Beep beep, here comes the new Fiat Triceratops

Let’s be honest, how often does the average motorist use his or her horn?

To associate a car with an infrequently used function like the noise of its horn is like associating a woman with the words “I’m sorry, you were right”.

As I’ve said before in this column (well, not this exact column, but one very like it except not as fancy looking) I’m not really a ‘car person’.

I’m more than happy with my Volkswagen Golf. It gets my family and I from A to B and is also more than capable of making journeys to C and D. Sadly, we haven’t been back to E since the incident with the raised paving stone.

I’m not looking forward to the day I have to replace the Golf. When choosing a new vehicle, arguably the most daunting aspect is to pick one I’m able to pronounce the name of.

When you’ve got cars on the market like the Nissan Qashqai and the Kia C’eed, credit must go to Ford for bringing things back to basics with the Ka, the closest you’re likely to get to a car manufacturer calling a spade a spade.

As well as ‘the unpronounceables’ you’ve got some manufacturers who take great pleasure in forcing motorists to refer to their cars by names that sound as if they’ve been conceived at the drink-fuelled zenith of a stag weekend in the Balearics.

Mitsubishi are top of the league when it comes to calling cars ‘bad names’, with the Carisma and the Pistachio being two of their biggest crimes. The Honda Insight is another car that stands out for the wrong reasons.

Given the direction car branding is going in, when the time comes for me to get a new car it’ll probably be a toss up between the Fiat Triceratops and the Citreon Xfpzyttttt’eek.

Joking around

I decided to change my mobile phone last week. I fancied a new iPhone so I ordered one online. When it arrived I was shocked to find it was covered in a sticky liquid. I phoned the manufacturers and they explained that it must be ‘Apple juice’.

I returned the product and opted for an Android device. When it arrived in the post I found it to be excellent in terms of reception and functionality. However, each time I tried to remove it from about my person it got stuck. On occasion a call would ring out before I was able to wrestle the device from my pocket. I phoned the manufacturers and told them my phone kept getting stuck every time I tried to get it out of my pocket. I was told what I was experiencing was known as ‘Blackberry jam’.

Finally I decided to make a clean break and switch networks. I filled in the necessary forms online and within a couple of days I got an email to say, ‘Your Orange order has arrived’. Sure enough, I went to the front door and there in front of me were 50 men in bowler hats and sashes.

Weekly teaser

The answer to last week’s teaser was: There were only two feet on the path - those belonging to the man. The rest of the animals have paws not feet.

Here’s this week’s teaser: If two hours ago it was as long after one o’clock in the afternoon as it was before one o’clock in the morning, what time is it right now?