UFOs and car stops and fog, oh my!
I was round at a mate's house watching a TV programme about UFOs, and electrical things going odd and car engines stopping because of powerful magnetic fields from them. It was a gloomy, misty night - just the right sort of night for a mystery...

The programme finished, and I headed off home in my rusty trusty Volvo 340. It was about 9:30 at night, and I realised that if I took a single-track road shortcut over the moors (ooooh!) I'd just be able to catch the Chinese in the next town before it shut.

So off I went, and as I climbed a steep hill I noticed that my headlights were flickering. Bright, then normal. A few seconds later, it would do it again, bright, then normal. Hmm. Well it's too dark and misty to do anything about it now. Let's just turn the radio up and press on.

The revs dropped as I climbed the hill, and then as I cogged it down from 4th to 3rd, the engine cut out completely - as did the lights, the radio, the CB, in fact *everything*. You know the phrase "deafening silence"? Not so much as the ticking of the clock on the dashboard. No electrics. Dead.

After a couple of moments I popped the bonnet and tightened the battery terminals, thus relegating the mystery to the realms of the entirely explicable ("oh that's tight enough, I'll nip it up later...") I still didn't hang about on the way home.

Length? About 18 miles, the second half of which passed in an adrenaline-fuelled blur.

(Edit: yes, I did make it to the Chinese in time.)
(gordonjcp, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 11:47, 2 replies)

Chinese
Did you make it to the Chinese in time?
(paulwoody, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:52, closed)

I was concerned
That you wouldn't make it in time. Yay!
(Aruu does not put all her trust in root vegetables., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 19:09, closed)