X3 - pogo a gogo

(artist impression - ours had Italian plates)

A few more observations about the BMW X3 — apparently one of the most popular SUVs on the planet. Presumably because no one actually drives them.

• The language setting kept reverting to Italian. Which would have been charming, except it meant “turn right” became “destra subito” whether I liked it or not.

• The guidance setting insisted North was always up. Useful if I were migrating geese, less so in Tuscany.

• The final part of every instruction was cut off. “Now turn…” was the cliffhanger I never got closure on.

• It sometimes told me to turn right instead of left, as if the car were secretly rooting for trucks. Then, having gaslit me into chaos, it suggested a scenic 360° tour of the next roundabout to make amends.

• The front of the car was approximately the length of a grand piano and just as hard to judge in traffic.

• Parking sensors politely switched themselves off whenever a stone wall appeared. A kind of automotive see no evil.

• The seat adjustments refused to accommodate the average human. You were either a circus giant or a Victorian child.

• Suspension was less “sports utility” and more “pogo stick at a funfair.”

• The side detectors at Autostrada toll booths cut in before I was close, then sulked while the car sat too far away to actually grab the change. Italian toll operators must have an entire comedy reel of X3 owners doing yoga stretches out of the driver’s window.

• Rear passengers noted the lack of space. Which is ironic, given the car’s bulk suggested it could easily house a family, a dog, and perhaps a small opera company.

On the plus side, it did swallow four large suitcases without complaint, and sipped fuel like a parsimonious pensioner. But the legendary “ultimate driving machine” feel? Missing in action.

I remain baffled by the glowing reviews from the motor press. Unless “ultimate” is now defined as “ultimately comic.”

Jellyfish are Loading Their Guns by Ed Adams – review

 

Jellyfish are Loading Their Guns by Ed Adams – review

@aestheticregime

A lexicon of fragments that refuses to behave

Ed Adams’ Jellyfish are Loading Their Guns is not a novel in the conventional sense, nor a reference work in the traditional one. It presents itself as an alphabetised glossary — from “Aardvaak” to “ZZZZ – Snap Out of It!” — yet what unfolds is part dictionary, part poetry cycle, part political archive.

The entries read like signals intercepted across time. A definition of “Average Age of a Bomber Crew” sits beside riffs on cryptocurrency, AI surveillance systems, and nightclub gestures filed under “Hip Wiggle.” There are sly asides on laundering networks and shadow governance, followed abruptly by RAF Scampton, or a whispered meditation on desire.

It is a book that makes dipping and flicking its primary reading method. Open at random and you may find an entry that stings — a compact satire of financial corruption, Cardinal-era populism, or militarised absurdity. Another page might glow with pathos: a brief, devastating note on Bomber Command or an almost haiku-like fragment about loss. And scattered throughout are provocations that flirt with the reader, as if the lexicon itself were complicit in seduction.

If this sounds chaotic, it is. But the chaos is carefully pitched. Adams’ writing thrives on dissonance — history colliding with technology, philosophy with slang, solemnity with play. The result recalls Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet or Sebald’s Austerlitz stripped down to lexicon form: fragments that accrue their power through juxtaposition rather than narrative.

The title’s joke — jellyfish interrupting nuclear power stations, “loading their guns” — is telling. This is a book about disruption: of systems, of histories, of reading habits. What it refuses to do is settle.

Jellyfish is best approached not as explanation but as experience. It’s a lexicon that declines to define, an archive that questions what belongs in an archive at all. In a publishing landscape where novels often lean on neatness, Adams offers something riskier: a text that hums, stings and glows, much like its namesake.

Recommended for readers of Pessoa, Sebald, or the more hauntological reaches of contemporary experimental fiction.

Greve in Chianti

 

Back in the world of diesel again, albeit temporarily. It's an opportunity to try out the newer menu systems which blend analogue and digital together in the car control systems. 

However, it wasn't a brilliant schema. The obvious thing would have been an easy way to change the language from Italian to English, although it was buried under about three menus depth. Then a way to easily enter a destination. Similar story and finally a way to orientate the map to point the same way as travel. 

We figured it all out eventually, but it didn't set a good first impression, especially as after stopping the car, it all reset to the original settings and had to be programmed in again.

I remember when BMW advertised their cars as 'the driving machine'. It felt more like the software engineers diagnostic machine, and for once I could understand what these Top Gear boys had been going on about. 

Anyway, we are in the world of Chianti now. Maybe there will be another novel in it.