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ost of us have bad habits. Whether it’s riding the clutch, picking our noses in public, shouting abuse at the television when Donald Trump’s face appears… well, maybe that one isn’t a bad habit as such, but you know what I mean. It can be hard to imagine why a habit would form, particularly if you’re not the person who has it. Riding the clutch? Well duh, just don’t ride the clutch. Same with picking your nose, says a person who doesn’t do that, though I typed this with one hand while biting the nails on the other one. Talking of things you do with one hand, you’ll remember the old wives’ tale about a certain habit making you go blind. You may recall discovering that it didn’t, and continued not to, and here we are all grown-up and fingers crossed (well, the fingers on one hand, anyway) it still hasn’t. It’s risky, though. Our editor likes to say of vehicles that the first dent is the deepest. He demonstrated this perfectly with his old Nissan Patrol, which started off looking like new and was never meant to become an off-road disaster area. But then one day on the Triangle Vert he slid it round a tight corner and put a dent in the door. Then his girlfriend had an accident with a Chinese takeaway and the carpet on her side turned orange. Then the air-conditioning in his Cherokee packed in just when he was about to set out a roadbook on one of the hottest days of the year, so he used the Patrol instead and it turned out to be a roadbook full of tightly packed trees. And before long, his pristine wagon was a beaten up wreck with a cabin that looked like a skip. And that’s how it goes. Bit by little bit. You start off by jumping in with your mate for a bit of offroad fun. You discover that it is fun, right enough.
4x4 4pp Firth.indd 39
FEBRUARY 2023 | 39
14/01/2023 17:07
