‘We’re going to get lots of negative attention from environmentalists,’ he cackled, great puffs of blue-grey smoke emerging from the exhaust of his two-stroke car. Will Self was crossing Tower Bridge in a Trabant, that most potent symbol of the East German socialist state, bending almost double to fit himself round the steering wheel (he’s six foot five inches in his socks) and cursing the lack of wing mirrors. Things could only get worse as he and his old friend Michael Shamash set off on their 700-mile trek across the Channel to Zwickau, in the former GDR, home of the Trabant car. Imagine trying to merge on to a German autobahn in a car made of resin and cotton that has no mirrors and starts vibrating in an ‘ugly way’ as soon as you reach 80km/h.
Self was doing penance for once having insulted Shamash by mocking people of restricted growth on a BBC1 chat show: Shamash is half the height of Self.
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