The lease on my car is due to run out in September this year. This shouldn’t be a big  deal, as a new car is on order. However, as the CLA45 AMG waiting list is getting longer and longer, there are still 243 sleeps until my new baby arrives. What makes me laugh is the lack of interaction between Mercedes Benz Australia and their finance department. For three weeks in a row, I received a letter advising me that my lease is coming to an end, and the options available to me are:

Option 1               Trade my car in for a new model. Jeez guys, I would love to. Perhaps you could  the people in the AMG factory to put in a few days’ overtime.

Option 2               Extend my lease on the residual. No thank you. I want my new car.

Option 3               Pay out the residual and keep the existing car. I may have to do that if I do not get my new car soon.

My point of sanity is Simon, the Business Manager from Macintosh in Mosman. His acerbic humour when I contact him is keeping the letters in prospective line of amusement. I am still amazed that an organisation the size of Mercedes Benz, with their worldwide presence, does not incorporate simple integration between finance and new orders. I have however received an iPad air from AMG as a touchy-feely present to keep myself amused before my new car arrives. Considering this is my third iPad, unfortunately it is more in line with taking coals to Newcastle.

These are some of the funniest road rules floating about the internet. When the first horseless carriages hit the roads these were the driving etiquette they were obliged to follow:

1. Any motorist who sights a team of horses coming toward him must pull well off the road, cover his car with a blanket or canvas that blends with the countryside, and let the horses pass. If the horses appear skittish, the motorist must take his car apart, piece by piece, and hide it under the nearest bushes.
2. Any motorist driving along a country road at night must stop every mile and send up a rocket signal, wait 10 minutes for the road to be cleared of livestock, and continue.
3. Motorized vehicles are not to be sold on Sundays.

This Saturday whilst trying to do all the tasks that keeps a normal household going, I copped a parking fine. Ok, not happy, but given the fact that I was in the wrong there is not much I can do about that. However this sent me on a quest to find out some firsts and funniest motoring misdemeanours over the years. This is my pick:

1. The first man convicted of speeding was Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, who on 28 January 1896 was fined for speeding at 8 mph in a 2 mph zone. He was fined 1 shilling plus costs. Five years later, a New York City cab driver named Jacob German was arrested for speeding on May 20, 1899 for driving 12 miles per hour on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. He got jail time. But the first man to get an actual paper ticket was Harry Myers for going 12 mph on West Third Street, Dayton, Ohio in 1904.
2. In May of 2003 in Texas, during the Gumball3000 rally from San Francisco to Miami, a Swedish built Koenigsegg was ticketed for going 272 mph in a 75 mph zone.
3. Traffic cops in Bergamo in northern Italy pulled a Fiat Punto over after watching it veer from side to side down a busy road. Inside they found a partially naked 70-year-old man behind the wheel and his 59-year-old bride sitting astride him. Ciampini was arrested for dangerous driving

The proliferation of cars I see on the road with the My Family Stickers is my pet hate. However the following are some of the wittiest stickers I had seen over the years.

1. I saw it. I wanted it. I cried. I got it. (seen on back of Porsche)
2. Yes it’s fast and no you can’t borrow it
3. This car is like my husband; if it ain’t yours don’t touch it!
4. Only milk and juice come in 2 litres (found on a V8)
5. YES this is my Ute, NO I won’t help you move!
6. 98% of all Fords are still on the road, the other 2% made it home
7. FIAT – Fix It Again Tony
8. LOTUS – Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious
9. Lord of the Rings (found on an Audi)
10. Do not over take over turning vehicle

This picture landed in my inbox compliments of a friend with an equally dubious sense of humour.

In the beginning, there was Chaos. Darkness covered the earth. After Chaos, five divinities came into being. The divinities were: Gaia (mother Earth), Tartarus (Underworld), Erebus (Darkness that covers underworld), Night (Darkness that covers Earth), and Eros (Love). Erebus and Night had same spare time on their hands, and some hanky panky resulted in offspring (I do not think that birth control was invented then). These were Hemera (Day), Phôs (Light), and (a bouncing set of quintuplets) Doom, Death, Misery, Deceit, and Discord, or as we call it today, Government. Discord later had children of her own, and these were Murder, Slaughter, Battle and Crime. To keep things interesting, she left the father’s name off the birth certificates, as you do.

