As I was walking along Harleyford road on the way to the tube this morning I witnessed another irate exchange between drivers, a dialogue of expletive and honk. This cacophony of fury is a rush hour network as active and passionate as any instagram or twitter but one that goes on in the enclosed spaces of so many thousands of motors. The manly world of the car is a world I do not participate in. Lost to me are the pleasures of numerical nomenclature, that turning on the A4831 between junction 3 and junction 4; the secret delights of peering beneath a curvaceous bonnet; the carefree iniquity of gratuitous revving; the devil-may-care of drive texting or drexting; the plush erotics of leather seating, so lovingly rendered by Ballard in his masterpiece ‘Crash’; the secluded, air-conditioned interior as boy play room, a micro universe with everything at the touch of a button. Car world. As a no driver I can only dream of this. I cross at the lights and trip down into the underground. How nice to just opt out.

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