"I am not going for an MOT. I don't want an MOT and it's just not necessary!"
That was Clint at nine o'clock this morning. For those who do not dwell upon the sun-bathed British Isles, let me explain that MOT stands for Ministry of Transport. Any motor vehicle that is over three years old must be tested every year for road worthiness and safety.
"I am taking you to KwikFit at Townhead and you are going to have your annual test whether you like it or not! Also - I am having you serviced."
"Serviced? You never told me that. You mean they are going to change my oil and my filters. All that kind of stuff?"
"Yes."
"It's not fair. How come you don't get serviced and tested every year?
"That's because I am a human being. Not a moaning lump of South Korean metal with an attitude problem!"
Having left Clint with the fellows at KwikFit, I walked a mile and a half before catching the 82 bus back up Ecclesall Road to wait for the dreaded phone call from KwikFit..."Your car is terminally ill" or "He needs a new engine and a new chassis and new body work". Many times in the past I have had the distinct impression that the main purpose of a commercial garage is to fleece customers.
It is a delightful, warm spring day here in South Yorkshire. I had my camera with me as I walked back and gathered a variety of images along the way. These I happily share with you as I sit here hoping that Clint doesn't kick off at KwikFit and that I do not have to sell this house in order to pay his garage bill.
The west end was the first pub I ever went to in Sheffield . My nursing school was on the top floor of the Hallam shire hospital ( just visible)
ReplyDeleteHappy days
Funny how that pub was significant in both of our lives John.
DeleteI always wondered what MOT stood for! I'm so glad I don't own a car. Although I sometimes miss the freedom, I don't miss the expense.
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry of Transport is located between The Ministry for Doughnut Hole Measurement and The Ministry of Silly Walks.
DeleteI hope that Clint survives unscathed and is back to his usual cheery self once more.
ReplyDeleteBack home now and humming "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" for some strange reason.
DeleteAfter attending Vespers in the church I shall enjoy a glass of Port in that hospitable public house.
ReplyDeleteI trust you took Shirley to dinner, after treating her to a Montillado or Tio Pepe? You would not be one of those mean coves who buys the girl a half pint of shandy?
The kind of bloke who thinks, *We'll see how it goes from there.*
The Hallamshire Hospital sounds like the place where an English poet would die.
It must be the name Hallam. Tennyson's friend Arthur Hallam (1811-1833) died in Vienna, and not in the green plains of Lincolnshire.
I am reading Peter Parker's biography of another English poet.
*Housman Country - Into the Heart of England* is a dark dream of a book.
Housman was a mystery even to those who knew him.
*He refused permission for any of his poems to be read on the wireless.* (radio).
He read his famous lines in a voice Macbeth would use after murdering Duncan:
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
is hung with bloom all along the bough.
Haggerty
P.S. I shall begin the first chapter of your fictional biography in media res.
You have just checked into the Harley Hotel. 29 October 1971.
After testing the springs of your bed, you decide to go out for a pint.
Friday evening in Sheffield. It's raining ...
A wee bit Larkinesque.
Can you devote a chapter to the night I spent with Bananarama in the old Grosvenor Hotel - before its demolition? I slipped out exhausted at dawn. John Betjeman was a patient in The Hallamshire Hospital on two or three occasions but would you call him a poet?
DeleteShame on thee lad, Betjeman was an original.
DeleteHe esteemed my first Italianate sonnet, *A Jammy Piece in Polmadie*.
(A piece is a sandwich in case Tasker reads this bollocks.)
My second sonnet, Kissing A Lassie Who Wouldnae Blow Her Nose, Betj called Miltonian. To this day my twa wee gems remain unpublished.
Your sweaty threesome with Bananarama will be written by Irvine Welsh the author of Filth.
I don't write sex scenes, lad. Being a Calvinist, I'm a dab hand at damnation. Aye, God is back and this time she's angry.
Haggerty
Being a Calvinist, I'm a dab hand at damnation :)
DeleteProtestant work ethic, too?
Out of ignorance I must opt out of this religious debate.
DeleteBy the way Lord Haggerty of Parkhead, I came across a copy of "Kissing A Lassie Who Wouldnae Blow Her Nose" while walking by "The Muscular Arms" in your charming wee village. It was blowing down the street like Scottish tumbleweed. I loved these lines:-
Oh hen I'd kiss ye wi' all the passion that I've got
If you could rid yersel' o' yer cattarh and yer snot
Such lubricated snoggin's really no for me
I'd rither hae a piece and a mug o' Yorkshire tea.
Lord Haggerty of Kelvingrove, if you please.
DeleteYour emetic doggerel was set to music by the late Matt McGinn.
It will be sung in The Scotia tavern in Stockwell Street (not to mention the nearby Clutha Vaults) when you and I are long forgot, Yorky.
The lassie I had in mind was a handsome girl who had a dry sniff, an irregularity in her nasal passage.
It did not detract from the pleasure of our kissing, though I heard another girl say, *You can hear Catriona coming a mile away.*
She will be played by the adorable Gemma Arterton in the movie of my sad life.
Calvin (aka Jean Cauvin: born in Picardy France) believed in the efficacy of work, Kylie.
He encouraged wealth-creating enterprises in the Swiss city he made his home.
See *John Piper about John Calvin in Geneva* (YouTube).
Last year the granite Reformation Monument in Geneva was defaced by rainbow paint after an LGBT event.
The granite statue of Thomas Carlyle in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow was spray painted too. Years ago his nose fell off.
Haggerty
Catriona, the girl who couldn't blow her nose, had a dry sniff.