Gaia and Uranus (Yes, I know all the jokes. No more, please. And I don’t know how he got into this story anyway.) had a bunch of kids. The first three were real monsters with 100 hands and 50 heads each. Not your usual baby beauty pageant contenders, so loved by the US. The next four were almost as bad, giants with one eye in the middle of their forehead (Cyclopes) Jeremias (“Power”, usually resulting in destroyed tyres and or engine), Brontes (Thunderer), Steropes (Lightning flash) and Arges (Shining Guy; if you don’t believe me, look it up). Zeus employed Brontes, Steropes and Arges full time in his forge making thunderbolts. Jeremias had a part time job hosting Top Gear and would join his brothers when things needed blowing up.

As this was the time before television with very little else to do, along came the third generation of gods: the Olympians, as they made their home on Mount Olympus. After, Cronos castrated his father Uranus, and set himself up as the King of Heaven. He then married his sister, the Titan Rhea and had a bunch of kids. Unfortunately Cronos kept eating them. And we thought we were the first ones with fad diets. When Rhea was expecting her sixth child, she grew tired with her husband’s weird dietary choices and smuggled the baby to the island of Crete. To satisfy Cronus’s need to devour his own children, Rhea gave him a baby-sized rock wrapped in a blanket instead. Cronos promptly ate the rock and never gave it another thought. The sixth baby was Aurelius Stiggitus Apexus.  Stig, as he became later known, grew up safely on Crete. The Nymphs gave him milk from magical goat named Amalthea and this is why he is all white.

Gaia’s baby, the monster Jeremias, having destroyed all the tyres and engines available on the Top Gear Track, started to create havoc and stole all the thunder and lightning from Zeus’s forge. But Aurelius Stiggitus Apexus had taken control of thunder and lightning, and shot down Jeremias with his thunderbolt. Jeremias’s hopes of terrorizing the universe were ended, but he still needed a job, so he moved to Sicily, where he supplied the volcanic magma for Mount Etna and became a part-time consultant to the BBC.

And this is how we ended up with the picture above. Either that, or somebody had fun with Photoshop.

Still many, many sleeps to go before my new baby arrives. This unfortunately allows me too much time on my hands to wonder what the colour selection and wheels will look as the package. Add to this the problem that many colours in the showroom do not correctly represents the true colour, great example is the interior of my E Class, I ordered what I thought was grey only to be confronted with a grey so soft it looks off white. Stuck at home recently with bout of flu and being banned from showing my face in the office, well at least until my germs were non-threatening to my co-workers I ventured onto number of websites both official and un-official to play around with the colour selections and wheels available for the AMG. The Mercedes Benz website was about as helpful as HAL9000, “E, I am afraid I can’t allow you to do that.” A thanks guys, White CLA45 AMG with a background in Florida and NY (I am guessing) is NOT what I was after. Car and Driver was a little bit better, but colours look different when photographed in the dark and direct sunlight.

Back to Macintosh to see if they have anything that may give me the overall picture of the options and what they will look like together. So guys, rather than giving me a idiotic watch that tells me how much fuel I have, how about “Design your own car” on your website?

This is one of the emails doing the rounds at present. Long-time friend decided that it may make me laugh, it certainly did. So, I am going to share.

This morning on the motorway, I looked over to my right and there was a Woman in a brand new VW Golf doing 80 kms/ph. Her face next plastered to her rear view mirror putting on her make up whilst driving.

I looked away for a couple of seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane, still working on her makeup.

As a man I do not frighten easily….

But she scared me so much I dropped my shaver, this knocked my breakfast muffin right out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my mobile phone away from my ear, which fell into my coffee that I was balancing between my legs, which splashed and burned the most sensitive part of my body. This ruined the phone, soaked my trousers, and disconnected an important call.

Bloody Women Drivers!!

It’s now the end of March, and we are well and truly into autumn. I live on the coast, and fogs are rare for me. They’re usually limited to the Sydney Harbour Bridge top arch, disappearing into a fairy-tale mist. So I had forgotten how thick the fog can be when away from the coastline.

Early in the morning, leaving the main freeway, I was plunged into a surreal foggy world of little visibility and eerie quiet. The closer to Wakefield, the thicker the fog. I nearly missed the turn-off into the main gate of Wakefield Park.

