↓
 

Driving Miss Crazy

Head Rambles Posted on by

I have decided to take the plunge.

I have been toying with the idea of buying a Satellite Navigation System for some time now.

I am not one for ‘Toys for Boys’ and am usually wary of gimmicks.  I have had my mobile phone for about eight years now and have no intention of upgrading it.  I don’t have a flat screen television or any of those console things.

Driving down the country last week though, I was convinced.  Our K8 lent me her SatNav [I hate these abbreviations] for the journey West.

satnav

Two things convinced me.

The first was that I hadn’t a clue where I was half the time.

I have been travelling the highways and byways of Ireland for nearly sixty years.  In all that time, there was a comfortable familiarity in all the towns and villages.  I always knew where I was.  I knew every stretch of main road in the country, and apart from the odd bit of road widening, everything remained the same.

Now it’s all fucking motorways.  I haven’t a clue where I am.  I get lost going up to Dublin.  I usually end up getting dizzy from circling endless roundabouts, trying to find my way out of the maze.

The second thing that convinced me is that they are fun.

We were travelling back from Galway on the old main road.

“At the next roundabout take the second exit” said Yer Wan in the SatNav.

I came to the roundabout and there was a new exit that led to a new stretch of motorway.  I remembered that from before.  So I took the third exit.

The little car on the screen took the second exit and then realised I had misbehaved.  So it did a wobbly and settled onto the road I had now taken.

“Wrong exit,” said Yer Wan.  “Do a U-turn now!”

“Fuck off,” says I.

“Do a U-turn NOW!!”

“Fuck off,” says I.

Yer Wan sighed and thought for a moment.  She thought I needed placating.

“Drive for 120 yards and do a U-turn,” she said sweetly.

“Fuck off,” says I, as I swung onto a roundabout and entered the slip road for the new motorway.

This completely confused her.  As far as she was concerned, I had just driven into a field and she didn’t like that.

“DO A U-TURN NOW!” she screamed.

“Nope,” I replied as I brought the speed well over the speed limit and barreled along the new stretch of motorway.

The little car on the screen was now suspended in space.  She hadn’t a clue what was going on.  She got frantic.

“Head for the nearest road,” she implored.

I increased my speed a bit.

The SatNav burst into tears.

She kept trying to send me across the fields to adjacent roads, and I kept ignoring her.  She was in a bad way, and was obviously having a nervous breakdown.

Suddenly, on the screen, I saw an older stretch of motorway appear, and I was heading straight for it through thin air.

I entered the older motorway at about 140, and I heard an audible sigh of relief from the SatNav.  “Continue on this road for 50 miles,” she said in a how-the-fuck-did-I-get-here kind of voice.

I behaved myself after that, but I could tell she was nervous.  She had been outwitted and she didn’t like that.

So when my SatNav arrives, I’m going to programme it to go to London.  Every journey.

I want to see how long it takes to drive a SatNav insane.

 

Comments

Driving Miss Crazy — 29 Comments

  1. Beware my friend – our satnav has a lisp (presumably designed to drive young men wild with the sound of her thoft tones) and you cannot tell the difference between firtht and third!!!
    She thtays at home now – I can get lotht quite well without her help!!!

    Good luck with yours!!!!!

  2. Kate – I didn’t notice any lisp, but there again, I wasn’t listening to her much! I’ll be driving on the Continent in a couple of months, so there should be some fun there…..
    I suppose I could always replace her with John Cleese?

  3. You should call her Maggie, seeing as it is a case of being told “U-turn if you want to”, but the laddie is not for turning.

  5. LOL – Mine is Molly and I love disobeying her and finding new routes…we were also suspended in fields for a while on Saturday while driving up to Belfast. She is definitely coming to France with us!

  6. mmmm….. John Cleese is a better option, but only in ‘Basil Fawlty’ mode, or, as you will be abroad, maybe ‘Manuel’ for added continental confusion?

  7. Natalie – When we get to France, does she automatically speak French?

    Kate – I believe there is a Basil Fawlty available, but I’d probably end up fighting with him.

  8. Grrr. Borrowed D next door’s Sat Nav to get me to Linkin Park at the RDS on Sunday. Got me there fine but decided to take me back all round the little back doubles of County Meath just because I didn’t want to cross Dublin to get on the M50 (I live nowhere near the bloody M50). Arrived home fuming at 1am. Bloody woman. I shan’t be investing.

