Multiculturalism, it has been decided, is a good thing, and consequently, we’re all supposed to crave a beef-stew existence, living cheek by jowl with the celery, the carrots and the swedes.
I’m not sure people in the provinces are quite so enamoured of the idea, but certainly people in London — well, at least people in London who read The Guardian — do seem to like having as many differently flavoured neighbours as possible.
Some super-cool friends of mine were recently being shown round an agreeable school in Wandsworth. They could have asked about the proximity of sports pitches or the Sats averages but instead pointed out to the headmistress that there weren’t many black children in the classrooms. “No, well there wouldn’t be,” she explained, “because there aren’t any diplomatic families round here.”
Of course, in the face of such nonsense, they’ve decided instead to send their child to the Al-Qaeda Mormon Franco/Peruvian Fusion School for Lapsed West African Catholics.
On the whole, I quite like multicultural living; certainly, I like what the recent influx of immigrants has done to the capital’s restaurant scene, but I’m not so sure it works on the road. Imagine, if you will, an Italian attempting to drive, Naples style, through a small town in Alabama, or a Buddhist from Bali trying to negotiate the five-way junction at the Arc de Triomphe, and you start to grasp the problem. In essence, each new British citizen brings with him his own country’s rules of the road, which means that all of a sudden the stew’s got yams in it, and ginger.
Only the other day a middle-aged chap in a pair of ill-fitting Aviator shades pulled alongside me at the lights in his mildly battered W-registered Vauxhall Corsa. All the windows were down, and he was playing Blockbuster by the Sweet at full volume while swigging from a bottle of beer. This may have been a cool look in downtown Ankara, but in Covent Garden, I have to say, it didn’t really work terribly well.
The look, of course, was no big deal, but the preposterous wheelspinning start as the lights went green certainly was. You see, apart from young men in Porsche Boxsters, the British usually drive with a politeness rarely found elsewhere in the world. We tend not to sit in yellow boxes or tailgate on the motorway. And despite various scaremongering reports, expressions of road rage in the UK are usually limited to the wagged finger or the furrowed brow.
Suddenly, though, we’ve been joined by people who are used to running the gauntlet of Sniper’s Alley in Sarajevo, and by Italian exchange students, and those who bought an out-of-state driving licence in Punjab for 20 rupees. As a result, the simple roundabout — a peculiarly British invention that works on the principle of courtesy — has become a white-knuckle ride of fear.
Then there’s the horn. Since the 1950s really, it’s been used in Britain mostly to attract the attention of friends on the pavement. Now, though, it’s used for all sorts of reasons: because it’s there and it works, because some Iranian second division football team has won a match, because of a quashed coup back home, or simply as a pressure valve in traffic jams.
Last week, a swarthy-looking chap in the car behind lent on his hooter for a full two minutes, simply because I hadn’t driven into a junction marked “keep clear”. And yesterday I was very nearly T-boned by someone who had sailed through a red light. Why not? Where he comes from, red lights are seen as pretty, rather than instructive.
On the motorway, you drive for mile after mile behind a car being driven by someone who passed his test on an ox. He simply has no idea that he’s supposed to pull over — the situation never cropped up in Bhutan.
I’m not criticising, you understand. I am not a UKIP lunatic and this is not some Daily Mail rant. I think women should be allowed to wear the burqa at school, and in the supermarket and in the mosque. All I’m saying here is that it’s not such a good idea to wear one while going round Hyde Park Corner.
No, wait — I’m not even saying that. Of course you must be allowed to wear whatever you like while circumnavigating Britain’s busiest junction. But please understand that those of us who have been driving in Britain for the past 25 years are not necessarily aware that the person coming the other way has a bag on their head. So give us some time to adapt, and in the meantime, maybe you could put a sign or something in the back window?
I do think, however, that it might be a good idea for immigration officials to give the new boys a Highway Code when they arrive, or maybe a series of laminated handy hints that could be hung with the religious memorabilia and the spicy air freshener from the rear-view mirror. Stuff like what to do at a red traffic light, how to deal with a yellow box and why it’s not a very good f****** idea to drive around at two in the f****** morning blowing your f****** horn.
There’s another issue, too. People from countries only recently introduced to the car have no idea about the social niceties of what to buy. So they just go out there and buy whatever’s cheap. This means the roads of London are now littered with horrid old Toyota Previas and Nissan Glorias that have been imported on dhows from second-hand car lots in Sharjah. Anything, really, with four seats and a horn.
This brings me on to the Skoda Fabia diesel. Under the dour stewardship of Volkswagen, we’re told that you can now talk about Skoda without an end-of-the-pier drum roll and trombone accompaniment. But let’s be honest; you’ve got to live a fairly style-free existence before you seriously start to consider actually buying one.
At £11,990, the Fabia diesel is a little cheaper than other similarly sized cars in the VW portfolio, but it’s not particularly good-looking, and even though the vRS model I tested has off-white inserts in the seats, the interior is dreary and depressing.
Is it fast? Well, when you look at the usual benchmarks, you have to say no. Nought to 60 is dealt with in 9.6sec and the top speed is 126mph. This isn’t bad for a small diesel but in the big scheme of things, it’s nothing to write home about.
What the figures don’t tell you, though, is just how quickly this little car accelerates in the midrange. In a petrol car, the power comes in a smooth stream across the rev range, but in this, all 130 horses seem to arrive at once.
You don’t hang on to the gear, feeling the surge growing in strength. You put your foot down and the power comes in a huge lump, like a wrecking ball. It’s over as quickly as it arrived, but that’s okay because you’ve overtaken the car in front with yards to spare.
Study the performance characteristics of this car carefully and you will arrive at an extraordinary conclusion. It may only be a 1.9 litre diesel hatchback, but round a track it will blow a supercharged Mini Cooper into the weeds. It is astonishingly fast.
At this point I’d love to tell you that by fitting such a huge oil-burning stove under the bonnet they’ve sent the handling all to cock. But I’m afraid not. It hangs on well, there’s lots of feedback through the steering, and, as a bonus I really wasn’t expecting, it rides nicely too. So you get all the thrills of a genuine hot hatchback, in a well-screwed-together, comfortable and practical package which, because it’s a diesel, will go from here to Nebraska on a single tank.
Great, but you’re not interested, are you? You think that for £12,000 there must be something wrong with it, and you know that telling people at parties you have a Skoda is like telling them you have an embarrassing discharge.
Britain’s new boys will be less bothered about such things. They’ll buy this car because it’s cheap, and as a result of that, they’re going to be tearing around Britain’s yellow boxes and bus lanes in a genuinely very good little car.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Skoda Fabia vRS
Engine type: Four-cylinder, 1896cc turbo diesel
Power: 130bhp @ 4000rpm
Torque: 228 lb ft @ 1900rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Suspension: (front) coil springs, struts, anti-roll bar (rear) coil springs, torsion beam, anti-roll bar
Tyres: 205/45 WR16
Fuel/CO2: 55.4mpg (combined) / 138g/km
Acceleration: 0-60mph: 9.6sec
Top speed: 126mph
Price: £11,990
Verdict: The thrills of a hot hatch in a practical, comfortable and economical package
