In 200 yards make a decision. Now turn around when possible

The last time I was here was February and I still smoked (see days 4-6). Thank god I quit when I did because after the journey I had yesterday nobody would blame me if I had smoked one hundred cigs back to back. The comedy of errors that occurred within a simple journey from Glasgow to a place just outside Liverpool was quite simply unbelievable.

The task was straight forward. Pick up a hire car at my work in Glasgow and travel 200 or so miles to an office in a place called the Wirral near Liverpool and work from there in the afternoon. Driven legally the journey should take around 4 hours and I planned it to take a wee bit less but not much as I was travelling in work time. 80% of the journey involved pretty much one motorway (freeway to our US and Canadian readers)then, as the destination approached there were two changes of junction before finally a wee bit of town driving. This is not one of life's more difficult journeys and is one that I've done before although only once.

My exact instructions for the return journey are: take the third exit at the first two roundabouts, go straight following signs for m53, take the m53 south (that's the only confusing bit because you would think you want north), go to junction 11 and take the junction to the m56 go to junction 9 and take the m6. that is the whole journey including town driving. So how did things go so wrong on the way down? Let me describe my day....

Arrived at work in Glasgow at 7.55. Car was not booked till 9 and hadn't been delivered so went to the office. When the car still wasn't there at 9 I called the rental company who had delivered it to the wrong location. Eventually got the car around 10am and it was about 10.30 by the time it was checked over and good to go.

First mistake.
I haven't even looked at a map nor do I intend to. If you showed me a picture of the UK I genuinely couldn't put a circle anywhere near my destination because I haven't even bothered to think about where it is. I have a post code (zip code) and my wonderful iPhone has, not only satnav software, but a jailbreak app that allows you to find a point on google maps and navigate to it. Thing is I have no cradle to mount the phone to.

Because I train people for a living I do have blutack (sticky gum like stuff). The dashboard however is made of the only shiny plastic known to man that blutack wont bond to. There is just no way to balance the phone in the car. I stopped at a supermarket and got some double sided tape but still it did not stick. Eventually I managed to make a sort of blutack plinth in front of the gearstick using the phone case as a prop and got a sort of workable solution. If your thinking that you would have taken more time and found a better solution, I respect your caution but remember that this is a simple journey with only four or five instructions. The blutak solution should be fine...although the GPS reception is ropey even at the start.

Motoring
There are high winds and driving rain as I leave Glasgow and it looks set to be a wild journey. Within about 50 miles however we've gone from full beam headlights and fast wipers to no lights or wipers. It's a fine start.

There's a football game between a Glasgow team and an English team from Manchester which means a lot of people are travelling the same route as me. I'm expecting a lot of police on the road but, for the moment at least it seams clear and I'm cruising just below 90mph. Everything is good. I'm thinking how good it is now that I don't smoke. Unless I need the toilet I wont even need to stop. Now that the phone has locked the satnav signal it seems good. All is good.

So we've started late. We started at roughly 11am instead of 9 as intended. We should still be at our destination between 2.30 and 3 depending on road conditions and police. This is OK.

Less than 10% charge, Switch Off/Ignore?

What!!!!!!!!! We're 1.5 hours in to the journey and the phone says it's going to kick it. The phone is attached to the cigarette lighter so this should NOT be an issue. I'm assuming that between blutak and using the case to prop the phone up I've somehow bumped the lighter connection out. Messing with this stuff whilst driving is dangerous and it's about break time so I start watching for signs for a service station.

Soon enough I pull off. I confidently tighten all connections only to discover that there's nothing wrong with the setup. The cigarette lighter in the hire car doesn't work. Now that is an issue. My phone has been sitting running down to critical on a part of the journey that I know like the back of my hand. The only part that I really need instruction for is still to come. This should be the end of the world but it's not. why?

Regular followers of this site will have realised that I am a geek. I'm a resourceful geek that loves technology. I'm a resourceful geek that loves tech and that has a phone that can be charged via a PCs USB port. How is that useful? Well in my car I actually have two PCs. I have my netbook with about an hour to an hour and a half of charge and I also had a company laptop with two to three hours worth. Having no cigarette lighter may be an emergency to you amateurs but a pro geek like me? ... get over it, problem solved.

Before you even ask, yes I have a USB connector in my pocket (and you thought I was just pleased to see you...). Connected up, running, back on the road, problem solved. For precisely five minutes until... the net book went to hibernate mode and the iPhone was back to critical. Doh!!!! Idiot! I stop again five miles or so further on and disable the hibernate mode. Drive on, screen saver turns out to disable charging. Stop again. Disable every power saving attribute and start again. Now the iPhone is at 2% battery. This is where that clever little phone becomes a liability.

For about 10-15 miles it struggled along trying to charge itself and find a GPS signal. Then my wife sent a text to see if I was there yet. Well I wasn't there yet because the car was late and I had stopped three times for the satnav plus once at the supermarket. What's more text was the final straw for the phone which simply switched off and refused to switch on again. Charging, finding a GPS location and trying to handle a text was obviously just too much for a phone that only had 2% charge. i later discovered that it had also downloaded email and face book messages. It should be possible when the phone is already low to stop all this but it isn't. Even if it was would you know you had to? The journey now starts to become a farce.

