Battery

Lots of rolling definitely helped. I was feeling considerably less ginger this morning after a good sleep.

Bergman’s battery finally died a death, so I ordered a new one on eBay. Heavy great fucking thing, I found myself saying “lift with the legs” as I picked it up and carried it back downstairs this morning. Popped the bonnet and used a plug in charge pack. Click on the negative, click on the positive, key in the ignition and off we go.

It would have been an interesting venture trying to change the thing myself, but I figured I’d take it over to the local garage and get my guy with the dead snake hanging from the ceiling to do it for me. “The trick is to do it quickly enough that you don’t lose the authentication on the radio,” he says. He’s right. I had a Nissan that had died once before I bought it. The radio is factory locked, in an early venture along the lines of the snake oil Musk sells where you basically rent the functionality of your vehicle and pay monthly to be able to reverse or whatever. Extra cash to let you out when it catches fire…

I let him change it. He asked for £30 cash. I gave him £40.

He’s located in a railway arch near a huge Deliveroo hub kitchen where they pour out branded meals from all sorts of places you’ve heard of, whipped up by short order chefs following lists and conveyored to guys with mopeds who are forever nipping back and forth under the little sensor-regulated one lane tunnel that leads back to the real world. When I came back to pick up the car it was totally boxed in with police vehicles. They weren’t after me thankfully. If you think the guys riding the bikes are dodgy, you should check out the chefs in that place.   That’s where you want to bring the cameras for your GB News article about how nobody speaks English in London anymore. Half those guys are still making sense of where they ended up. I expect the local cops just raid it out of habit from time to time so they look and feel busy.

My guy has been there decades now, attached to the estate, near where I go for Battersea Car Boot. It’s ten minutes from my flat and he’s honest and straightforward and charges what I think is right. I really like him and feel lucky to have found him. He was just local when an apoplectic neighbour put a spike in my wheel one afternoon cos he can’t get out of narrow places. “You seem to have a flat tyre,” he called down happily the next morning as I went to my car. Had I not fallen foul of the petty rich man I would have probably blown my money repeatedly on Kwik-Fit or similar. A good garage and relationship with them is absolutely golden.

Back now for fun with tax. Gotta be ready by the end of tomorrow. It fries my brain, it fucks my shoulder and then finally it takes all my money.