  I collected my car from the garage on the way home from work on Friday. You'll remember that the clutch finally gave up on me on the motorway. Let's talk about the Good Thing first. The clutch is fixed and boy what a fix! I can go up hill in any gear, and even accelerate in 3rd and 4th. I can move into gaps again, rather than having to wait until the road is clear. And the car does what I want it to do, rather than reacting in its own time!
Now lets get back to the Black Things in life. I was driving home on the ringroad all flush with the pleasure of clutching and tried to get into 5th gear. No way; I now have no 5th gear. Obviously something to do with the alignment of the gear box. Ever seen how a gearstick connects to the gearbox? It's like a series of shafts and pulleys that would make a victorian engineer proud. Secondly, the starter motor has become "intermittant". Instead of turning the engine, I get a sound like a brontosaurus being mauled by an allosaur; a sort of terror stricken screeching "ruuuurrrrlllllllllllghgghghghglllllleeerrraaaaarrrgh".
This wouldn't be much of a problem if the dinosaur sound was less frequent than the engine starting. Sadly that is not the case. I spent 20 minutes yesterday in the car park at Lings Bar Safeway Superstore, to the consternation of the great unwashed, making alarming dinosaur noises with my car. So, you see, in getting the clutch repaired I've taken one step forward but taken two steps backwards. This is the Great British way of making progress though, so I'm not too worried just yet. The funniest thing concerns my wife driving the car.
Now the clutch is fixed we have a "bite point" again, and the car is thus once more stallable. My wife pulled out onto the three lane roundabout at Dunkirk Flyover on Saturday morning and stalled, blocking all three lanes. Remember the starter motor problem? Yes indeedy! She sat there for 2 minutes trying to start the car while blocking three lanes on a busy roundabout.
That's what I call pleasure. Wonder if any students were driving pissed up on drugs and thought that they were in a Jurassic Park acid trip. Lastly, a big "thank you" to the lady in Clifton this morning at the shops who was double parked, stationary, and indicating left (presumably because she was parked), who, in spite of my indicating that I was going by her, decided to pull out on me while continuing to indicate left, forcing me to do an emergency stop. Did she even know that I was there? I think not. Fabulous display of solipsism. 