So the satnav is dead. What's more, even though the netbook isn't doing anything I've disabled the power saving options so it's beginning to get a low battery. Panic sets in. I'm stopping yet again and this time it's to buy a map. Holy shit. I'm going to have to work out where I am and then write out instructions step-by-step to where I'm going. I haven't done this in years. I'm a geek and had satnav on my phone way before such things were common. In all honesty it's years since I used a map. I buy some huge special offer price map of the entire country and retreat to the car to study it. It doesn't help that my two thirty deadline wont be happening now. Three doesn't seem all that certain. If I can make 3.30 then there is still some point but it's not what I set out to do.

I sit and look at the map. In a stress free environment it was actually not too difficult to I identfy what needed to be done. This was not a stress free environment. After 5 minutes or so however I did figure out the basics. I worked out that I had three main pieces of info. Junction 20A on the M6 was key. Can't remember what the next junction was but I wrote it down and then junction 2 I think on the M53. If I dd that I would be awfully close (within ten miles) and I'd give my contact a call for local directions.

Completely Rational
It's worth saying that at this point I'm angry, I'm late but I'm behaving like a reasonable adult. Remember this because I'm about to lose it. I could murder a cigarette despite the fact that I haven't smoked in over six months. That said even a cigarette wouldn't help at this stage because the cigarette lighter is broke. I have directions. This is like a plan B and I'm capable of making them work. They are not difficult. So what goes wrong next is the result of a rational adult behaving like a complete imbecile. I'm not looking for forgiveness or understanding for the upcoming stupidity.

As I get perilously close to junction 20A the iPhone comes back to life. Attached to the netbook it has managed to increase charge from 2% to 6%. Hallelujah. This is how I had intended to navigate and now it is possible. At least it will be if I can log into the phone with my pass code. Reason has now left me. A reasonable person would got to junction 20A then take the first service station and stop and reprogramme the phone. No sir not me. Do not ever do what I'm about to describe please. The netbook is on the passenger seat. The phone is attached by an irritatingly short USB cable. I'm stressed and doing 90mph. What you don't want to hear is that I'm now using my left hand to try and punch a pin code into a phone. Then I'm selecting satnav, recent destination, address, navigate. As I risk life and limb (and other road users) the phone proceeds to carry out the required tasks. As I watch this process I completely fail to notice the car pass junction 20A. SHIT. I have no choice now but to go to junction 19 (some way on).

Turn around when possible
I come off at 19. Thank Christ the satnav works because now I have no clue where I am or where I'm going. A stern English woman's voice keeps telling me to 'turn around when possible'. Well it's not fucking possible'. This is a busy 60mph road and it may not be possible to turn for some time. At last a roundabout and an opportunity to turn which I take. 'Low battery iPhone switching off'. We're not even back on track and we've lost the Satnav again. In a moment of clarity I get back to the motorway, don't ask me how but I get on the M56 and even recognise a familiar stretch of road. The phone is off and I'm looking for junction whatever from my Bit of paper. I'm frazzled but I'm going the right way. 3pm and even 3.30 are now out of the question but, at a stretch I could maybe make 4. I'm at my wits end but I'm on route so I will get there.

If you always do what you always did, You'll always get what you always got. We're approaching junction 9 (or whatever I had written down). The iPhone wakes up. I once again try to log in whilst driving too fast. It logs in. I connect. It tells me that the junction I'm looking for is not the best. I pass the junction I have written down. The satnav switches itself off for low battery. Once again I'm on my own.

I simply cannot describe how this feels at this point. Even a 4pm arrival is beginning to look unlikely. I know I'm not far but I'm struggling to identify where I am. The iPhone is dead so its not just no satnav I also have no phone. The twentieth century was not designed to cope with this scenario. You couldn't make it up. The netbook has also now died as has my brain.

Necessity is the mother of invention
I find a pub car park. Out comes the company laptop. After 15 mins connected to the laptop the iPhone has sufficient charge to switch on. I try to phone my contact on site for help. My wife tries to call me. The iPhone dies. 15 minutes I have to wait again till sufficient charge returns to make the call. I could have went to the bar to make a public call but I've no idea how that works in this day and age.

With friends like this who needs enemies?
I'm at my wits end. I'm actually beginning to believe that the iPhone and the roads are out to get me. What I need now is a calming influence that will: Direct me back to the motorway and give me the simplest possible directions to where I'm going. What I need now isn't necessarily the quickest route but the easiest. What I don't need is directions that include 'at the third roundabout where you're at the side of the motorway take a right at the lights where the ford garage used to be and follow that to the next roundabout. If you see a hospital on your right you've gone too far in which case.....'.

With less than 20 miles to go I seriously was considering turning around and going Back to Scotland. There comes a point where it is actually nobler to concede than to continue. Unfortunately, or in this case fortunately, I've never found that point. As I followed the instructions over the many roundabouts the satnav kicked in with its last gasp of life. Between what was written and what the satnav gave me before it again died I finally reached the hotel at about 4.55.

My colleague had come over to meet me so I didn't even get checked in to my room but it's amazing the effect that stopping driving and getting a pint of Guinness had.

I actually feel slightly stressed just describing that journey. The thing is that I made the journey because, the following day, I had to pilot a training course that we hadn't finished designing for the first time. Believe it or not inventing a course in front of a slightly hostile audience was less stressful than the journey to get there. I'm pleased to say all went well.

Non Smoking Rooms
Last time I stayed at this hotel smoking was a problem. I either had to walk a fair distance to find a door to stand outside or risk hanging out my window over the car park to smoke. The window also carried the additional risk of a £75 charge if caught. Ironic then that the room I have now as a non smoker has french doors on to a private patio....

Go figure.

More to follow

TQ