David Currie

79Work took me to Wolfsburg this week, home of the German car giant Volkswagen. In a town full of VWs and Audis, Hertz therefore seemed to think that it would be amusing to give me a Peugeot. But not just any Peugeot – a Peugeot 107. This car is unbelievably small. It’s hard to see how they’ve managed to fit two doors down each side and lifting the fifth (actually just the rear windshield) revealed a hole that wasn’t even large enough to fit my carry-on suitcase! To make matters worse, as is the German fashion, it was a diesel and consequently roared like a tank whenever I attempted to accelerate. Perhaps the only benefit of its minute size is that, as I was getting blown about on the autobahn, there was still plenty of space on either side of the lane!

39Work took me to Oslo this week. Having booked the hotel at the last minute the only remaining option at the IBM rate was the Quality Hotel Mastemyr. This turned out to be some 6 miles south of Oslo so I decided to hire a car. Fortunately, Hertz decided to give me a nice Toyota Rav 4×4 as, in my attempt to find the hotel, I visited some very snowy back streets. Eventually I admitted defeat and asked at a service station only to discover I was just one mile from where I wanted to be. Having looked at the map since I still can’t work out where I went.

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