I was crossing the Goldhawk Road the other night to do a CD buy and saw a beautiful, sixties Rover saloon. In its window was a sticker illustrated with the picture of an old HMV logo-style gramophone. The sticker text read,` 78rpm. The right speed for me.’
Now I’m not really a Top Gear man, but all the girls at home are, although they mainly just watch the races and crashes. TG just did a feature on eco driving. You go slower, save fuel, stay alive etc. I suppose it was in the interests of balance…
…fellow vinyl enthusiasts and well informed Rat cognescenti…stay with me while I put all this together…
We’re all listening to music in the car, where the format is irrelevant, right?… radio, CD, mp3 thingy, phones…I’ve got cassettes! Who’s going to break my window and nick them? I’ve even got Superfly on original cassette, and the Antipodean psych/punk compilation tape I made at school… You understand. Anyway, we’re all hunting down these interesting records; at different speeds and different sizes, with funny covers, pressing etc when we should be at work or having an adult relationship. Then we get into the car where we spend a lot of our music listening time and all we care about is the bass, not the format.
It’s a major contradiction.
Contradictions cause awkward questions.
Who wants to answer awkward questions about their own behaviour? Especially about records.
Not me.
Now, you see the two problems. Eco driving and the format contradiction. But I have a (partial) solution…
REVOLUTION SPEED DRIVING/DRIVING SPEED REVOLUTIONS.
Check it out, but don’t use it as your band name. On the motorway? In a hurry but don’t want a fine and 3 points: 78 rpm, I mean mph. Clever isn’t it? See where I’m going now… you’re in a 50 or 60 limit: 45 rpm/mph. Genius, you can’t be nicked for speeding, and you can put it in 5th and save on diesel. OK you are annoying the other drivers but your stereo sounds better because there’s less road noise…In town, 33.3 mph – yes, yes. Not really illegal but you’re getting from A to B. Superb.
You could even… MATCH THE MUSIC YOUR LISTENING TO TO MUSIC THAT PLAYS BACK AT THE SPEED YOU’RE DRIVING AT. OR DID ORIGINALLY. Like, a 45 rpm reggae singles comp CD, then a classic album (33.3), woah, the M4, a 78 rpm blues comp! Nice.
I think that should answer all your questions, except…Checking out women at 33.3 mph? Tesco car park at 33.3mph? Police car following at 33.3mph in a 30? Past your kids’ Primary school when they all burst out on microscooters and skateboards at 3.30, at 33.3 MPH! No, No, No. We have a problem. We are going too fast.
All the good Freudians amongst you know that answers can be found with reference to one’s own childhood….
When I was 7, I was allowed to listen to old singles (45 RPM) on a gramophone that had a lid and built in speakers. Sounded great, - loads of compression and you shut the lid for extra bass. It was really old and had been my Dads’. You set the speed with a slider switch. It would play records at 78 RPM, 45 RPM, 33.3 RPM….AND 16.66 RPM.
Wiki/Google it. 16 RPM records. It’s true.