{"id":766,"date":"2008-07-28T14:34:39","date_gmt":"2008-07-28T21:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=766"},"modified":"2008-08-03T15:06:25","modified_gmt":"2008-08-03T22:06:25","slug":"a166-binatone-carrera-gps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=766","title":{"rendered":"#a166 :: Binatone Carrera GPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ENLARGE\"<\/a>Carved in Africa or India or perhaps on some island, buy<\/a> I know not where, approved<\/a> these found their way to the gift shop of Brighton Pavilion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They were lumped in mysteriously with all the other gift-shop trappings of chinoiserie<\/i>, the Chinese-design fantasy that George IV lost himself in while having Sir John Nash design his summer palace.<\/p>\n

They have a rough majesty of their own.
\n\"ENLARGE\"<\/a>This is the yin to yesterday’s yang: If you’re eschewing the tube and driving – for whatever selfish, adiposity<\/a> non-green, illness<\/a> yet eminently practical reason – the touchstone surety of a good GPS device pulls you through London’s maze of streets in a dreamlike blur.<\/p>\n

Punch in your destination address, symptoms<\/a> Wait for the satellite’s ping to put your car on a huge, intricately detailed map of the city.<\/p>\n

Go straight ahead, then after 800 yards, turn left,<\/i> she purrs.<\/p>\n

And off you go, your white American knuckles defying the horrible wrongness of driving in the right-hand seat of a car on the left-hand side of the road.<\/p>\n

After 500 yards, turn left … After 250 yards, turn left … turn left, and then turn right … Follow the course of the road …<\/i>
\n
\nThe only thing keeping your drive-right American instincts from absent-mindedly plunging you head-on into the wrong lane on a right turn is her lightly uppercrust British voice handling the really left-brain business of figuring out where you are and how to get where you need to go.<\/p>\n

Our house-swap hosts left this for us, as casually as one might leave out the coffee maker in case your guest wants a cup. Thanks to them, we’ve found our way to Stonehenge<\/a>, Windsor Castle<\/a>, Portobello Road<\/a> and Harrod’s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I dunno what they cost in London, but I lived here, I’d get one in a flash – it’s miles better than the Thomas Guide<\/a>. Except when you blow a turn and she crams you into a nasty vicious circle trying to get you back on track: Turn left, and then turn left. Turn left and then turn left. Turn left, and then turn left.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carved in Africa or India or perhaps on some island, buy I know not where, approved these found their way to the gift shop of Brighton Pavilion. They were lumped in mysteriously with all the other gift-shop trappings of chinoiserie, the Chinese-design fantasy that George IV lost himself in while having Sir John Nash design […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}