Wednesday, March 07, 2007

In which ToE brings you eye-witness journalism from the frontline




The above picture was taken on my mobile phone. The shop – a retailer of ski and skateboarding stuff – is next door to my office.

On Monday afternoon a loud crash brought us all onto the street, there to bear witness to a quite surreal scene. A poor old dear, perhaps in her 80s, was sitting in the above car, engine still revving, looking quite bemused.

Quite how she managed to attain both the required speed and the perfect angle to reverse up onto the pavement and through the shop front is a mystery not even the BBC can resolve.

By some miracle, nobody was hurt, and even the little Scottie dog that normally sleeps in the window is still with us.

The end of one old lady’s driving career, I suspect.

8 comments:

Brit said...

That is sad. It is clearly a heavy blow, perhaps especially for men.

monix said...

Poor woman, I'm glad she wasn't hurt.
When she appears in court she needs a scientist rather than a lawyer to represent her. There are two theories about women and reversing cars. One says it's genetic (of course!). Men being the hunters needed a gene to guide them home from the hunt, while the women needed genes to make them stay home to cook and clean. The other theory is that most women have short 'ring' fingers - usually the same length as the index finger, while men have longer ring fingers, proving they have lots of testosterone and better driving skills.
I use both excuses regularly in the supermarket carpark.

Brit said...

One wag from the office went into the shop today and asked: "How much is that Astra that was in your window the other day?"

I wonder how many times they'll hear that this week.

erp said...

How do you know she didn't deliberately back up into that window to place a take out order?

Peter, sad about your father, but if I have my druthers, I'd rather not live if I wasn't able to drive. Having a chauffeur 24/7 wouldn't do it either so I hope none of your family feels guilty for not doing enough.

monix, the theory about ring fingers is totally news to me. Never heard that one before. How silly can they (men) get.

monix said...

erp:
Evolutionary psychologists produce new theories all the time, test them on tiny groups of people and then present them as scientific facts. (Did you check your fingers?)

I like 'druthers' - I haven't seen it before and had to go to an American dictionary to find it. I'll be introducing that into my conversation.

Oroborous said...

M Ali, when you're 80, life will be more wonderful than you can now imagine, power will be too cheap to meter, and in any case, you won't be leaving the house, 'cause why would you, when virtual reality is so much more fun than reality ?

Mike Beversluis said...

cough.

Oroborous said...

Holy Hannah, that's bad driving.