BMW 730d SE
Quite rightly, it is no longer acceptable to mock people for being black,
homosexual, ginger, deformed or Irish, so let us start this morning by
mocking Gerald Ford, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, Al Gore,
Obama Barrack and John McCain. People, in other words, who are all
left-handed.
At present, this terrible condition affects around 11% of the world’s
population and yet in certain fields the number is high enough to raise
statistical eyebrows. Quite apart from American politics, there is tennis,
which is dominated by lefties. McEnroe, Connors, Rusedski, Ivanisevic and
that Spanish ape whose name I’ve forgotten all hold their bats with the
wrong hand.
What’s more, if you give birth to a leftie, there is a good chance he’ll go
into space. One in four Apollo astronauts were left-hand-drive. But
conversely, things are not so rosy if he wishes to become a top-flight
racing driver. All the big stars in recent years have been normal, apart
from Gerhard Berger. He’ll also struggle to be a writer because his
handwriting will be all smudged.
We can see from all this that left-handed people are different to you and me.
In short, they are what science calls “weirdos”.
History is less kind. The word “sinister” is actually derived from the Latin
sinister, meaning left. Gauche is left. Maladroit is left. Derek Hatton is
left. All the things you don’t want to be are left. Left has come to mean
bad, clumsy, difficult or awkward. And it's easy to see why this happened.
It is, for example, very difficult for a left-handed person to operate a
camera or be a woman. Almost all are men and that’s sinister for sure.
What’s more, a left-handed person can adjust more easily to seeing
underwater than a right-hooker. There’s only one conclusion to be drawn from
this — their eyes are not human. Furthermore, they grow more pubic hair more
quickly than a normal person, and this would imply that they may be wolves,
or bears.
Certainly, we can deduce from this that it’s not only the wiring of their arms
that is the wrong way round. Their whole body is an electrical mess. I’m
surprised they don’t sneeze every time they get an erection. Certainly, they
have a greater tendency to stutter. And many are slovenly time-keepers.
(Actually, I made that last bit up simply to annoy the producer of Top Gear
who is a) left-handed; b) three hours away from where he’s supposed to be at
any given moment of the day; and c) like all left-handed people, absolutely
convinced that he is in some way “special”.)
People from other minorities never try to claim they are better than the
majority. You never get gingers going around saying that because of Simon
Heffer and Nicholas Witchell, people with orange hair are cleverer than
average. Nor do you get homosexuals pointing at Oscar Wilde with a smug look
on their faces. They just want to be seen as “the same” as everyone else.
But people who need upside-down hands to write their signature on a cheque
spend a huge amount of time and effort forming clubs designed to prove that
because Leonardo da Vinci was left-hand-drive, they are superior beings.
In this respect, they are a bit like the freemasons or Mensa, that
magnificently strange organisation for people who think they're special
because they can put some shapes in the right hole while playing chess.
Mind you, left-hookers are worse. They lobby the makers of household
appliances to consider their plight when designing computers, cookers and
power tools. They even complain about sinks, and I’m sorry, but I fail to
see how something that is perfectly symmetrical can possibly favour
right-handed people. Maybe they are saying the plughole isn’t big enough to
handle all their pubic hair.
Frankly, I’d just tell them we right-handers have our problems too. The
sextant, for instance is very difficult for us to operate and er . . . I’m
sure there are other things as well.
What annoys me most of all about southpaws, though, is that these sinister
fish-wolves have a point. I have never knowingly met a left-hand-drive bore.
For some reason, they tend to be interesting, different, worth having round
for dinner. http://sniffpetrol.co.uk/ - Sniffpetrol.co.uk , for
instance, is written by a left-handed person. Angelina Jolie is left-handed.
And while I can’t say for sure, I bet Stephen Fry is sinistral. A word only
he would understand.
And luckily, all of this brings me neatly to the BMW 730 diesel.
You see, ordinary businessmen who have no problem using scissors have always
bought, if they were in the market for a large and well-appointed mobile
living room, a Mercedes S-class. The main reason for buying something else
is that you’re the chairman of a large British company, such as Jaguar, in
which case you’d have to get a Jag.
Of course, if you are Bonio, out of U2, you will see a Mercedes as a bit
Institute of Directors so you will buy a Maserati. If you are Sir Alan
Sugar, you will have a Rolls-Royce Phantom because a Mercedes is too cheap.
If you are a Manchester United footballist, you will have a Bentley because
you are a frightful show-off. If you are sane, you will have a Range Rover
and if you are bonkers, you will have a Maybach.
In short, then, before buying the big ugly Beemer, you would have to say, “I
am not a businessman, sane, Bonio, Alan Sugar, Wayne Rooney, or Theo
Pamphlet from Dragons’ Den”. You’d have to be a bit odd to be none of these
things. You’d have to have strange underwater eyes and the hairiest scrotum
in the world. To go for the left-field car, you would — and can you see what
I’ve done here — have to be wired up all wrong.
Now, though, there’s a new BMW 7-series. You wouldn’t think so from looking at
it, or from studying the engine, which is largely the same as before. But
this is a brand new car.
Headlines? Well the cheapest model — the 730 diesel — starts at £53,730 and
for that you get a car that produces just 192g/km of carbon dioxide, which
is less than comes from the back of some Ford Mondeos or a cow. More
importantly, it will achieve 45mpg on the open road, if you are careful with
the throttle. And if you are not, 0-62mph in a shade over 7sec and a top
speed of 153.
That’s all lovely. Mind you, I’m surprised they didn’t make it 2mph faster.
Then they could have claimed it was so fast it had to be limited. But there
we are. Transparency is what it’s all about these days.
Further up the scale, there’s the usual range of engine choices including a
twin turbo V8, and the usual range of what the backroom computer nerds have
put on the options list. You can have, for instance, a head-up display that
keeps you abreast of the prevailing speed limit, or you can have a thermal
imaging camera that spots pedestrians lurking in the shadows, or you can
have side-mounted cameras that can spot traffic at blind junctions. That’s
all lovely too.
Sadly, though, the 7-series is let down by two things. First of all, BMW makes
much noise, quite rightly, about the inherent sportiness of all its cars.
But sportiness is all wrong in a car like this. It’s like buying a coat when
you want a tablecloth. Yes, it has great steering, great reactions and great
urgency, but they all come at a price. And the price is comfort and
quietness. Put simply, a Mercedes is a more relaxing ride and in a big, very
wide, very heavy and completely unsporting package, that’s what you want.
Then there’s the iDrive system. In essence, one button — think of it as a
computer mouse — controls thousands of controls on the car and I’m sure you
can get used to it in the same way that you can get used to having a nasty
headache.
Here’s the thing, though. In Germany you operate the button with your right
hand. That’s fine. But here, it’s the other way round, and as any normal
person who’s tried to operate a computer mouse with their left hand knows,
it’s nigh-on impossible. In short, then, the right-hand-drive 7-series works
only for left-hand-drive people.
The Clarksometer
BMW 730d SE
ENGINE 2993cc, six cylinders
POWER 241bhp @ 4000rpm
TORQUE 398 lb ft @ 1750rpm
TRANSMISSION Six-speed automatic
FUEL 39.2mpg (combined)
CO2 192g/km
ACCELERATION 0-62mph: 7.2sec
TOP SPEED 153mph
PRICE £53,730
ROAD TAX BAND F (£210 a year)
RELEASE DATE On sale
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article5676222.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/art icle5676222.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
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