A couple of weeks ago the third most senior bishop in the Church of England
announced that it was a “sin” to jet off on foreign holidays and drive a
gas-guzzling car. Yup, the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard
Chartres, said tourists and school-run mums were being “selfish” for making
global warming worse.
Quite how he arrived at these conclusions we don’t know. I’ve checked and he
has no known scientific qualifications. So far as I can tell, he read
history before taking a job in Sainsbury’s. His hobby is advising men on how
to wear dresses.
So, is eco-vicaring the lunatic ramblings of a lone maverick in a dog collar?
Or is it now official church policy? Well, when reporters contacted the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, for his views on the matter, he
agreed that he too had a beard. And that yes, not having a beard was
selfish.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Few organisations know quite as
much about selfishness as the Church of England. They preach to their
increasingly small congregations about the iniquities of homelessness, and
then lock up their churches at night to make sure tramps can’t get in and
nick the communion wine.
They tell us about the need for tolerance and to forgive those who trespass
against us, but won’t let homosexualists into the pulpit because that sort
of thing is a sin too. And so is being a woman. And so is greed, of course.
The sort of greed that turned a simple belief into one of the richest
institutions in the world.
Then there are those who practise bell-ringing for two hours a night. Is that
not a bit selfish; imposing your hobby and your vision of traditionalism on
everyone within five miles? Some of whom may well have come from cultures
where guns, not bells, are the soundtrack of village life.
Would these people therefore be on the moral high ground if they were to shoot
a bell-ringer?
In the sort of multiculturalism the church likes so much these days (so long
as you’re not a poof) then yes. Presumably they would. I’m sorry. I know
it’s Sunday. I know many of you have deeply held Christian beliefs and you
don’t like to see them being criticised.
But for the same reasons I don’t like to see cars being criticised, especially
by some jumped-up shelf stacker who has absolutely no idea what he’s on
about.
That said, I am approached by an increasingly large number of people these
days who believe that their off-road car might be causing the lovely summer
we’re having. This, for some reason, is making them feel guilty.
Well, I don’t know what’s causing global warming. I’ve read several reports
saying it’s the Land Rover Discovery and that you must immediately
part-exchange it for a windmill.
But then I’ve read an equally large number that say global temperature
variations are cyclical and that choosing to become an automotive
vegetablist won’t make the slightest bit of difference.
I don’t know which are right because my only qualification is a bronze
swimming medal. What I do know is that those who wish to change their Land
Rover Discovery for something else have a bit of a problem. What? Writing in
the Telegraph recently, Annabel Heseltine made a very good point;
that the law requires children in the back of cars to fasten their
seatbelts. And that if you have four children, you therefore need four back
seats. Which means that G-Wiz electric car won’t really do. And nor will a
people carrier . . .
When I was a young man in London I had a very large overdraft and no real
sense of how it might ever be paid off. Occasionally I’d look into the
future and think, how do people manage? I am living in a shared house and I
cannot afford the basics — cigarettes and beer.
So how do you cope when you have a wife who can’t work because she’s at home
looking after two small children? How can one wage packet sustain four
people, four holidays, four sets of clothing, four new pairs of shoes? And
how does anyone ever have enough money to buy a washing-up bowl? No, really,
I used to see them in hardware stores and wonder how boring and complete
your life would have to be before you’d even think about buying such a
thing. And that really is where I stand on the people carrier.
They’re for people with no imagination, people who can’t think of anything
better to do with £17,500. Buying a Renault Scénic is like buying a passport
into the grey, sterilised world of upper middle age.
So if you need lots of seats because you have lots of children, it has to be a
4x4 of some kind. We have the Volvo XC90. You may prefer a Disco. Either
way, it shows you are still packing a bit of meat. That you haven’t yet
reached that stage in life where what you crave more than anything is “an
early night”.
And then along comes the Right Reverend Richard Beardface to say that you’re a
sinner and a heretic and that you should be placed in a wicker man and burnt
while Britt Ekland prances around a nearby hotel room naked as a jaybird.
So what’s to be done? Well, at last there’s an answer in the rather beguiling
shape of the car you see pictured this morning. The Ford S-Max. It’s a
people carrier but they’ve named it after a slang word for heroin. And that
sums it up rather well.
You look at the exterior styling, the 18in alloy wheels, the raked windscreen,
the low roofline, and you think, yes, it might well have seven seats in
there but who could possibly fit on them? Richard Hammond? You’re in for a
shock. There’s tons of space for me behind the wheel and tons of space in
the middle row too, which is made up of three individual seats, all of which
slide and tilt independently of one another.
In the boot there are two more seats that rise — easily — from the floor and
behind them you have a boot that is big enough for a medium-sized dog. And
under this there’s another boot that is big enough for a small overnight
bag.
Or you can fold all the seats in the back away and end up with a cargo area
that’s big enough for a standard house door.
So then you stand back and think, how in the name of all that’s holy (not
poofs, in other words) did they get all that in there? The answer is to be
found when you try to park. The S-Max may appear to be compact and sporty
but it’s only a whisker shorter than the Volvo XC90.
It is, however, much better looking, and much cheaper. The range starts at
just under £17,000 and is still only at £22,000 when you get to the
five-cylinder turbocharged 143mph 2.5 Titanium.
Which is what I drove. I was expecting a characterless unibox but I was wrong.
It was great to look at and cheap and more versatile than a decathlete’s
trusty Leatherman. I’m not saying it’s a sporty car in any way, but it goes,
handles, steers, stops and most importantly rides way, way better than you
could hope for. And on top of this, it did 30mpg, felt very well screwed
together and came as standard with air-conditioning, electric everything and
automatic headlamps. Which were second world war searchlight bright,
incidentally.
This, then, is the holy grail. It’s an MPV you buy because you like it. Not
because you need it. And because it appears to be small and has no
four-wheel-drive system, you’ll be able to park it outside church, knowing
the vicar won’t come along and chop it up with his special nine-bladed
eco-sword.
