The Editor delivers on this month’s theme.
This month’s theme is somewhat in the nature of a BBC Radio quiz. The subject itself is quite straightforward, and has overtones of both last month’s theme as well as the actualities of the so-called Season of Goodwill. It is ‘Disappointment’. The motor industry has always offered us high expectations, even more so now, when just changing the position of the rear view mirror will elicit two gushingly incoherent paragraphs from the PR department. Yet, on innumerable occasions, the industry fails to deliver on its promises.
This goes back to the early days. Henry Ford famously offered that “any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black” yet just 13 years later he began offering the Model T in green and maroon. Such broken promises litter and besmirch the industry, like switches on the dashboard of the Model T’s present day successor.
So, to revert to my mention of a quiz show. I felt that I should make it slightly more challenging for the serial Jonahs who contribute to this site. As such, my editorial brief, which is entirely irrevocable unless I am given a good reason to revoke it (a half case of Emilio Lustau Añada 1990 Oloroso might do), has been that no piece should mention either the Citröen or Lancia brands, unless in passing. This will be difficult for my writers, I know, but rest assured that, as they search for disappointment elsewhere, they will not be disappointed.
Driven To Write 
Simon – the Lustau Almacenista Amontillado del Puerto (Obregon) is very good. The Obregon solero don’t bottle their own sherry. This is a special bottling. It goes very well with sushi.
My Dear Richard. Thank you for your advice. However, as far as I am concerned, the only thing that goes well with ‘sushi’ is food poisoning.
Simon: the alcohol probably kills the bacteria. How about barebecued food? Or perhaps bacon and eggs and cheese?
My traditional Christmas Dinner consists of cheese footballs washed down with a good bottle of Beaune. Sherry should never be drunk with food. That’s a modern invention. Or perhaps Spanish, and what do they know about sherry I ask?
I don´t suppose the Spanish know much about sherry. I think they mostly drink rioja out of a carboard box and foil bag. How about Pringles? What pairs well with those? Tennants, perhaps?
Good Lord, you’re opening up the theme of “Disappointment” on a web site with a primarily middle aged audience? Do you know what a can of worms you have opened?
The good thing about the theme is that the worst that can happen is that we’ll be disappointed.
Are the rest of you middle-aged? I assumed you were all just young chappies, taking time off from your PlayStations to fantasise about cars you’re too young to drive.
… We’ll try to keep it to cars. Except Citroen and Lancia.
Are there cars other than those?
There’s one other. But I can’t remember its name, Begins with an S, I think and they make them in Switzerland, or maybe I mean Sweden.
Are you thinking of ….Saab? We probably ought to rule that one out as well, to be fair.
Maybe a story about DS (technically not Citroën)…
We can run that suggestion past Simon. I am not confident he’ll go for it!
A story of DS without using the C-word seems difficult to me. But the disappointment potential is definitely there.
I’m sorry to DS appoint you, but no! And for there to be disappointment, surely there must first be anticipation? Did anyone here ever have high hopes of the DS brand?
“DS appoint you” … worthy of the month’s theme, that … shameless. Too much Lustau Almacenista Amontillado del Puerto, perhaps?
SV: that Lustau Amontillado is first rate. I bought a bottle and said I’d keep it until Christmas such was its cost. I failed. It was superb.