On Saturday I know where I’m going... to the scrapheap

BUYING things online with instruction manuals which are somewhat optimistically translated from Chinese into English can be fun, especially for know-it-all older males who wouldn’t dream of reading instructions anyway.

Which is another way of saying there are numerous items dotted around Chateau Hesp – from small appliances to entire garden sheds – which aren’t quite what they were meant to be.

For example, every single thing Mrs H ever bought from Ikea has ended up being slightly lopsided or with less than its intended degree of uniform Scandinavian perfection. To the extent that she has given up her Nordic retail habit altogether, throwing in the towel – with much obvious regret – to reside in a place she now describes as The Wreck of the Hesperus.

Poor woman. She is married to a man who this week found himself heading north through the Vale of Evesham when he should have been driving home from Oxfordshire in a general and fairly easy-to-follow south-westerly direction.

Maybe one day scientists will discover that humans come with instruction manuals. When they eventually learn to translate the inevitable gobbledygook written in small and fading print in multiple languages, it will say…

“Upon reaching a certain age the intelligence systems aboard some human males – especially those of an overly confident nature – may start to malfunction. This often occurs in models which maintained a degree of efficiency for years.

“Having streamlined their onboard processing systems over five or six decades to cope with the illusory concept of being correct most of the time, these individuals find it impossible to readjust when mental assets begin to fade. These ageing males evolve a unique override which allows them to ignore the obvious.

“The only cure for this condition is a factory reboot – a job that may prove non-cost-effective. Such cases should be consigned to the scrapheap.”

I was thinking about this scrapheap on Tuesday afternoon after I’d tootled down a long and winding road only to be confronted by a road sign which announced: “Evesham 4 miles”. Evesham! How the hell did I get to Evesham? There must be some mistake!! There was indeed. All of my own making.

Having left the abode otherwise known as the Wreck of the Hesperus at dawn to attend an interesting daylong event staged by my friends at Matthews Cotswold Flour (as mentioned in today’s food pages), I had at last started the long journey home… A few minutes into the drive I encountered a traffic jam near Burford, and in that same moment noticed a sign to Stow-on-the-Wold.

I was enjoying the Cotswold countryside and, having never visited that splendid burg before, I thought: “Sod it.. Stow lies to the west of here, so I’ll take that road instead of the one the car’s sat-nav says is the best way home. And I will use the old Hesp patent pigeon homing-system to wend my way through these pleasant landscapes all the way to Cheltenham and the motorway. Nothing could be more simple for a wily old countryman like me, as long as I keep the afternoon sun somewhere over the bonnet rather than the boot.” Alas, within ten minutes the sun had disappeared behind a dark cloud.

Now comes the “should be consigned to the scrapheap” bit… Because I have already mentioned the car’s sat-nav, and it was flashing for me to turn left at a junction in Stow. But I had the distinct impression that this road would take me back towards Burford, so I made the stupid decision to keep going.

Why? What craziness compelled me to continue, effectively blind as a bat, when I was surrounded by technology that would instantly have taken me on the fastest route home? Even if I was suspicious of the car’s sat-nav, I could have asked Siri on my iPhone to give route instructions – and she’d have calmly had me in Cheltenham in a trice.

But no! I fully believed the Hesp homing-pigeon system knew best and so drove blithely on, too stubborn to even check basics, like the direction. As it happened I was heading north-west, into the Midlands.

The car has a secondary system which shows a digital compass on the dashboard – you can access it via a button on the steering wheel so don’t even have to reach for anything special. The iPhone also has a highly accurate compass. So I could have easily sorted the all-important question of direction within seconds.

I happen to know that I am not the only know-it-all male of a certain age who does such things. Did I at least enjoy my little adventure into unknown territory? Nope! I hope I won’t offend anyone within that fertile vale famed for its asparagus, but I don’t think I’ll bother with Evesham again. Will I go for that factory reboot before they take me to the scrapheap? If there was such a thing, I would. These old-man malfunctions need addressing now, before it’s too late.

‘I thought I would use the old Hesp patent pigeon homing-system to get me to the M-way’