I love cars, always have. And driving. I would describe myself as a petrolhead although maybe not in the accepted sense of the word. I'm not into supercars or Formula 1, probably because I'm not remotely competetive. What I like is normality, attainablity, but it's got to be right. Being a Virgo it's all in the details. Walking back to my own car after a stint in the studio is something of a guilty pleasure for me as I nosily peer into the parked cars I pass. I play a little game with myself - which of these cars would I most like to own? Considering the amount of new cars on the road you might expect me to hypotheically drive off in the late plate BMW 3 Series, the gleaming Golf GTI or Range Rover Sport. But typically I take the late 1990's Volvo V70 as long as it had the five cylinder engine - petrol or diesel, I don't mind in this particular scenario. It just looks the most inviting that day.

On last week's Cheese & Biscuits I decided you'd all benefit from knowing my car history, well, a fraction of it. I intended to give a run-down of the first nine cars I owned but predictably only got as far as number seven - it's a busy show. So for anyone who's interested I've listed them below.  

Next week - Star Wars! As I'm still pre-recording the show please contribute anything in a retro Star Warsy theme in advance via tim@biscuittim.com or comment below. Be as nerdy as you like, you're amongst friends!

Here's the 'Big Nine'.

1) Morris Marina 1.3 Super 4dr Saloon 1974 - First car I ever owned. Sticky seats when hot (due to 'vinylite' material, no other reason)

2) Fiat Uno 1.1 60 S 4dr 1985 - Interesting switchgear!

3) Rover SD1 3.5 V8 SE 1983 - Executive, loud and in gold! Handy 'Ice Compartment' in glovebox thanks to water getting in over winter. Fun while it lasted, which wasn't long.

4) Ford Cortina Mk III (Square Headlight facelift) 1.6 XL 4dr Saloon 1973 - Motoring simplicity in 'Olympic Blue' (after the Rover). One of my favouritest cars EVER!

5) Ford Cortina MK V 1.6 Crusader 4dr Saloon 1981 - Blue with one brown door. Scrapped after driveshaft fell off on M1 complete with Chinese takeaway in boot. Awful.

6) Volvo 360 2.0 GLT 3dr 1983 - This one goes in my favourites list too, quite fast, comfortable and very safe. It even had windscreen wipers on the headlights - the left one worked! Really don't know why I've never bought another Volvo since.

7) Ford Sierra 2.0 Ghia Injection Hatchback Auto 1988 - Was great while it ran well but transmission fluid leak forces sale hence £500. Learned later that buyer gave fake details when the police turned up on my doorstep to inform me car was found burnt out on a roundabout. Hope it was nothing to do with transmission fluid leak which I didn't actually mention at time of sale. I sleep better at night imagining it was used in a bank job.

8) Alfa Romeo 33 1.5 Boxer 1990 - When I bought this car there was a fault warning light on the dash. When I sold it there were six. I didn't even know what they all meant. When it was in a good mood this car was awesome to drive, sadly this was seldom the case.

9) VW Golf MKII 1.6 GL 1988 - There is really nothing to say about this one, the fact that I traded my Alfa in for it speaks for itself!

Them's was the days when you'd go and see a car on the basis of a lineage ad in the local paper, wasn't it exciting!

Thanks for reading and happy retro motoring!

BT

Hi. Thanks for finding your way to my blog, please stay even if it was just an accident. Here's where my thoughts will appear as words on a page, which could result in either a short blog or the threat of arrest! Will try and limit it to stuff relating to my radio shows and website but who knows, I may decide to spout forth on politics or the economy, but it's way more likely I'll wonder out loud why you don't see white dog poos any more. (Not strictly true - I did see some the other day during my government stipulated exercise period which is what made me wonder it in the first place.) Don't be fooled by this grown up-looking format, I am a child.

The Webmaster says you can contribute too by way of comments so please do - that's kind of the point of all this really.

When the world went and caught the plague it meant that sadly the Fantasy Radio studio doors had to close, which for me and many of my radio pals means no live broadcasting currently. Don't get me wrong, I realise worse stuff than this is going on and that a lot of people are very down in the dumps right now. (Note to self, add "down in the dumps" to Dying Dictionary)

For this reason I magnanimously decided the next best thing I could do would be to pre-record Cheese & Biscuits and The Bi-Weekendly Saturday Breakfast Show at home in a bid to bring some light in to all of your lives. It's great to be able to do this but it means there can be no immediate interaction from all you crazy guys during the shows and I miss this badly. I know this sounds patronising but your contributions are fundamental to the show. I won't go as far to say I couldn't do it without you. I could, but it would be shit.

Enter Biscuittim.com! (Timothy!) For years it's been my ambition to have my very own website like all the other boys and girls. In fact I established a biscuittim.com page some time ago but it just sat there as a sort of place holder with a message saying "Coming Soon". This was a lie, it took four years.

The drive to finally have my own little piece of the internet came in a perfect storm of coronavirus and the promise of technological aid from The Webmaster. Fast-forward to now (actually, sorry to brag but my Sanyo personal stereo had a rewind button which meant you didn't have to take the tape out, turn it over and fast-forward it in order to rewind it) and we have a place to interact with the radio shows while we're not live, and when we do return to the hallowed Corn Exchange studio we can still follow up the shows via biscuittim.com. (It also had a 3 band graphic EQ).

So please consider yourselves warmly invited to suggest and request from the thoroughly sanitised sanctuary of the blog comments area or email me directly at tim@biscuittim.com

Meantime, listen out for me Monday night at Fantasy Radio 97FM  and at fantasyradio.co.uk 7-9pm and every Saturday morning  8-10am (for a hopefully limited period until Darren returns to the studio for our Bi-weekendly routine)

Next blog coming soon (or any time in the next four years)

Keep safe, see you when you're older.

BT