Pains, strains and automobiles

What follows is not a race report, nor is it an insight into the 2009 Formula 1 season. In fact, it’s only tenuously linked to motor sport.

You may ask at this juncture, quite rightly, why I am writing such a blog? Well… let me explain. Over the last few months I have experienced what can only be described as a quite extraordinary bout of bad luck when it comes to transport. What I’m wondering is whether this is normal, or whether – as I am starting to believe – I committed some terrible sin against transport in a previous life.

A few months ago I decided that scootering to work in a matter of 15 minutes just wasn’t easy enough. If I really wanted to join the commuter elite I needed to cruise down the Thames on my very own boat, sipping a cup of tea and breathing in the crisp – and slightly toxic – morning air. There didn’t seem to be any taxes, or the need for insurance or a licence, so I set forth and bought a… well… something that can only be described as an oversized foot spa.

In order to avoid mooring fees I bought a Plastimo dinghy that, with its rear wheel and weight of only 45kg, can be towed, by hand, down the street and into a lockup overnight. Job’s a good’un. However, realistically the largest engine you can bolt onto the back of this monster is a 2.5hp outboard. Any larger and I’d be in Davey Jones’ locker sooner than you can say, “idiot boy has fitted too large an engine”.

This produced its own problems – against the tide it took me an hour and a half to get from Hammersmith to Chelsea Wharf the morning I attempted my voyage of discovery. To add insult to injury and another half an hour to my ‘late form’, within sight of the office my engine packed up and I duly drifted back upstream and into the rail bridge. Having left ‘Ocean Voyager’ tied to a step ladder conveniently placed just off Chelsea Harbour all day, I returned to find that the tide had dropped and my boat swinging, a good three metres away from the water, by its painter.

Never one to back out of a challenge I took the engine to get serviced and hit the water once more with my 2.5 throbbing horses. It went like a dream. Although steering the flat-bottomed boat flat out was an art that took a while to perfect – much to the worry of the tourist boats coming the other way. My joy lasted for a matter of moments, as at Wandsworth Bridge a crack appeared in the plastic hull. And water started to pour into her at an alarming rate. I hastily headed for the bank and made it just as the engine was disappearing under the water.

Having got poor Ocean Voyager home I plastic-welded the crack, but before I could check out my handiwork, my lock-up keys mysteriously disappeared. This was back in August and it was only a matter of days until my scooter was vandalised twice (a bunch of kids smashed the seat open and nicked my battery and then, 24 hours later, someone punched the ignition lock out and hot-wired it. Much to their annoyance, they then realised that hot-wiring only worked with a battery.)

Hoping that no more could happen I resorted to using my motorbike, which was stolen the following week from outside the office. A week later the bike, and rider, were found only two miles from where it was stolen, still on the same number plate. Of course he denied ever riding it (despite carrying a helmet and having cuts and bruises all over him). I asked the policeman (or is it officer nowadays?) how they had caught him and he replied, “he was trying to negotiate a right-hand turn in Wandsworth and lost control of the vehicle”.

I went to go and see the wreck a few days later and the bike’s speedometer was smashed open and seized on 100kmh (60mph). Even Valentino Rossi would have had problems holding that one. The bike was a write-off, and so after many a phone call to the insurers, I received a cheque and bought a new bike.

You may think this was the end of my worries – sadly not. It was just the beginning. Since returning from Italy at the end of last year my scooter has been running on Italian plates, which amazingly is legal as long as you are ‘in the process of changing the plates over.’ The great thing about using Italian plates is that you are nigh-on untraceable. With this in mind I parked anywhere and everywhere, getting so cocky that I approached a parking attendant, furiously writing a ticket for my scooter parked on the pavement outside Tooting Bec tube station, and told him not to worry – there really wasn’t a rush. I revelled in paying fines. Once he turned his back, tutting as if I was a madman, I screwed up the offending ticket and popped it in the bin. Oh, how wonderful life in London was.

This approach is all very well, until of course, your scooter is towed. I arrived at the pound hoping naïvely that they would have no record of these past offences. “Ah, sir, I’m afraid there is a £200 fee to release your vehicle from the pound (sigh of relief), and then £1650 in outstanding tickets to pay as well (my heart missed a whole bar, never mind a beat).” I ran. They didn’t have my name and I’m sorry to say that for at least five minutes I genuinely thought it was better leaving the damn thing there.

Of course, I then realised that the price to release it was only going to go up and that after getting a British MOT, my number plate would be recorded at the garage, right underneath my name and contact details. After a meeting at Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, the price was negotiated down drastically and I paid in two instalments. Never before had I felt more like a twerp.

To round up my last few disastrous months, my scooter failed to start the other morning so I jumped on my new motorbike thinking how lucky I was that the insurance had paid out for my CBR 600 and rode off into the sunrise. After a full day in the office I emerged to find and empty space where my GSXR-750 was carefully parked that morning. After a particularly stressed phone call to the pound it emerged that they had it, rather than some oik down the road trying to nail a right-hander at 60mph in Wandsworth.

“But, why do you have it? It was parked in a motorcycle bay,” I inquired.

“You’ll have to ask the DVLA sir.”

“Great”.

It turns out that when I ordered my tax disc online, the order didn’t go through. After receiving nothing in the post I called them to ask whether it was OK to use the bike. “Yes, yes, sir, as long as you ordered the tax disc online.” So another £260 later (I didn’t print off my receipt as was in a rush to get my scooter out of the pound and no record of the ‘transaction’ appeared on my bank statement) and I rescued my bike from the Shepherd’s Bush pound.

Feeling that my transport woes must soon be at an end, I set out to work last Friday on the scooter. Just two minutes from home and my rear tyre decided it had had enough and exploded leaving me on the side of the street. Yet again.

Now my question is this: is this normal? Or did I terribly wrong a transport officer in my last life? If I did, I am truly sorry for whatever it was that brought on this quite unbelievable run of events. Please make it stop.