Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars. Boris Johnson

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      The Lexus IS200, fitted with a GPS satellite guidance system, a gizmo of mind-bending sophistication.

      Carol’s perfectly pitched to mesh, to

       blend, above all not to offend the

       turbulent emotions of a guy lost in the

       sweltering Palio of the London traffic.

      Then imagine your route illuminated by a thick blue line, every revolution of your wheels transmitted—ping—to a satellite transponder, and ping, somewhere in the inky wastes of the heavens a throbbing nose-cone breaks off from transmitting Rupert Murdoch’s ball-by-ball pornography to the people of Zimbabwe and tells your car there are exactly 150 yards to go before a right turn on the New North Road. Yes, that’s you, that blue line inching down that street before your eyes, and you gaze in rapture until—‘Whoa, sorry old fruit, didn’t see you there,’ you say to the weaving, terrified cyclist.

      Ahem: that is one disadvantage—the display doesn’t show what else is on your street, and until all vehicles and pedestrians have their own satellite linkups and we can drive about on instruments only, it is as well not to ignore that amazing technological breakthrough—the transparent windscreen. ‘Whoa there’, I say to the cyclist, but thanks to the sensational disc brakes of the Lexus he is unharmed, and shakes his fist in friendly greeting.

      ‘In 50 yards…’ says Carol, and I think how much I love that use of yards; yes, she’s an imperial measurements sort of girl, Carol—strait-laced but sensuous, firm but tender, like an NHS nurse brusquely fluffing your pillows and then leaning over to take your temperature in fahrenheit, the watch pinned on to her snowy bosom, her ample bosoms…‘In 50 yards,’ says Carol, ‘right turn.’ And then I think, wait a mo…

      Hang on, girlie. What do you mean ‘right turn’? How do you know that? This route is, I confess, well-known to me, since after working late in the evening I occasionally catch a cab home. This infrequent habit (expenses department, please note) taught me that to get from Islington to Canary Wharf it is cheapest and quickest to go via Commercial Road, though if you look at the map it appears that you go by Hackney. It costs roughly £11 to go my route, and it costs £14 to go the route the cabbies instinctively set out on.

      Now, you would have thought that Carol could merely compute the shortest distance between two points; you’d have thought that like the cabbies, she’d ignore the traffic lights, the mini-roundabouts, the sleeping policemen and go via Hackney, even though it is slower. But no! I think she understands. I think she knows. Farewell A–Zs, you useless maps with the key page always torn out: may you rot in the boot in a compote of baby yoghurt and engine oil. Goodbye all you cabbies who boast of ‘The Knowledge’. Adieu to the time-honoured pelmanism of black-cab drivers, the weeks they spend on bicycles committing the streets of London to their memory: what a devastating rebuke Carol has delivered to their chauvinism.

      Farewell A–Zs, you useless maps. Goodbye all you cabbies who boast of ‘The Knowledge’.

      She doesn’t raise her voice; she doesn’t hit you with the map; and even if you accidentally hit her with your left hand and turn her off, she soon comes back to life and, with geisha-like deference, excogitates your next move. ‘In half a mile, turn right. Shortly after that, turn left,’ she says. Yes, you ask yourself, was there ever a girl so easy to turn on? ‘Keep left,’ she is saying as we come towards Spitalfields, ‘keep left.’

      In fact, there are three forks here. ‘Keep left’, says Carol again, as obstinately as a guide in the old Soviet Union, with brown stockings and suspenders. Now this time, I think, she’s pushing me too far. She can’t be serious.

      But such is her prestige by now, so insistent is her voice, that I do as she says. I keep left, and we end up in a one-way system in Hoxton market.

       Vital statistics

      In May 1999, the IS200 was launched against the BMW 3 series, Audi A4 and C-Class Mercedes.

      Engine 2-litre, 250bhp 6-cylinder with 6-speed manual gearbox Top speed 134mph Acceleration 0–60mph in 9.5 secs Price (1999) from £20,500

      A rubbish van is very slowly loading up. We are stranded outside the Aquarius nightclub and on the beer-splashed pavement, where the morning rays are starting to bring out the best of last night’s vomit, the tough eggs are looking appraisingly at Carol and me. Get us out of this one then, Carol, I say; and maybe there was something sneery in my voice, because after that she never quite recovered her form.

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