(Ok Trumps not all that obese, but I was on a roll).

According to various sources his BMI is just over 30, the threshold for a diagnosis of obesity.

So in US terms, he;s a political lightweight?

(Well, he is now)

What about, “ I bought a six year old diesel Range Rover to do 3 miles a day, I live life on the edge”

Edited by Alby Back on 21/01/2021 at 10:08

Not at all, Sammy. Some people are valiantly trying to keep it motoring-related, as it was when it started, but there are some who for some unfathomable reason want to take it away from cars.

I won't close it, but if it gets non-motoring again it's going to the General section.

my colleagues at work (bus drivers for most) are running about in expensive new metal via PCP’s they really can’t afford, often without even having made a start in buying a home.

Slightly related> For a few years around the turn of the century I drove (and more importantly, lived in) a double-axle Dodge Renault ex-BT workshop truck. This was mostly because of bad and expensive experience on the London rental market. Saved me a lot of money, but OTOH it probably stopped me making an effort to buy a place, which would have made me a lot more..

There probably was a political/lifestyle choice dimension though, because I felt I was “beating the system” and it was sort of “alternative”,

Margaret Thatcher and her fans had a hard-on against New Age Travellers at the time, so it felt good to pretend to be one, though I didn’t actually travel much, and I had a very well paid IT job in the City at the time so didn’t exactly fit the socioeconomic slot either.

Pretty much anything Margaret Thatcher was against I was for, and vice verse, with the exception of exhaust catalysts, which we were both against, and lean-burn engines, which we were both for.

Objectively though it rather sucked. As well as the no property thing, you had to sneak around all the time, and I was woken up a few times by the van being broken into, requiring defensive action. Got to be a bit of a pain after a while.

One curious thing: When discussing this with colleagues and acquiantances a common reaction, especially from women, was

Essex Girl “Ooh, I wouldnt stand for that if I caught you parking on my street. I’d be right on to the police.”

Me “Why is that. What harm would I be doing?”

Essex Girl "Well, Ah mean, you might be a pervert’

I don’t (and didn’t) get that. I might of course be a pervert, but its presumably a lot easier to be a practicing pervert behind the hedge and curtains of a detached house than it is parked up in a truck.

The price of non-conformity is the presumption of perversion?

(Maybe not always a bad thing with Essex Girls, of course. Allegedly).

Anyway, there you go.

If you want to be seen as a pervert, drive a truck.

Edited by edlithgow on 22/01/2021 at 01:51