ON THE ROAD AGAIN. IN SEARCH OF GOD'S HIGHWAY

From Mr. Ishmael's drafts - thought you might like this fragment -a review of his most  recent car  - Mrs. Ishmael

I love cars, always have, there is just something seeming-miraculous to me about how they work, so very many components, such precision and co-ordination - fuel, ignition, battery, high tension coil, injectors or carburettors, plugs, valves, cylinders, con-rods, bearings, a crankshaft,  belts, chains, tappets, rockers, gaskets, pumps and pipes all timed and aligned, exploding and crashing together thousands of times a minute, and that's just the engine.  There is also a gearbox, a prop shaft, at least one differential, drive shafts, hubs, brakes, wheels and tyres, hydraulics, springs, shock absorbers, lights, heaters, wipers, instruments, seats, doors and windows. Every time I start-up  a car I think This is fucking voodoo, this is. So enchanted have I always been by this magical,  marshalled inferno that the idea of  in-car entertainment seems ridiculous, there's nothing on the radio that equals driving a car.

The only thing I ever listen to in the car is Radio Three's Choral Evensong - psalms and anthems, prayers, lessons and  mad organ fugues, all strung-together by a fruity vicar,  sing-songing calls and responses, a choir and thundering organ performing the psalms  of King David, surely the Father of the Blues.  That only lasts for about forty-five minutes, once a week, should I happen to be in the car - never bother with it at home, somehow.  The rest of my driving time is leavened by my sheer wonder that this bag of bits glides along quietly, mile after mile after mile.

I was once into the Zen Purity of the motorcycle but young and heedless of Life's fleeting preciousness  I was horrifically injured, well dunno about horrific, I broke my neck and my face, bad enough, I suppose, more than  a tumble.  I often think I survived only in order to reproach myself. 
It's been cars, anyway, since then.

As well as my Citroen F111 rocket car we have a Honda CRV, iVTEC Automatic and it is brilliant, never goes wrong, goes like stink if you want to, big enough and comfortable; comfortable  but not luxurious, I started, therefore, to look at Bentleys and found that you can buy a five year old, 4 litre Flying Spur for less than twenty grand, fifteen if you're canny. Trouble is, your whoreson  Bentley is unreliable, parts are expensive and fuel economy poor. Although I've owned and enjoyed them I think there's something vulgar about Jags and Audis and BMWs,  vulgar and aggressive, especially the Audis. I am sure they are very good, I just don't like the look of them

I couldn't, however,  find a bad 

journalists' or owners' review of  the Mercedes S class; everybody loves them, ordinary people and filth - like gangsters, royals  and politicians, so I started looking for one. 

I have long known the wisdom of buying used prestige cars, those models subject to the fastest depreciation. OK you might use a bit more fuel but the overall savings are enormous, not to mention the high spec, the performance, safety and comfort,  all yours, relatively speaking, for a song.

 I looked all over the UK and eventually found one in Leicester, about 650 miles from me. 
He seemed like a nice, genuine guy and so I had a full RAC inspection done of everything, even had the oil analysed and it was ticks in all boxes.  
I sent him the money in advance, certain he wasn't a scammer and when we arrived I found he was a  Sikh.  I had forgotten how utterly gracious Sikhs could be but he was Grace made Man, polite, hospitable and helpful. What was most noticeable was that he didn't do Ban-tah, none of the  snide, insulting smartassery so common among British men. I felt really humbled and remembered my old friend,  Felix Hodcroft, decades ago, saying to me that he was disappointed in his gender, his fellow man;   I mocked him then but have come to understand what he meant and meeting Mr Singh and his family I was disappointed in my own race,  largely gobby and stupid, cock-wavimg savages.

The car was everything he had said, like this one. 

Dunno where to start describing it; everybody says it's simply the best car in the world and it sure seems like that to me. My first journey in it was following mrs ishmael from Leicester back to our hotel in Manchester, along urban motorways  at rush hour in a downpour, not knowing what the switches did or where they were, it was OK though.  There is a mass of technology on it which I will probably never use, just driving it as a normal Vee-six turbo is all I want to do. From Manchester to Glasgow at seventy miles an hour the rev counter showed 1,300, the trip analysis 55mpg.. It has a range of over 700 miles between fills, something and nothing I suppose except that stopping for rest is one thing stopping to fill up always seems to rob me of momentum - those fucking motorway garages are so dispiriting, they leech the life out of one, every square centimetre monetised; signposts on Ruin's highway, those  places.  The most we've done in the Mercedes non-stop  is 500 miles  emerging as fresh as daisies; two hundred miles in the Honda and I'm creased, just road noise and body roll and bumps on Tribesman Scotland's third world roads. It's a Humvee you need to negotiate  KrankieVille. Independence? Stupid fucking bastards couldn't run a raffle, never mind a country; BoJo should call a UK-wide referendum on Scotland remaining in the Union, they'd shit their kilts in a second.