Last Time on the Disco Diaries
Breakdown on M26 with ‘teas up’ and no coolant and three separate parties: the breakdown man, the cops and the little man from the Crawley garage add to my woes by confirming my worst fears about my foray into Discos with lots of epithets about crap cars, unreliability and won’t touch that with a barge pole etc.
The story continues…
Anyhoo … I get a call from the garage next day, ‘Hello Mr Morgan I am afraid I have some bad news – we can repair your car (damn it!) as its only the cylinder head that’s cracked’ – ‘happens quite a lot.’ ‘Oh you must have forgot to mention that when you sold the car two weeks ago so what’s this going to cost me?’ ‘Oh no worries its on a six month guarantee and we can fix it for you no probs – take about 7 days before we get this crock of **** together.’ ‘OK cheers I guess we will have to be patient and I’ll have to get the bike out as that daft idiot ‘er indoors forgot to include a replacement car on the insurance.’ Any chance of a courtesy car? ‘Oh sorry mate more than my jobs worth’ (Arghhhhh! – expletives deleted ed.) … so we left it like that and I went down the pub to mourn the loss of my Beemer.
Two weeks later I take possession of Blue Disco – for the first couple of weeks I ventured no further than the local shops and station car-park. Unfortunately I had to get over to Reading Barracks for a meeting – couldn’t be avoided – so off I set into the sunrise on the M4 to Reading. And nothing happened! – well at least I got there in one piece – it was on the way back the problems started.
I was pootling along at sixty miles an hour in the outside lane when this impatient jerk bombs up behind me and begins flashing and waving his fist at me – cannot think why – anyhoo I put my foot down to pull ahead and over – and nothing – clouds of black smoke and I actually slowed down – I got even more waving fists and flashes I can tell you. I managed to get over to the middle lane and the power picked up again. And that’s was the way of it – if I put my foot down too much I lost power and black smoke – foot off power restored.
I made it to the reading services parked up and hunted high and low for the recovery phone number – yup could find the bloody thing – rings ‘er indoors. She was on the phone to her sister as I found out ten minutes later and I ask for the recovery phone number. ‘Why do you want that and isn’t it in the car? ‘If it was in the car I (expletives deleted ed.) wouldn’t be calling you would I – and I’ve bloody well broken down again!!’ I called the number and waited … about an hour later another little man turns up. I explained the fault and he pops the hood and stares at the engine. I start up the engine as commanded and he continues to stare at the engine. After about ten minutes of staring failed to shed any light he pipes up, ‘Well bugger me mate I have no idea what’s wrong’ – ‘I don’t know much about Discos’ – ‘But I have the special Disco recovery service and you don’t know much about Discos – why did they send you?’ ‘Can’t be helped mate there was no-one else on so it was me or nothing.’ ‘But if you want I can tow you back or if you drive slowly back you should make it – which in the short of it was what I decided to do.’
So I crawled back around the M4 and M25 at about forty miles an hour tops and limped back to the Disco Garage. ‘Oh Hello Mr Morgan back so soon – anything wrong?’ Yes there is something (expletive deleted ed.) wrong – this absolute crock of s*** has conked out again can you look at it for me.’ No probs leave it over night and we will get it seen to first thing tomorrow.’ ‘Can you drop me back home seeing as I am carless again?’ – ‘Oh sorry (sucking through teeth) I have no-one spare at the moment but you can use the phone if you like and call up the missus to pick you up.’ Right … ten minutes later I get through … ‘sorry luv I was on the phone to my sister’ (grrrrrr!) – ‘do you want me to pick you up?’ ‘No I thought I would call you just for the hell of it to let you know I walking back in the pouring rain!!! ‘OK OK keep what’s left of your hair on I’ll be there in ten minutes.’