  9. E Mum – I’m waiting for mine to be delivered at the moment. I think it’s lost! 😐

  10. I’m working on a set of voice commands that actually DO include swearing, sulking and other real life reactions for when I ignore the directions.

    ‘Fine’, ‘Go on so’, ‘I don’t know what you’re asking me for?’, and ‘Don’t come running to me’

  12. Xbox – Put one copy aside for me 😉

    Robert – Hah! You got marked as spam! Looks good.. Sounds good.. Does it know its way around though?

  13. Lord, I thought it was a falling star I saw last night and I’m sure I heard tortured howling – must have been the satnav satellite exploding in frustration….

  14. You should pick up a hitch hiker and get the same reactions when you take an unfamiliar turn out of the route you were suppose to be on.

    It’s even more entertaining and you can also rename them as well for added giddiness!

  15. Well if the CCTV cameras everywhere aren’t bad enough now we all wish to be tracked by satellite.
    No, we don’t need to see your papers old man. We know when you’ve been and where you’re going.

  16. LOL! I always wondered if you could mess with them like that…it would sure be worth it for the entertainment factor! Something just won’t let me get one though…could be the courier/cabdriver background…or maybe that I drive a hoop-dee 🙂 Hey, got my date for the drive-by…august 3rd. Been working on the site getting ready…would you mind checking it out and let me know what you think? geez, I don’t want to be too embarrassed 🙂

  17. I hope you ordered the GARMIN – no John Cleese voice but when I did my research I found that the maps on Garmin are a lot better than Tom Tom…but who really knows…and YES I did use an INDEPENDENT guide…oh yes!!! it also told us where all the speed cameras were, pretty nifty! I hope to God Molly can’t speak French…then I am sunk.

  19. Brill… but I foresee a time when no-one actually knows where any particular place is, or how its name is pronounced. Makes furriners of us all.

  20. Geri – Heh! Was I that good?!

    Maxi – Our K8 had all sorts of weird names programmed in. We spent the last stretch heading for “Dad’s Gaff” [which, I may add, Yer Wan coped with quite well!]

    Brianf – Just wait until Google Earth goes live!!!

    Prin – I hope it will be part functional, and part entertainment. 🙂 Do you want me to help set up an ambush for the drive-by?

    Natalie – “Garmin NUVI 760T FM Europe GPS” is what it says on the tin. But it hasn’t arrived yet. Definitely lost….. ?

    Sixty – I have one of those already. I call it ‘Herself’.

    Conan – And we will all give our addresses as N56.45.13 W02.12.6?

  21. Keith Law did a spoof sat nav ad a few years back. It’d give you the directions in a Norn Iron accent! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVrSgLNFToM

    Perhaps someone needs to devise one that screams STOP every time you near a pub. That’s what I’d want. 🙂

    Maybe one with a D4 mentality would be grand? 🙂

  22. LOL – I got mine a few weeks for precisely the same reasons as you. I ten proceeded to have that exact same conversation with little Miss Snooty GPS.

    I have no sense of direction. The GPS does like to take the …shall we say “scenic” route. But it has managed to get me where I am going even if I am 4 hours late. It eases my mind when going somewhere new by myself.

  23. JD – A SatNav with a D4 accent? I’d never drive again. [“drive sythe to the rindabyte”!!]

    Hiya Lottie and welcome. 🙂 I always know where I’m going, and I always know exactly how to get there – but then I discover they have moved the roads around and that’s why I get lost!

  24. Oh, I just never go anywhere new.

    I’m 38 and I’ve lived in Los Angeles my whole life, if I haven’t been there it means I can’t buy couture, friends or illicit drugs. Therefore it’s a location not worth visiting.

    No sat nav for me.

  25. Grandad…its a GARMIN of course it will find the way to your gaf, perhaps the Irish mail got it a bit confused, but she will eventually take charge and find her own way…

  26. If you’re getting a SatNav – does that mean herself is going to get the Prada shoes?

  27. Sue – You have to buy friends? You Americans are weird!

    Natalie – Still no sigh of it. Heh!

    5h4mr0(k – No fucking way! It’s the other way around. She had a conscience about all the crap she was buying on-line so she talked me into it.

  28. “And we will all give our addresses as N56.45.13 W02.12.6?”

    Yes, exactly, although that would put you off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea south of Aberdeen. The potential for misdirection is wonderful.

Hosted by Curratech Blog Hosting
↑