Speeding to all points North

So this week we finally made it up to Edinburgh.

 After 8 days of rehearsal in the rural idylls of Oxfordshire  we all headed up to Edinburgh and met up at our venue the Gilded balloon at 11 PM on Tuesday night ready to do a late-night technical and dress rehearsal. I haven't been up to the festival for 21 years and the atmosphere as I wandered round on a damp Tuesday was heady and exciting. It's a great thing to be part of. “Wedding Band" opened on Wednesday afternoon to a small but appreciative audience and judging from the tweets I've had from the cast since then it's been going from strength to strength. I'm really looking forward to the weekend up there with Rich in 2 weeks time to see it again and to catch the other 6 shows that we booked for.

There was a whole load of news on the Internet on Friday about the arrival of Frank's parents in Coronation Street. Gwen Taylor and I still don't really have any idea of how long we're doing, but it's good to know there's a bit of interest being stirred up about us as hopefully it might mean a few more appearances between now and Christmas.

My major comedy event of the week, “Wedding Band"  excepted", was my attendance at a driver awareness course on Thursday afternoon. A couple of months ago while driving up to see mom in Yorkshire I managed to excite a speed camera  on a stretch of dual carriageway in Nottinghamshire. The letter I received informing me of this  told me that I could have 3 points on my licence, or I could attend a speed awareness course. Wisely I chose the latter. It must be a good revenue earner. There were 22  of us  on the course all paying £95 a pop.

I decided that I had to take it seriously. A chance to learn about my driving habits. The course was run by an advanced driving tutor who would've given Fraser from  “Dad's Army" a run for his money in the cheery stakes. As he told us why we were there, he was quickly brought to a halt by a rather large county woman in the front row who asked him “speak up please, I'm very nearly deaf". At that moment he'd been talking about making sure you are in a fit and healthy state to drive. I think the irony might have been lost on him. The woman next to me was doing the course on behalf of her husband as he already had 10 points on his licence. Obviously they were Liberal Democrat voters.

One of our first “activities" was to be put in groups to try and work out accident statistics for a particular year.  My group consisted  of the Lib Dem voter, and a rather mousy housewife type together with a very suspect ruddy complexioned man  with a ridiculous white goatee and a  pair of stonewashed crocs.  He was having none of it.  He wrote some figures down  that made no sense  and said that was our group's answer.

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know what's coming. I wasn't settling for that. I considered myself lucky to be doing the course rather than having 3 points on my licence, so I turned to him and said “I think we should have a group chat about this and come up with something that is rather more believable"

His answer was to say “we don't need to mess about doing this. We only have to stay here till the end of the course and there is no need to bother answering the questions"

I told him in no uncertain terms that “I was here to try and learn something and if he was then to get in the way of doing that then he should piss off and join another group"

 It seemed to work  as he then started to throwing bits of information out loud to the tutor on every point that was brought up. It turned out he was a lorry driver and thought he knew it all. certainly he didn't know anything about fashion.

It was interesting to watch a group of grown adults behaving as though they were back at school. Some of us, me included, had made a beeline for the back row as soon as we were let into the room.

We had to complete little worksheets on which we had to show our knowledge of various speed limits and outline plans for changing our driving habits. Probably the best answer of the afternoon to the question “why do you speed?" came from someone on the other side of the back row who replied “because I can" !

The course lasted for 4 hours. The intention of the whole endeavour was spot on. Its execution of course lacked something. At one point we were given family fortune type handsets in order to  record our response to various questions that came up on the screen. I think this was meant to be the interactive contribution. Sadly these questions were interspersed by long diatribes from the tutor who became increasingly self-important as the afternoon went on. The Lib Dem voter was battling with sleep by 3 o'clock, and I was regretting that I had left my desktop computer turned on so that no e-mails were coming through to my phone to distract me.

I did learn two things. The best way not to get above 30 miles an hour in an urban area (one of the most difficult speed limits to keep to evidently) is to stay in 3rd gear. When turning right and waiting for oncoming traffic it's important to keep your wheels pointing straight forward. That way if another driver does smack into the back of your car you will be pushed straight ahead and not over to the right into the oncoming traffic. I've been practising that as much as I can already.

We've just been down to Kent for the weekend to spend the night with  Sam and Martin who we met on holiday.(fabulous meals boys!). It involved a certain amount of motorway driving and I did my best to make sure that the needle didn't tip 70................ too often!

 I've long been a proponent of the idea that people should have to refresh their driving test every 10 years or so. If you fail you are given 6 months to get up to speed again before your licences taken away. As was pointed out to me on the course, the last time I really looked at a highway code was when I passed my test in 1975 (other than a cursory glance when helping Rich to pass his in 1998) and there were people in the room who had looked at it for a much longer time.

 I'm hoping it has changed my driving habits, and I'm certainly keeping an eye on the speedometer much more than I used to.

After all, as the proverb says “it is better to travel than to arrive!"