MAYBE it's time for the "Mini Bonus". No, not a smaller remuneration package for bankers. A limited-edition vehicle, made at Cowley, in a bad, black metallic finish. The perfect city runaround, for everyone who got the runaround from the city.
The news that Mini has gone from 60 to 0, financially, is a shock. Clearly some kind of stimulation for this car market is needed. Not money, but more imaginative models and features. The vital questions are: who needs Minis? And what will make them
buy one? To find the answers, let's look at consumer products doing well in this recession.
Frighteningly, top of the list is Kentucky Fried Chicken. So, do they deliver and, if so, would they need a fleet of cars, an order which would effectively be a bucket of wing mirrors? An order of that size would surely boost Mini's fortunes, though its reputation may take a battering.
What else is doing well in these tough economic time? ASOS, the online fashion chain for women. And so we arrive at the 'lady car' market – Mini has traditionally done well here – and we think about what else women may want. Well, then: diffusion designer ranges always work well, so how about 'Minis by Cath Kidston', a limited edition? 'Minis by Prada', with a little red tag on the wheels? 'Ugg Minis', with cosy comfortable sheepskin seats? It's actually surprising no-one has done this yet.
If not, then patterned cars? The 'Mini Pretty', a car with a floral exterior? Very this season. Or a retro option like the 'Mini 80s'? This would have blusher stripes down the side.
More female-friendly suggestions include: selling Minis in department stores, so one doesn't need to go to hair-ruining garage forecourts where mood-ruining men in shiny suits will patronise.
Or the 'Diet Mini': it doesn't have a spare tyre. Having as standard in every Mini a satnav that asks how you are when you turn it on.
How about equipping all Minis with registration plates which, like all other PIN numbers in modern life, you could reconfigure to something more memorable. The DVLA would still know you as your dull issue number, but your actual plate would read CheekyCocktailGirl, so when anyone asked you for it, you would know it without furtively glancing at the key.
And if women feel the Mini is the vehicular version of being expected to be Size Zero, we could ditch it entirely and bring back the Maxi. Made at Cowley, of course. One way or another, we women have within our purses the power to save British car heritage and jobs. Shoulder to the wheel. The floral alloy wheel.
Le fish and chips à la Ramsay?GORDON RAMSAY has been accused of making "photocopier food". The comment has come from a French restaurant critic, following reports that the Michelin Guide will award two prestigious stars to Ramsay's restaurant in the Trianon Palace hotel at Versailles, which opened last year. Le pundit called Ramsay's food the "cuisine of duplication" and described the restaurant as "boring and pompous".
On my one visit to Ramsay's (now defunct) Glasgow restaurant, I, too, encountered a staid atmosphere. At adjacent tables were youngish Glasgow grandmothers wearing lilac satin – it was terribly golf club. But the food was exquisite.
I've long said Ramsay should open takeaways, offering stonebass and chips with tarte tatin to go.
It would probably be called "The F-off", meaning food "for the off". Seems right for these recessionary times. And if Ramsay does do well in France, will a TV series follow, called "The M word"? Not based on a favourite French swear word, but "m" for manger. To eat. Bien sûr.
• AS HMS Vanguard returned to the Clyde earlier this week, I couldn't help think of the unique nature of the encounter it had with that French submarine. Much has been written about the barely believable proximity of the subs in the Atlantic, the sheer foolishness of being blithely unaware that it wasn't a dolphin, not to mention the potential danger of a nuclear prang. It has not yet been noted that this was an encounter between something from Scotland and something from France which actually left both sides bruised.
The full article contains 722 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
