Not sure whether I am proud of this or not – but on Saturday night I parked my car on Piccadilly and headed north on foot heading for LBC in Leicester Square to do a radio slot.
I have never been a fan of conspicuous wealth and I have a aversion to indulged kids who don’t ever need to worry about making a living – so when I heard the sound of some supercars ahead being revved to the point of exploding – my hackles raised. They sounded like planes taking off – the volume amplified by the narrow street and tall buildings on either side.
People gathered to gawp at the wealth on show with their phones set to record. I didn’t know how many cars – but it had to be more than one and none of them were normal cars. The noise was deafening and if they carried on up Shaftsbury Avenue – they would have ruined any number of theatre shows.
The road was busy enough but the morons in the rockets were in no hurry – enjoying being centre of attention and they kept their cars revving to the max – no doubt, with fire shooting from the exhausts.
I presumed that the drivers would be young middle eastern men. Over from the gulf on daddy’s ticket to stay in their Mayfair pads and play at being playboys. I have been to the Gulf many times and there, conspicuous wealth is flaunted like no where else – and all made possible because not much more than 70 years ago – their great granddads complained that their oyster beds were covered in black stuff.
On reaching Piccadilly – I had caught them up and having suffered the noise for ten minutes or so, I was completely fed up. I wanted to shout at the crowd of dumb onlookers who were encouraging them but instead in a moment of madness, I approached one of the cars and stuck my face in to a white Audi R8.
‘Did your daddy buy this for you?’ I screamed at the startled young man.
He was shocked but recovered quickly enough to realise that my question was not kindly intended and he promptly gave me the finger.
And fair enough I guess. It is not something I will do again – although I enjoyed it at the time.
Maybe I was being unfair. As it turned out, the drivers were all tourists – the cars were a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and the Audi – but perhaps daddy had not bought them after all. Perhaps the boys were waiting for their luggage at Heathrow and they each won the cars in those raffles we have at the airports and were disturbing London because they were celebrating their good fortune.
And in which case – and in the unlikely event that any of them read this blog – I apologise.
