Archives for posts with tag: Honda Jazz

bearings

This noise is driving me crazy!! It’s so bad I can feel it in my seatbelt. I can’t hear the engine or the road, or Ry Cooder’s clanging guitar, come to that. I’m driving my Honda Jazz to the garage to have the clapped-out bearings replaced. I’ve had one lot done but the noise has got worse. It’s 40 minutes of aural torture, then relief, I hope.

I book it in, then walk the half-mile on the path beside the noisy road, to the garden centre. A huge Alsatian starts barking crazily at me: enough to deter the casual visitor, but I’m here for breakfast, and to while away the hourandahalf it takes to change the bearings. A burly waiter(? – I don’t know what to call a man who serves breakfast in a garden centre) welcomes me. He’s an old rocker – the softened Triumph tattoo and quiff are the clues – and friendly, but the hash browns are off because the chef hasn’t arrived yet.

I sit and listen to the retired couples at the next table talking about caravan holidays past for forty minutes, till my Full English arrives (it’s worth the wait). The caravanners are driven indoors by wasps  and I stroll around looking at plants and an interesting weather-cock till it’s time to walk back to the garage. I spend two hundred and thirtysomething quid and drive off, listening to Ry’s glistening guitar, and the sound of the road…

Apparently the average age of a Honda Jazz driver is 60-something. As if I care. They’ve got a great reputation for reliability and good fuel consumption, and they look quite nice. If I could, I’d have a 1959 Vauxhall Victor de Luxe, but they’re probably not up to Jazz standard, these days. So – I would recommend a Jazz to anyone, and I did, to Wolf. He’s just passed his driving test. I drive him (in mine) to Shoreham to the Honda dealer, and Andy Honda welcomes him warmly. ‘This is my friend, Michael,’ says Wolf, and I try to look more heterosexual, even blokey. Jeremy Clarkson is on the TV, wearing a peaked cap and his legs inexplicably taped together.

We three blokes go for a test drive in a new Jazz. This new one has lots of features that I could never imagine (or concentrate on while Andy’s going through them). But the roof cover slides back so you’re all under glass, like a 50’s vision of a space-age car, which is fun. It doesn’t have that nice upswept-curved rear window that I like so much in my Jazz though (see fig.), but then I’m a sucker for an upswept curve.

At The Snowdrop, Terry Seabrook’s trio is cookin’ (as they say). Tonight’s guest is the excellent Sam Miles. Barely into his twenties, Sam’s at the Royal Academy of Music, and he’s a terrific sax player. Sometimes he plays with Ska Toons, and we’re really not worthy. From his usual unassuming mien, he’s an explosive force of nature in his solos.

And while I’m on the subject: Wolf’s a really good pianist, (he studied at the Guildhall), and sometimes he plays keyboards with Ska Toons too, and he blows us away with his playing. Another jazzer.

Jazz? I’d recommend it.