This Is A Non-Potter Post

Hey there everyone.

I have now been driving for two days. It's pretty cool although I've already played Roundabout Chicken with two white vans, gone around a small roundabout turning right at 40 in 4th gear for which the tyres squealed and been persuaded to give my gitface brother a lift.

I was going to walk into town to get HBP even though I'm in posesh of a car, but it's too fucking and I'm still limping from some weird, v. painful thing with my foot. It's like it sometimes feels like I've really bruised it, sometimes like I've pulled a muscle in said foot and sometimes like I imagine breaking your foot must feel like. I should probably seek medical attention, but right now I can't be fucked.

Driving is cool. Not in a 'oh, I don't have to get the bus' way. In a Black Pearl way. Allow me to explain while I kill the next fifteen or so minutes.

In Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow tells us that the Black Pearl isn't about fear of ghost pirates, it's about freedom. The means to go wherever the hell you want, whenever you want. Sure there are restrictions, like you need a crew and that, but it's about being able to roam the world and do as you please as is your right as a human being. In this country, I don't know so much about gives-cars-to-12-year-olds America (/generalisation) passing one's driving test is a real rite of passage. There are 'Congratulations on Passing Your Driving Test' cards available in greeting card shops- I got one from the dudes at work. More than being allowed to drink (which most of us start doing in pubs at 14, laws be damned) or get married (which most of us can't afford to do until we're 35 anyway), the driving license is something that says "Hey, I'm grown up like you, respect me dudes". A lot of drivers are really shit. A lot of new drivers are really shit and some of us do stupid things cos we've just realised we're doing it all on our own without someone sat next to us telling us what to do. Some of us appreciate what a deadly fucking thing it is we're doing so end up cocking up because we don't want to actually maim or kill anyone.

But man, it's freedom. That little red Ford Fiesta down there represents, to me personally, the cinema. It's SO hard to get to any cinema near here on public transport (at least one bus or a bus and a train) that for me, driving has always been the 'man, I'll be able to go to the cinema as much as I want now!' thing.

Failing 7/8/9 times was almost soul-destroying, you know, but it wasn't because I couldn't drive. It was my own self, my colossal lapses of concentration sometimes, my daydreaming nature, my great ability to get wound up or whatever and most of all, my unyielding and total unwillingness to feel nervous during a test. This crushing need to feel cool just meant that the nerves manifested themselves in other, much worse ways.

But part of me, a very small part of me, wonders if it wasn't just that I wasn't ready for this bit of growing up yet. Was not ready to accept that I am old enough and ugly enough to do this on me own. I'll be forever an immature little bint, but this is... it's taking responsibility for a great deal of stuff- responsibility for not getting into accidents, not running over kids on zebra crossings.

Having a driving license changes everything. So it's not quite as life-changing as one's period or getting married or something, but my life is absolutely a different thing to what it was on Tuesday and that's very, very weird to me.

I was ready for my freedom a very long time ago, but I was not ready for the responsibility that comes with it. I still don't think I entirely am, but there's only one way to find out.

Captain Jack had his Black Pearl. So maybe an M-reg Ford Fiesta isn't quite the same thing, but one day I'll speed along Germany's speed limitless autobahns in an Aston Martin, or I'll cruise down Route 66 in a Mustang or a Thunderbird the size of a Sherman tank. I'll drive through the Carpathian mountains and along the Northern coast of Ireland. I'll be able to go to the places I want to go and the only limits are money and myself.

As Dean Martin said, I'll buy that dream. I'll also buy myself a Rolls Royce and an Aston Martin one day and paint them both purple. And a Mini, too.

This Is A Non-Potter Post

Hey there everyone.

I have now been driving for two days. It's pretty cool although I've already played Roundabout Chicken with two white vans, gone around a small roundabout turning right at 40 in 4th gear for which the tyres squealed and been persuaded to give my gitface brother a lift.

I was going to walk into town to get HBP even though I'm in posesh of a car, but it's too fucking and I'm still limping from some weird, v. painful thing with my foot. It's like it sometimes feels like I've really bruised it, sometimes like I've pulled a muscle in said foot and sometimes like I imagine breaking your foot must feel like. I should probably seek medical attention, but right now I can't be fucked.

Driving is cool. Not in a 'oh, I don't have to get the bus' way. In a Black Pearl way. Allow me to explain while I kill the next fifteen or so minutes.

In Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow tells us that the Black Pearl isn't about fear of ghost pirates, it's about freedom. The means to go wherever the hell you want, whenever you want. Sure there are restrictions, like you need a crew and that, but it's about being able to roam the world and do as you please as is your right as a human being. In this country, I don't know so much about gives-cars-to-12-year-olds America (/generalisation) passing one's driving test is a real rite of passage. There are 'Congratulations on Passing Your Driving Test' cards available in greeting card shops- I got one from the dudes at work. More than being allowed to drink (which most of us start doing in pubs at 14, laws be damned) or get married (which most of us can't afford to do until we're 35 anyway), the driving license is something that says "Hey, I'm grown up like you, respect me dudes". A lot of drivers are really shit. A lot of new drivers are really shit and some of us do stupid things cos we've just realised we're doing it all on our own without someone sat next to us telling us what to do. Some of us appreciate what a deadly fucking thing it is we're doing so end up cocking up because we don't want to actually maim or kill anyone.

But man, it's freedom. That little red Ford Fiesta down there represents, to me personally, the cinema. It's SO hard to get to any cinema near here on public transport (at least one bus or a bus and a train) that for me, driving has always been the 'man, I'll be able to go to the cinema as much as I want now!' thing.

Failing 7/8/9 times was almost soul-destroying, you know, but it wasn't because I couldn't drive. It was my own self, my colossal lapses of concentration sometimes, my daydreaming nature, my great ability to get wound up or whatever and most of all, my unyielding and total unwillingness to feel nervous during a test. This crushing need to feel cool just meant that the nerves manifested themselves in other, much worse ways.

But part of me, a very small part of me, wonders if it wasn't just that I wasn't ready for this bit of growing up yet. Was not ready to accept that I am old enough and ugly enough to do this on me own. I'll be forever an immature little bint, but this is... it's taking responsibility for a great deal of stuff- responsibility for not getting into accidents, not running over kids on zebra crossings.

Having a driving license changes everything. So it's not quite as life-changing as one's period or getting married or something, but my life is absolutely a different thing to what it was on Tuesday and that's very, very weird to me.

I was ready for my freedom a very long time ago, but I was not ready for the responsibility that comes with it. I still don't think I entirely am, but there's only one way to find out.

Captain Jack had his Black Pearl. So maybe an M-reg Ford Fiesta isn't quite the same thing, but one day I'll speed along Germany's speed limitless autobahns in an Aston Martin, or I'll cruise down Route 66 in a Mustang or a Thunderbird the size of a Sherman tank. I'll drive through the Carpathian mountains and along the Northern coast of Ireland. I'll be able to go to the places I want to go and the only limits are money and myself.

As Dean Martin said, I'll buy that dream. I'll also buy myself a Rolls Royce and an Aston Martin one day and paint them both purple. And a Mini, too.