Splendid Isolation

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Actually, Jimmy Cliff was on my mind when I went to bed last night, and was still there when I woke up this morning.

Readers may remember this little bit of news from last week:

A driver who was trapped behind the wheel of an out-of-control Jaguar I-Pace has revealed to MailOnline how he almost cheated death as his car accelerated up to 100mph on the busy M62 motorway without brakes.

Nathan Owen, 31, was on his way back from his first day at a new job when his 2019 electric car started malfunctioning, sparking a huge police operation to bring his car to a stop after 35 minutes of hell.

But in a shock revelation, Mr Owen told how his car had also gone rogue on the motorway in December, this time reaching up to 120mph.

Well, if you thought that was the end of the story, you forgot that this happened in Britishland, so of course there’s a sequel:

Police have arrested a Jaguar I-Pace driver on suspicion of dangerous driving after his ‘out-of-control’ car had to be rammed off the road by officers when it ‘went rogue’ at speeds of up to 100mph.

Nathan Owen, 31, was arrested by Merseyside Police in relation to the incident on the M62 on Wednesday, March 6.

He was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and causing a public nuisance and taken into police custody to be questioned.

Mr Owen claimed his £80,000 electric car went gone rogue on the motorway that day, sparking a huge police operation to bring his car to a stop after 35 minutes of hell.

His arrest comes after a detailed investigation was carried out by police and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) – who said it ‘seeks to investigate all reports of issues relating to product safety’.

Yeah, surrounded by umpteen police cars, he just carried on speeding — of course it’s his fault, even though ’twas Owen himself who called the rozzers for help.

Once again, I’m reminded of the incident in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, when MPs burst into a hotel room where Aarfy has just thrown a whore out of a window to her death — and arrest Yossarian for being AWOL.

Fucking hell.

…they just keep on coming:

The 2022 U.K.-based Emissions Analytics study found that after driving both a gas and electric car 1,000 miles, the number of particles collected from the EV was vastly greater than the gasoline-powered car.

So just to be clear: in terms of environmental damage caused when driving an electric car, you might just as well be in a coal-fired steam locomotive.

Got it.

…I see that old familiar face:

Not that I give a rat’s ass about Madonna — her music, her multicolored family or her Play-Doh face — but sheesh….

And I apologize for the above. Let’s try to mindscrape that foulness with something a lot less frightening:

Okay, I’m going to say it out loud: seventy grand is too much to pay for a rifle, even one made by H&H.

But have mercy:

Of course you can get cheaper double rifles* — not much cheaper, as a rule, but still — and yes, the mighty .375 H&H cartridge will put down any large animal on Planet Earth (even Michelle Obama), especially when the double triggers will allow you to pop two 300-grain bullets into the target inside two seconds, far quicker than can be achieved working a bolt action, and which will arrive at over 2,500 feet per second. Energy? Sufficient.

And beauty? Indescribable.