Category: Blog

Harvette

I have a new love. She is a stylish blonde who garners admiring glances whenever we’re out together. She moves with elegance and grace. She is warm and soft to the touch. She sings a little two-note song when I slip into her in the mornings…

Look, she’s a car, alright? To be precise, a 2024 Honda HR-V in sand khaki. Our first new ride in twelve years. The end result of 18 months of planning, and wishing and thinking and saving.

Milady.

Why now? Well, after we paid off The Big Debt, we figured we owed each other a treat. And I drive getting on for two hundred miles a week for work. An upgrade to a more comfortable, economical and modern primary mode of transport seemed like a nice way forward.

After over a decade in our old whip, the change was a steep learning curve. Modern cars are—different. Science-fictional. The first weekend spent with Harvette was nervous, as we got to grips with all the strange noises and lights, the toots and whistles as she gently showed us how she liked to be handled. Also, she’s bigger and wider than the Nissan Note we’d pulled over 100,000 miles in. All of a sudden the road through Sonning seems very narrow indeed.

Running in a new car is a lot like learning to drive all over again. Where’s the fuel tank lid? Where’s the fuel tank lid release? How do I put on the rear window wipers? All the muscle memory accrued through twelve years of Note ownership went out the window in moments. Reversing onto the drive suddenly becomes a nervy exercise in angle management which, to be honest, the fancy reversing camera isn’t really helping with. I’ll be grateful for it soon, I’m sure, but for now I’ll stick to mirror, signal, manoeuvre.

A lot of research went into our decision. Like, a lot. I became very familiar with the work of Mat Watson of Carwow on YouTube, who is the most approachable and entertaining of motoring journalists. It’s a tough gig, though. Because one thing I immediately noticed once I started digging into our shortlist was that there are very few genuinely bad cars on the market anymore. Sure, there are lemons to be had, but in general if you’re buying new or nearly new, you will struggle to find a car that isn’t comfortable, easy to drive and stuffed with safety features.

Which means that, when reviewing a car, it’s tough to find things to complain about. If you want a perfect definition of first-world problems, look at motoring vids and wait for phrases like ‘scratchy plastics’ (in other words, slightly cheaper finishes on the interior surfaces), gripes about the number and size of cup holders, or rage at the amount of USB-C plugs available. If the worst complaint you can find about a new car is how long it takes the powered boot to open or that it’s a bit noisy when coming up to line speed on the motorway (both grumbles pointed at the HR-V as major reasons not to buy) then frankly, you’re barrel-scraping.

Let’s talk a little more about the safety measures. Most new cars now have more radar sensors and cameras than nuclear submarines. You drive in a bubble of radio, an envelope of security which gives fair warning if anything intrudes.

And I’m all for it. My view after six years of driving into work is that everything else on the road is out to get you. You will be aggressively tailgated if you dare to travel at national speed limit in anything other than the inner lane. People will decide to pull in front of you with half a car-length’s distance then slam on their brakes. In urban situations, pedestrians with their heads in their phone and earbuds in will wander out into the road in front of you without looking up. All of these have happened to me this week, and I thank the full Honda Sensing suite of safety refinements for keeping me out of shunts and crashes. It’s crazy out there. You need all the help you can get.

I’ll be frank. I want a car which makes my commute and everyday travelling needs simpler, easier and less of a chore. In this, Harvette is a star. On the motorway, firing up adaptive cruise control and lane-assist means she very nearly drives herself. I long for the day when I can roll into the back of my motor, say ‘take me home, sweetie’ and be chauffeured back to bed. Autopilot on Teslas or California’s self-driving taxis don’t do the job but, based on the technology available to us here and now, the dream is not that far away. Take the driver out of the equation and road traffic accidents drop to nil. The vehicles aren’t the problem, it’s the numpties behind the wheel.

So why Harvette? That’s a question with two answers. To be honest, we made the choice when we first started looking at cars last year. I drew up a shortlist which TLC quietly decimated. The cars I’d picked were too big for her. But, after she had summarily dismissed the Honda CR-V (which is, to be fair, a big lump) she spotted its smaller classmate. Within three minutes of settling into the seats, enjoying the high, wide views and cooing over the soft-touch steering wheel, we were smitten. And to be honest, every car we looked at after that didn’t have the warm fuzzies we got from the HR-V. A test drive this February settled the deal after a nervous wiggle around the twisty B-roads around Swallowfield, and we signed off on finance before Easter.

It’s all in the gut, I guess. If you drive, you know what sort of car suits you. Neither of us are petrolheads or speed demons. It’s nice to have a car with the legs to get you out of trouble when a three-lane trap of caravans and Amazon lorries is closing in front of you, but we don’t believe in monstering it. Reviews of the HR-V highlighted how it was built for people who didn’t care if their car was a bit—you know, boring.

