rational geekery

I don’t mind mistakes; the chap who accidentally forgets to close the doors on the ferry, for instance. These are errors. These are evidence of human fallibility. What I cannot abide is the wilful lack of interest in customers that ruins everything we buy and everything we do these days.

Except smoking. Over the years, I have worked my way through perhaps a million cigarettes and not one of them has ever come out of the packet shaped like a penis, or covered in mud. Not one has ever refused to light, or exploded while I am driving along. You sometimes get a beetle in your chocolate bar or an earwig in your curry. But cigarettes? Every single one is just as you would expect. A perfectly tailored nicotine delivery service.

It would, of course, be unreasonable to expect such consistency from cars. They are made up of 15,000 parts and some of them are made by people who are French. So, naturally, there will be mistakes from time to time...