A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Fink Angel drove a pink Mini (very similar to the one above).
It wasn't mine, I hasten to add.
To be honest, I didn't even really want to learn to drive, that right of passage I was roundly bullied into by Carol from the IT help desk where I worked at the time, whose husband was learning to become a driving instructor - "It's free?" - STERN LOOK - "He. Will. Teach. You. To. Drive. For. FREE??" - TILT OF THE HEAD + FROWN? As if I were some sort of simpleton...
I yielded with a slightly wobbling lower lip.
I showed up, mid-winter, for pitch-black lessons in pouring rain/sleet, most of my hours spent sitting in traffic jams around Leatherhead during rush hour.
Somehow I passed when I finally got to drive any significant distance as I took my test in rural Guildford (I didn't check my mirrors enough, but the inspector let me off when I reeled off all the reasons why I should have been doing so) and then clutching my driving license (again slightly reluctantly) I found myself sat behind the wheel of a candy pink classic "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" Mini. Lucky I was fairly secure in my sexual inclination and could cope with the inevitable innuendo.
To be honest, most people were just staggered that I could fit through the door - regardless, I was to become very fond of it.
Oddly, the drivers seat went back a *lot* further than the silly Nova Spin I had learned in (knees up around my ears, no room for my hands to pass around the wheel and my two feet covered all three pedals - a death trap), so the Mini was a lot more comfortable to drive. It also handled almost exactly the same as the cars I had been learning to drive (properly) in Mario Kart on the SNES - very much like Toad's Kart, light and nimble, fast to take off, but poor top speed - I felt quite at home (although if anyone else got in it, it felt like driving a shopping trolley full of cannon balls)...
One day, as it was a very old car, the petrol hose perished, however, thanks to it being a very old car, it was pretty obvious what had gone wrong, so I got out a screwdriver, undid the jubilee clips around the flaky pipe and walked down the road to the breakers yard at Dorking West (I used to live just up the road). They just let me climb over the various cars and steal a bit of similar tube (Scrapheap Challenge style). Well, I say steal, a small gypsy child demanded 50p as I left, no idea if it was related. Anyway, back at home I fitted the new bit of rubber tubing, terribly proud of myself and then set off for a test drive. Well, I hadn't done it quite right, put it that way. It was fine for the first 5 minutes, I roared down the Reigate Road, thought I would loop round via Brockham. Screamed to a halt on the central reservation, ready to nip over when there was a gap in the traffic, waited...then absolutely floored it...
The car lurched forward, so I am right (perfectly) in the middle of the opposite carriageway, a popping sound - then absolutely zero power - leaving me stranded in probably the worst possible position I could have been in.
OH SH1T! What could I do? I jumped out, traffic in the distance shooting ever nearer and just started to push, the smell and sound of petrol hitting the engine block and road and starting to smoke - SERIOUS DANGER!
I pushed like crazy, hit the start of the dip and jumped back in and slammed the breaks just in time to stop myself hitting any of the nearby houses of Brockham and popped the bonnet. Fighting through the fume I managed to jam the fuel pipe back where it belonged, waited for the rest of the fuel to evaporate and then drove - extremely slowly - back home (and then screwed the jubilee clip on a bit more tightly)...I'm sure I reported this event to the owner...yes, of course I did...
My pulse rate returned to normal a few days later.
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