That’s us, Readership. Target market. We want a decent boot. We want fold-flat back seats which also, cleverly, flip up like theatre seats when you have a big plant to bring back from the garden centre. We want a smooth and elegant ride. Who needs to blast when you can cruise?

And yet. Honda are riding high in F1. The Honda Civic regularly breaks lap records on the Nürburgring. And Harvette will pull 0-60 in under nine seconds—quicker than the 80’s hot hatches so many car journalists revere. We were looking for a boring, practical car. We ended up with a speedy looker. And that colour! It’s sort of champagney with a hint of green. According to the DVLA, it’s ‘beige’. Heathens.

So why Harvette, part two? Well, the name was always going to be Harvey (HR-V, come on, keep up) until Darren at Marshall Honda referred to the test car in feminine terms. After that, well, we didn’t want to misgender. And Harvette sounds like a cool 50s motoring marque that only the real nerds know about. She has her own personality, we feel. A classy lady with a practical bent but a quietly wicked sense of humour. And she really does toot out a little tune when I start her up in the mornings. ‘Hi, Rob’ she says. ‘Morning, sweetie’ I reply.

God it’s pathetic.

In summary, then. We bought a new car. I like it a lot. I’ve been boring everyone I know about it, so now it’s your turn.

And this is why we will never charge for content on Excuses And Half Truths.

See you next Saturday.

The Excuses And Half Truths Annual Report 2023

And lo, it came to pass the days known as Betwixtmas fell upon the land. The people were filled with dolor and langour, picking listlessly at food prepared days before, gradually becoming as one with their sofas, eyes wide but unseeing as yet another rerun of that Only Fools And Horses Christmas special with the hilarious Batman bit unspools on the telly.

Woe and alas, even yr humble author was afflicted with the inability to recognise the passage of time, and so it was late in the week before he realised he should get his lazy arse off his armchair and grubby mitts out of the tin of Quality Street, lest his beloved Readership be deprived of the high quality bloggertainment on which they had become so dependent.

Greetings, then, from the library at Littlecote House in Berkshire, the venue for this year’s overview of Events What Has Happened. TLC and I have retreated to this bucolic country retreat to break up that Betwixtmas feeling and get some gentle relaxitude into our aching raddled corpuses. As Storm Gerrit rattles the 500 year-old rafters, we’re indulging in all the tea and cake we can cram into our feed holes, braving the weather after the rain passes to bimble in the surrounding woodlands.

Let us, while musing on the choice between fruit and cheese scone, Darjeeling or Orange Pekoe, take a moment to look back on 2023. I’m sure you have your memories, good and ill. Here are mine.

Continue reading The Excuses And Half Truths Annual Report 2023

Stop And Look Around Once In A While

Lincolnshire has always been one of those liminal zones. The places you go through on the way to somewhere more interesting. We regularly spin past the county on the way up to the Lakes or our beloved Northumberland. It always seemed perfectly pleasant. Just not enough to stop.

That was a mistake I’m delighted to finally rectify. Lincolnshire is well worth slamming on the brakes for.

Continue reading Stop And Look Around Once In A While

The Voice Of The Chef

The idea of ‘voice’ in writing seems a bit odd if you stop to think about it. Consider: you’re reading this sentence. No-one is actually saying anything. What voice are you hearing in your head? It’s very unlikely it will be my Essex-via-East-Anglia twang. It’s more likely to be some version of the way you talk—unless I’ve been artful enough to use slang, idiom or odd turns of phrase to somehow get you hearing me. There’s a real trick to that, and I ain’t sure I’ve mastered it yet.

Continue reading The Voice Of The Chef

Private Universe

Remember…

1994. The Together Alone tour. The first time TLC and I saw Crowded House. There were a line of strange, ridged constructs along the back of the stage, like monolithic artifacts of a forgotten age. Lit in rippling colours, there were times when they almost seemed to come alive, dancing gently to the music. A Maori choir and drum troupe came on for the title track and rattled Wembley Arena to the foundations. We had been fans before. Now we were hooked.

Remember…

2005. Neil and Tim as The Finn Brothers at the Royal Albert Hall. Nick Seymour turns up on bass, and for a moment we think there’s a full-on House reunion on the cards. But something’s off. Support act Bic Runga runs off stage in tears after struggling through an emotionally fraught set. At stage centre, a mike stand with a fedora on it. It all becomes clear. Founding member, drummer and class clown Paul Hester (the hat on the stand had been a trademark of his) had taken his own life the previous night. We realise we have, however inadvertently, been invited to a wake. It’s an extraordinary, sorrowful but uplifting show. They start—the rotten bastards start—with Don’t Dream It’s Over. All bets are off from that point. We mourn together.

And on and on. So many shows. Breakups, reformations, solo projects. The sound, the feeling remain. The warmth. The sense of family.

