At The MOT Centre

There were no posts yesterday because of a very early start on account of having had to go with a documentary film crew into the Tramuntana mountains and an equally late return.


In bygone years in Ealing, West London, there was a garage just round the corner. It was run by a bloke who looked like Jack Dee. His name wasn't Jack and I can't for the life of me now remember what it was, but no matter. Jack, let's call him this, was a bit of a wide boy. He was always snappily dressed, which seemed out of place with the grime of a garage, but there were the secondhand motors to sell as well. You half expected Alexei Sayle to pop his head around an old Cortina and, in a Liverpool-Cockney accent, enquire if you had got a new motor. Not that I ever acquired a new motor from Jack. Mine was a maintenance acquaintance.

When the day would come for the MOT, the journey was short to Jack's garage. I say it was round the corner; it was more like a hundred metres away. Jack, resplendent in suit and colourful tie, would take the key and in the time it took to walk back the hundred metres, the mechanic had probably finished whatever it was he was supposed to do. I mean, you were never quite aware as to how a garage functioned, and you certainly weren't required to be present when the MOT was being conducted.

Despite his boyish width, Jack and his men never found an engine that needed replacing as a condition of passing the MOT. He was an honest broker in a garage world of scoundrels, and I presumed that the folding notes he was handed in exchange for the MOT all-clear were scrupulously earned. The MOT was a stress-free and trouble-free exercise, and it was just round the corner, to boot.

Recently, I came across an article which highlighted the stress of the local MOT test (otherwise known as the ITV test). Of things that one might compare between here and back there, the MOT test is one of the few that might be said to be more pleasurable back there. Hand over the car and the keys, and leave them to it, and, remembering with fondness Jack and his wide but strangely honest ways, I am inclined to agree.

Not, I would like to make clear, that there is anything dishonest about the Mallorcan ITV/MOT. Thoroughness may not be one of its greater virtues, certainly not by comparison with the MOT of the new-age Jacks since testing procedures were tightened up, but anything a touch dodgy is a tad difficult when you, often the car owner unless you have had the good sense to get someone else to go through the rigmarole, are part of the process.

Maybe it is a rare desire for transparency that has determined the nature of the ITV test. In a land not usually noted for its participatory ways - democratically at least, if we are to believe mostly any political party which hasn't recently been in power - the ITV positively discriminates in favour of participation. You, the driver-owner, remaining at the wheel throughout, are the star of the show. Well, almost.

Maybe there is a certain stress involved. Perhaps it stems from the regimental method of organisation: cars and their drivers in a line waiting to be called to meet the inquisitors of ignition, the examiners of emissions. Or perhaps it is as a result of a sudden hankering for Jack and for his proximity and so not for having had to drive some twenty kilometres in order to undergo this vehicular interrogation.

The inquisitor asks if I speak Spanish. Yes. Perhaps it would be advisable to play the old soldier and say no because, despite a familiarity and it being pretty obvious what is required, the nerve can desert you. Was it like this for Jonathan Trott facing Mitchell Johnson? Why would you indicate left when he has clearly said right? (This seems a fairly unnecessary check given that no one typically uses indicators.) Why, when it's the emissions bit, are you pressing the brake pedal and not the throttle? (Mitigation, it is an automatic, and instinct - for starting the engine - does rather take over.) And what's all this business with being thrown around like you were in a roller-coaster chair and not a car?

When the inquisition is over, the chain at the end of the testing lane is unchained. Why do they have one? Do they think you are going to make a bolt for it? But a sigh of relief can be expelled and then a further one when the lad in the booth does his stamping and hands over the little sticker. See you in two years time, he didn't say. Not if I can help it. What's the best advice for handling the ITV? Buy a brand new motor at least every four years.