EMISSIONS:I'M WARNING you now, as I lie crippled in the bed, typing this with one finger, that I am in an even less jolly mood than usual, writes KILIAN DOYLE
Indeed, in my present state, even cracking a smile sends jolts of pain through my body that reduce me to tears. It’s all I can do to stop myself from projectile vomiting over the cat.
Fellow sufferers of my particular affliction – the bad back – will understand. They’ll be nodding in empathy when I say that, despite being filled with enough drugs to fell Keith Richards, I feel like my spinal cord has been replaced with a length of barbed wire, dipped in sulphuric acid.
While this all sounds very dramatic, the way it happened couldn’t have been more mundane. I didn’t flip a rally car into a ravine or tear down Everest in a monster truck. I was simply sitting down when something popped.
Within seconds, I was in a state of panic, as wave upon wave of pain pulsed through me. When my limbs finally went numb with shock, it was a merciful release.
Not that I’m fishing for sympathy, mind; I know I’m not likely to get any. Take one of my colleagues, for example, who – observing me convulsed in agony – was less than compassionate.
“How could you not have a ruined back with those cars of yours?”
Hmm. While it’s not solely down to them – I have the posture of Quasimodo, a condition exacerbated by spending countless hours slouched over a laptop banging this guff out for you lovely people every week – he did have a point.
Both my cars are blessed with insanely stiff suspension. While most motorists favour a cushioned ride, that’s not what I’m about. I love feeling every bump in the road and gulping as the back skips out and loses traction. It’s fun.
Which is why, when buying my BMW 3-Series, I opted for the M Sport model, with even harder suspension than the notoriously unforgiving set-up of the standard version. With big wheels, low profile tyres and super-sharp steering, the Millstone corners like a train.
But this driving pleasure comes at a cost. A few miles on potholed backroads can leave me feeling like someone’s been going at my skeleton with a jackhammer.
The Duchess is no better. I replaced her wallowy, leaking 34-year-old shocks with gas-filled Bilsteins, which make her handle brilliantly but bounce like a wallaby on a hotplate. What’s worse is the horsehair padding in the seats has long since disintegrated, leaving the springs almost exposed. As a result, I have to sit sideways to avoid doing myself the type of serious internal injury that would take some explaining in AE.
A while ago, during a previous bout of back-knack, I did some research into ways to alleviate my suffering.
Agony-addled buffoon that I was, I misread the bit about the need for “lumbar” support as “lumber” and tied a plank of wood to my back. To my surprise, it worked – until I tried to get out of the car.
Other suggestions included clenching my buttocks or doing shoulder shrugs and side bends while stopped in traffic. While a few truck drivers got great amusement out of watching me do my exercises, they helped me not a whit.
The obvious solution is to change my cars. There are two reasons why I won’t do that. First, in the current market, I’d have to pay someone to take them. Secondly, I love them both. You’d hardly get rid of one of your children because he picked his nose or had bad hair, would you?
So, martyr that I am, I’ll plough on, suffer in relative silence and look forward to being able to drive again.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stick my feet in a mincer to distract myself from the throbbing in my spine. Needs must.