Remember…

The end of 2019. A world tour is announced. I am poised over the keys of the laptop as the seconds tick down to ticket-release. Tension. Mild panic. Forgetting the Ticketmaster password. Peering anxiously at the spinny wheel as the order is processed and…We’re in. Birmingham Arena. June 2020 can’t come soon enough.

Yes, right, well. About that.

The obligatory shaky, out of focus phone shot of a concert.

Two and a half years later, Neil Finn, Nick Seymour, Liam Finn, Mitchell Froom and Elroy Finn stroll on stage, strap on and fire away. A crowded house (come on, you know I had to) at what is now the Utilita Arena goes nuts. Opening salvo: Distant Sun. Well, of course it bloody is. The first line goes ‘Tell me what you think you would change…’

Pretty much everything from March 2020 to here and now, thanks.

From there it’s a spirited, joyous romp through the back catalogue. You know more Crowded House songs than you think. But this is no greatest hits package. There are enough golden nuggets included in the set from the most recent album Dreamers Are Waiting to remind us that this is still a vital, powerful group of musicians with fresh songs to sing, fresh stories to tell.

They look great, by the way. Neil’s in a white suit, hair glinting sliver in the spotlight, up in an Elvis-high quiff. Liam (who treated us to an impromptu solo set, unannounced, slightly annoying as most of us were still in the beer queue) is a spit for Ewen McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi with a soupçon of Marcus Wareing thrown in. Nick, always the fashion plate, rockets around the stage in (there’s no easy way to put this, best to just rip off the bandages) a kilt. Elroy and Mitchell just sit on the back line and get on with the job. Let the rockstars rockstar.

Two hours vanish, a sacrifice to the time gods. There’s a little less between-song banter these days, but otherwise all the elements of a great Crowdie gig are in place. Plenty of singalongs of course, where the band drop out and The Crowd take over. I choke up during Fall At Your Feet. Gods, I’ve missed this. Once the band roll into Better Be Home Soon I feel like I’ve been worked over like a punching bag. It is every bit as emotional as I expected. Catharsis is too weak a word for what I’ve experienced.

Why this band? Why these songs? You may as well ask why these clouds, why this grass? For as long as I can remember, Crowded House and their blend of warm, domestic, gently sensual psychedelia have been a part of our lives. Simple and comforting as a fresh cup of tea or clean set of sheets on the bed. They understand how the small things can inform greater truths. Every gig reminds me how Neil and Nick and whoever else plays with them have an innate ability to take any venue and make it intimate and welcoming. Live music is a communal experience. Neil and crew understood that when they live-streamed a set of musical experiments at home in New Zealand through lockdown which turned into a whole album, worked out with a global audience in tow. Crowded House bring that feeling of togetherness to the forefront and enfold their audiences in a big, fat hug. Lean in. Let it go. It’s ok to cry if you want.

In a strange and frankly still unsettling world, this was the moment we needed, the place to be, the songs to sing. To quote from the song: It’s only natural that I should want to be there with you.

See you on Saturday, housemates.

The Cut Season 2 Episode 20

Happy birthday to us! We’re having cake and pop. You’re having… well, much the same as ever, in a slightly extended form to mark our fifty-second episode in style. If you’ve stuck with us this long—thank you. Your patience and tolerance for our nonsense is appreciated. Sadly, things are unlikely to get any better, although we may attempt a tuck, nip and polish to enliven your reading experience. Or we may just clatter along in our ad-hoc ramshackle fashion until something drops off. It’ll be a ride, either way.

In our slap-up feed this week, we’re serving up no-knead bread, OKi Dogs and the juicy tale of the greatest thriller that never was.

Now is the birthday. Here is the cake. This is The Cut.

Continue reading The Cut Season 2 Episode 20

How It Started/How It’s Going

This week marks the first anniversary of The Cut. That might not seem like much when put against, for example, The Guardian who celebrate 200 years this month. It’s a big milestone for me, though, as it’s the longest sustained and consistent run of publishment on this blog since—well, ever.

Continue reading How It Started/How It’s Going

The Cut — Issue 1

I’m in the process of figuring out a few things about this site and what I do with it. There are a lot of clever people out there who see the humble blog making something of a comeback. I guess that’s something of a kickback against social media platforms and their restrictions. On a blog you can say what you want, how you want.

I’ve been going back through the archives of the site (and there are a lot of them—I’ve been on WordPress since 2005, and Blogger for a few years before that). It’s interesting to see how X&HT started as a ‘web log’ in the truest sense of the word. That is, a way of sharing what you’d been up to on the web. To a point, early X&HT looked a lot like my Twitter stream—links, snarks and short-form thoughts.

I think there’s some benefit to that format. Once a week, therefore, I’m going to try and post out some of the things I’ve found of interest in my travels through the aetherscape. I hope you find it of benefit. Call it a kind of cuttings collection.

In fact, let’s just call it The Cut.

Continue reading The Cut — Issue 1