5/9 Brought the car to its first New York State inspection. Being fifty-five and doing this for the very first time must come across as quite odd. Also, the similarity between US car dealerships seems to be greater than between German car dealerships. It is about as individual as a train station. The mild, knowing friendliness of my grey-haired service advisor seemed to transcend that dealership, and so did the jokes between him and another grey man, a customer, who had come to pick up his car.

It seems to be the longest period of never-ending rain in living memory, yet it has barely been twenty-four hours. Those were the first twenty-four hours during which the newly-assembled charger lay outside in the mud and had to prove its water-proofness.