Alan Judd’s latest spy novel, ‘Queen & Country’, is published by Simon&Schuster.
New tyres this week for my 1999 Discovery. The last lot, General Grabbers, lasted 30,000 miles. Their Michelin predecessors (bought and fitted at Costco, 20 per cent off) did 37,000 miles. I doubt the new £88 Cooper Discoverers will achieve that but I’ll be disappointed if they don’t reach 30,000. New tyres this week for
When in 1909 a 50-year-old retired naval officer, Mansfield Cumming, was asked to set up what became today’s Secret Intelligence Service — better known as MI6— the suggestion that there might one day be an official history would have been unthinkable. When in 1909 a 50-year-old retired naval officer, Mansfield Cumming, was asked to set
Petrol-heads know about Millbrook, the 720-acre Bedfordshire proving ground bought by Vauxhall in the 1960s for testing cars and now, still owned by General Motors, shared with other manufacturers and the military. The latter tests some fearsome off-road beasts there but the former confine themselves to road circuits. There’s no shortage: the straight mile, skidpans,
This is the fifth in C. J. Sansom’s engrossing series of Tudor crime novels. This is the fifth in C. J. Sansom’s engrossing series of Tudor crime novels. His hero is Matthew Shardlake, a middle-aged, hunchbacked property lawyer who lives on the fringe of Henry VIII’s dangerously magnetic court. In his youth a zealous Protestant,
If money is a universal act of faith — working when we believe in it, collapsing when we don’t — what about value for money? Is that just part of the beneficial illusion or is it something more tangible? If money is a universal act of faith — working when we believe in it, collapsing
I don’t know about China, but here it’s the Year of the Jaguar — 75 years since baptism, sales up 42.5 per cent, the launch of the new XJ — and for one of their birthday parties, Jaguar took some hacks to try out the current model range on Germany’s notorious Nürburgring. I don’t know
The Range Rover was 40 on 17 June, which is cause for congratulation even if relations with the three I’ve owned were not uniformly harmonious. They were all what are now called Classics and in good condition would be appreciating assets. The first, a 1972 two-door, accompanied me to South Africa where it suffered a
It’s fairly safe to say that when the experimental Lohner-Porsche became the world’s first four-wheel-drive car in 1899 its designers did not anticipate that exactly a century later another prestigious German manufacturer would launch a rather more successful 4WD that was — in one respect — technologically less advanced. That earlier car was powered by
One of the perks of this job is the loan cars. Manufacturers keep press fleets of current models for launches and for loans to motoring writers to try out and write about. When the cars leave the fleet, they are usually sold into the dealer network, from where they are sold to you, as demonstrators.
Further unpleasant surprises for motorists this month as the government seizes yet more money from us under threat of criminal sanction (what Gordon Brown calls ‘asking’) to help replace money wasted from earlier seizures. Further unpleasant surprises for motorists this month as the government seizes yet more money from us under threat of criminal sanction
People have written books about America long before the United States declared itself, and we may be forgiven for asking if we really need another. Doesn’t America already loom large enough in our world; hasn’t it all been said before? Well, yes and no. There’s a sense in which we’re all Americans now because that
Bond had no need for thought. He’d seen it as a concept in Detroit and Geneva in 2006. Now that it existed, he wanted it. He spoke once more, ‘Get it.’ Then added, very quietly, ‘Please.’ Bond was right to insist. When I first saw designer Marek Reichman’s concept Rapide in Geneva, I thought it
A weekly airdrop of Exchange & Mart was the luxury I used to think I’d choose when the producers of Desert Island Discs realised who they’d been missing all these years. A weekly airdrop of Exchange & Mart was the luxury I used to think I’d choose when the producers of Desert Island Discs realised
Awoken the other night by cold and concern for global warming, I searched my conscience for ways to reduce my carbon footprint. The trouble is, a large part of it is simply my existence. During the now-forgotten demographic panic of the 1970s, I knew a man who killed himself in the interests of population reduction,
Seven hundred miles now in the borrowed Bristol 410 and I’ve loved every yard of it. Seven hundred miles now in the borrowed Bristol 410 and I’ve loved every yard of it. It’s poised, tolerant, powerful and very comfortable, now that I’ve removed the sunroof windshield that was threatening to scalp me. The elegantly understated
Two visitors this month. One, the latest iteration of the VW Polo, now in its fifth generation and with ten million Polo ancestors. The other, a 1968 Bristol 410 whose ancestors can probably be numbered in the hundreds and siblings in scores, maybe dozens. The first was for a week, courtesy of VW, the second
The origin of this unique publication is the 1990s Waldegrave open government initiative, encouraging departments to reveal more. MI5 began sending its early papers to the National Archive and in 2003 commissioned an outsider to write its history, guaranteeing almost unfettered access to its files. It retained right of veto over the book’s content, but
If Milton had owned a Land Rover he’d never have vanquished Satan and his fallen angels to nether regions of rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death. If Milton had owned a Land Rover he’d never have vanquished Satan and his fallen angels to nether regions of rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs,
The Golf GTI was unveiled in Frankfurt 34 years ago this month. If the ordinary Golf saved VW — ailing because Beetle sales were in long-term decline — then the GTI was the icing that made millions more want the cake. Planned as a limited edition of 5,000, it has gone on to sell 1.7
Our monsoon season brings not only cricket delays but also a flowering of local classic-car shows. Testimony to nostalgic enthusiasm, they prompt the reflection that man is never more innocently engaged than when he values something for what it is, rather than for what he can get out of it. Not that the classic-car world