Cars
The era when you could love a car is over
There are four of us in this relationship: my partner and I, his horse and my truck. His horse is…
The great pretenders
Can the beauty of Palmyra be reproduced by data-driven robots? Stephen Bayley on copies, fakes and forgeries
Nine angst-ridden men
‘Insufficiency’ is a favourite David Szalay word. The narrator of his previous novel, Spring, suffered from ‘insufficiency of feeling’; in…
Directions your phone can’t give you
In many ways a satnav is a miraculous device. A network of US military satellites more than 10,000 miles above…
VW and the truth of engineering: say what you do, do what you say
Not that I was much of a boy racer, but the sexiest car I ever owned was a 1982 Volkswagen…
Barometer
First test The driving test celebrated its 80th anniversary. The first person to take the test, R.E.L. Beene of Kensington,…
It really must be a mid-life crisis. I’ve fallen in love with a pony
Because I’m reckless, stupid and irresponsible, I normally get landed with the biggest, most obstreperous hunters. But the other weekend…
Cathedrals on wheels
Stephen Bayley hails the automobile – a miracle of technical and artistic collaboration – and mourns its demise
I went looking for a used car – and found my inner boy racer
A bit late, I know, to put in a bid for Jeremy Clarkson’s old job. But I think I might…
Barometer
A dangerous hobby Three men from Greater Manchester were arrested and held in the UAE after being seen writing down…
The driving force of an ageing rocker
Why do people talk about ‘experimenting’ with drugs when mostly they just mean that they’re doing them? Perhaps, as I…
Barometer
What Germans do worst Some things Germans aren’t very good at: — Making reliable car engines. According to a survey by Warranty Direct…
A mystery in the middle lane
I am convinced that when I took my driving test in 1983 I was asked by the examiner, ‘What lane…
Driving me crazy
My various Oxford dictionaries define bizarre as eccentric, whimsical, odd, grotesque, fantastic, mixed in style and half-barbaric. By so many…