DeleteRather dignified in its own way.
It bothered other people but never me.
We went to see Ken Russell's The Music Lovers at The Regent, not a film I should care to see again.
I can never hear the Waltz of the Flowers (Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker) without hearing Catriona sniffing beside me.
Later I heard that minor surgery solved Catriona's disorder.
She married an Italian hotel owner and bore him five children.
Haggerty
All right. Let me admit freely and without reservation that I have no grasp of geography AT ALL! But we are watching "Last Tango in Halifax" and I am almost certain that it's filmed in some locations in Yorkshire. Mr. Moon and I are enjoying it so much! I look at the landscapes and think of you, Mr. P.! Such beauty. Have you watched any of the series? I don't know if you'd like it or not but I certainly do.
ReplyDeleteI loved "Last Tango in Halifax". No shooting or killings just gentle humour and humanity. Halifax is forty miles north of here. Glad you like and understand the show.
DeleteAh- but there WAS a killing. It happened before the series started but it was quite a dramatic one.
DeleteI remember the botanical gardens from a stay in Sheffield some years ago, and also the Hallamshire Hospital where one of Steve's best friends works as a nurse. He (the friend) started out as a civil servant in Barnsley but got so fed up with the office work that he gave his life an entirely new direction when he was in his late 30s and trained as a nurse.
ReplyDeleteOver here, what you call MOT is TÜV. I hope Clint was not too grumpy when you picked him up again, and the bill was not so high that you have to sell your house.
The bill for extra brake work came to £279. Ouch!
DeleteI like the church reflection.
ReplyDeleteI like "The Diamond". It's design would have been impossible without computer assistance.
DeleteSo how did Clint do YP? Are you still speaking - are you still solvent!
ReplyDeleteWe have something similar to the MOT - called an ITV. It's every couple of years until the car is 10 years old, then every year. Same sort of tests, but here the Traffic Department run the centres locally. You can take the car yourself, and follow the tests through with the mechanics. Apparently it's great fun if you can persuade the mechanic to let you sit in the car and ride the rollers when they test the suspension! I prefer to take my car back to the dealer and let their garage deal with it, then they can do any repairs needed.
The second photo is intriguing, and I love the one of the glasshouse. It's good to see that you remembered your camera when out and about on such a sunny day.
£279 for recommended brake work. I don't like to ask this CG but could possibly loam me £200 as I am almost destitute. Please have pity.
DeleteOh YP, it sounds as though you might have been a little heavy booted when applying the brakes! Poor Clint, so wonder he's stroppy at times.
DeleteHave you thought of Go Fund Me? That's the quickest way to raise the cash. I have a whole bag full of useless currency in small change, I could send that if you like, but it would probably cost to an arm and a leg in postage and then added customs duty!
Does your kindness know no bounds?
Delete¡De nada!
DeleteWe have to get vehicle inspections every two years here, usually when we renew the car license. I enjoyed seeing your pictures of Sheffield, but that first one is rather scary! ; )
ReplyDeleteThe mannequin is meant to draw shoppers into the butcher's shop. It's not supposed to be scary. I will tell Pat O'Brien next time I see him.
DeleteEep. That is a lot of money for brake work. I am sure glad I am married to my mechanic. We have a nice barter system set up.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you give him in return?...Err - on second thoughts, please don't answer that.
DeleteEcclesall road - good memories of friends who lived there; days climbing on the crags; catching the bus to the Foxhouse pub... happy times.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that many of the best climbers we have had learnt their craft on Stanage Edge.
DeleteWhat a great name for a pub and what a very substantial glasshouse.
ReplyDeleteThere is life outside London. There are three major hospitals near "The Doctor's Orders" - hence the name change.
DeleteI wish we had a check to see if vehicles are road worthy. There are some very unsound looking vehicles on the roads.
ReplyDeleteI hope yours is not one of them. I imagine that you and MM have got a banana coloured Ferrari.
DeleteI, like Mary Moon, thought of you and your walks when we watched "Last Tango in Halifax". The scenery around Sheffield is quite nice also. The hotel you stayed in the seventies looks like my old Boston apartment of the same vintage.
ReplyDelete"Quite nice" Terry? We have really lovely scenery nearby. I have been to Boston and seen buildings that look like that so I know what you mean.
DeleteCars eat money! My current car didn't cost anything for years and then i became single and the full responsibility for it's upkeep fell to me and I've paid more than it's value on repairs in the last two years. What can I do? I need the thing
ReplyDeleteThose buildings have been witness to so many stories, I often wish they could talk
When you children ask what you want for your birthday in early May, I suggest you furrow your brow, pause for a little while and then in a flash of inspiration say, "A new car! I would like a new car!"
DeleteBetjeman was a poet, albeit a poet of his time. I took my car in a couple of weeks ago, and spent £100ish, just because I can't check my tyres.
ReplyDeleteYou need your own tyre gauge and perhaps a pump Thelma
DeleteWe only have a test once every two years. They kick the tyres, have a glass of red, and give (sell) you a piece of paper that says 'it runs'.
ReplyDeleteHope Clint passed with a good bill of health. My Heidi had her first ever examination two weeks ago and is fine - mind you, as she is only 12 months old and has only done 600 miles in the last year, I should hope so! .
ReplyDeleteYou live in a very pretty city. As for maintenance, you can point out to Clint that he's very lucky that he has replaceable parts because humans just don't have that option. You can replace a few of our parts, but nothing ever works the same.
ReplyDeleteI do not see why you are so surprised...all the times that Clint told you that you would pay. And now you have.
ReplyDelete