Ey up mi ducks! Davey Sim ‘ere, coming at yuh live ’n’ direct from the salt-mizzle side streets o’ sleepy owd Bexhill-on-Sea.
What in name o’ Sweet Fanny Fretwell is our owd mate Davey doin’ in Bexhill-sur-Mer, you may well ax yerssen. To be raight, Ah’m beginning to wonder messen. Long story short: Ah’m doin’ another on those test drive thinguns for Bankstone News.
Long story a bit longer again: that owd git Dickson Tystone’s been ‘arping on for months about mey doin’ another test drive for ‘im. After ‘ow last un turned out, Ah’m firkin mi nogg-egg to fathom why. But once eez set ‘is heart fast on summat, ee’ll not be budged.
So t’other day, we wuz ‘aving a bit of a fuddle with those Bankstone Boys down their local, Badger’s Arms or summat, an’ after a jar or eight of Uncle Stanley’s Amber Death, I wer that canned up and daddied ower with Tystone maunderin’ on, I cobbed in towel and towd the bogger yes. Between us twain, ‘eez a mardy owd chuffowl if you rail ‘im when eez bladdered, an’ ee’d a gorra a kingsize bag on if I towd ‘im no.
That was then. This is two weeks later, and ‘ere I am in not-so-sunny Bexhill, getting a first gleg at mi test vehicle. It’s a gloomy rain-soaked spot where ahm stood, surrounded by a sea of owd folks bungalows with a single, Tower-o-Sauron style, office block towerin’ ower ‘em. As you’d expect it would, it bein’ ten stories tall or summat. All reet queer.
My test drive for today is a Go Go Elite Traveller 4, a state of the art personal mobility solution with a 24-volt DC motor that can take it from 0 to 6 kmph in well under ten seconds. After that minor mishap with Sports Hose last time out, Dickson reckoned ah’d be best off with something less, well, sporty. Am I made up, chuffed, or otherways well pleased? Am I ‘eck!
‘Not for on-road use,’ a red and white label tied to ‘andle barries tells mey. Not for on-road use? Not that ah’m chuntering or owt, but how is this a ‘road test’ if I can only go on causey? “Except where no pavement is available,” the label clarifies. Reet then. Much obliged to Thee for that! Ah’m fairly boz-eyed with ire now, and chommaxing mi teggies wi’ frostration.
But if I don’t get mi skets on an’ test drive this arkwanglin’ excuse for of an obesicle, Tystone’ll as like as not starting threatening to go public with a thing or two he knows about owd Davey that’s truly best kept private. So ‘ere we go. I gun ‘er up an cart off, battin’ along at what feels more like 5 or even 6 mph than 4 (the stated max speed).
The motor’s straining like a dillywap on astrofeed an’ I’m barmin’ along like Jellico. There’s owd folks divin’ to left and raight as I cut a swathe though Bexhill’s backstreet pedestrian streetlife.
Ah’ve already clonked a couple o’ slower ones, an they’re laid out on causey in mi wake, limbs a-twiching like parsnapped daddybods. ‘This is more of a lark than I daisywigged,’ I’m starting to think, as another couple of smackravelled old clecks loom into view. Slack-chopped rabbits in path of mi very own OAP harvester.
That’s when I ark the rawk o’ sirens and I cleg the slops on mi tail. It’s gonna be no belt job losing these boffers on a Go Go Elite Traveller. Ah’m givin’ it mi best shot though, when raight-side wheels go off curb. Before I know it, I’m side-on in roadway, with slopcar screetin’ up a foot short o’ mi nog.
“Ahh do, Officer,” I manage wankily as first slop, quite uneccessary, pins mey to dog shelf (the Go Go’s doin’ the pinning jus nicely, as it ‘appens, all bart sen). “You do not have to say anything…” the slopster’s tellin’ mi.
But I tell ‘im anyway. ‘It’s all a big mistake,’ I blart, ‘Ah never wanted to come to boggerin’ Bexhill on botherin’ Sea in first place!’
An’ that’s a fact, Readers. Ah’ve well an’ truly ‘ad enough, an’ Ah jus’ wanna go ome to mi own ahs.
I blame that Tystone.
An’ ahm not only bogger as does, ah don’t mind tellin’ yer!
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