followed a sign for a bird sanctuary. Somewhere near the Millennium Dome and lots of building work. Great. I didn't get to the sanctuary but instead found Trinity Buoy Wharf, a scrappy little wharf which nonetheless holds London's only lighthouse, London's only genuine American diner, which serves perfectly nice blueberry pie, though their tea could do with some work (but the place is run by Italian boys, so coffee may be better), and this chic container city thing where you can be creative and pretend you're on a Canada Maritime cargo ship. Also at the wharf is a Nigerian steel bus that was used in demonstrations for the anniversary of the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Remember him? Now his memory lives on under a short squat lighthouse in sight of the 02 arena.

I once went on the Trinity House lighthouse repair ship. I wrote about it for the Financial Times, but the magazine changed editors mid-commission, and for some reason I still don't understand, new editors kill old editors' commissions. Journalistic piss-marking of territory, presumably. It's annoying. After the blueberry pie, I resurrected the piece and remembered jumping from ship to buoy in alarming stormy seas, and that the furniture in Beachy Head is beautifully curved and that I wouldn't sleep there if you paid me.