I arrived at Trackschool HQ to find Boz giving Mezzie a final polish and proudly showing me the new exhaust. Must be a boy thing; I did not think there was anything wrong with the original exhaust. However, said new exhaust is now part and parcel of Mezzie, and Boz is much chuffed. All I can say is that it is much louder than the original, and John has had to start to wear a different helmet so that he can hear me apologizing when I screw up on the track. My fellow Trackschool customer was Darren, with a beautiful and very, very red Alfa, quite rightly his pride and joy. By about 9:30 am, the fog lifted for a perfect sunny day.

I was told by Boz that Darren had arrived even earlier than he had. I did not think it was even possible. These guys were in Wakefield Park when I was tossing up whether if I should get up, or push the snooze button on my iPhone. Boz, if this information was to make me feel guilty, sorry mate, it did not work. My timing is perfect: I arrive when the coffee machine is ready in the café.

As usual, the day was huge fun. Boz would be with me on one session, and as soon as this was finished, he would jump into Darren’s Alfa for his session. I think he needs to cut down on sugar; nobody should be that hyper. My confidence improved as the day wore on, even though the last session of the day was not the best. Nevertheless, all things considered, it was still a fabulous day. Darren and Boz were meeting the following day for a more professional race day, but I was happy to head home for more girly pursuits.

Formula 1 season kicked off in Melbourne last weekend. One of the techies from our project was a first-time spectator, and after one weekend, I am happy to report a certain convert. Chaos, Anarchy and Disorder. My job here is done. No, not really, this was nothing to do with me, even though I am being accused anyway.

As expected, in the weeks leading up to the race we had the usual diehards protesting about how much it is costing the Victorian government, and demanding that Albert Park cease to be converted to the race venue for F1, etc., etc. Given the subsidies both the Federal and State Government dish out, I wonder why these people bother.

What was dragged out again was Eccelstone’s forthcoming court case in Europe. Hmm, Eddie Obied springs to mind, as does Joh Bjelke-Peterson, Russ Hinze and few others. So, something about people, glass houses and something to do with throwing stones? We should not be too hasty in pointing fingers as we have enough home-grown offenders. Plus, Bernie has not yet been convicted.

I loved one of the letters to the editor published on Monday 24^th March in the Financial Review. Mr Marcus L’Estrange needed to voice his displeasure at the F1 race and at all of the wrong doings listed in the paragraph above. But a quick search on the internet revealed Marcus has a long and distinguished career in complaining about lots and lots of things. F1 was just the flavour of the moment, or perhaps it was a slow day for Mr L’Estrange.

The irony was that on the opposite page, the Financial Review ran an article on Renee Gracie, a 19-year-old competitor in the Porsche Carrera Cup Series. Let’s hope we hear much more of her in the future. It will be a tough gig, but she certainly sounds like somebody who has the mental attitude to make it to the big time.

This weekend, Sydney hosted an opening game of baseball. The Sydney Cricket Ground was certainly not filled to overflowing from the little I saw on the news, but the traffic around the area was at a gridlock. But hey, I am a big girl, and want to live in the city. So I and the rest of the Sydneysiders just sucked it up.

Formula 1 moved on, the baseball players went home. That is life in a big city, like it or not.

The red plastic, yellow-roofed car driven by toddlers since the late 1970s sitting on the side of the road waiting for the council clean up could have turned into something like this.

A mechanic in Oxfordshire, England, spent over thousand hours converting a Daewoo Matiz into an adult version of the classic toy. The car runs on unleaded fuel, and can go from 0 to 60 in about 17 seconds. The conversion, true to the original, retains the two huge drink holders and the ignition is a big button. Apparently the idea came up during the “Most Driven Type of Car” type of conversations people have after one or two drinks and anything is possible. Whereas most of us forget the exchanges by the morning, this guy ensured that his idea came to fruition, with his brother and a friend. The inventor would like to use his creation to raise money for London’s Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital. What a unique and delightful idea. I hope he raises lots of money. Perhaps Top Gear’s Stig could drive it as a promo. What a combination: Stig, Big Bright Red and Yellow Toy Car. This could cause a few surprises along the road.

Yet another alternative as supplied by friend. So for the sake of anonymity, lets call her Julie.