Getting stung by stretch limousines

ACCORDING to the scientists bees might be on the brink of extinction but I have absolutely no worries for wasps. They have no purpose other than stinging people.

Usually these pesky creatures go straight to the top of my annual chart of summery things I find immensely annoying, but for the first time since I got stung on a camping trip a decade ago they've been knocked off the top spot by a type of vehicle you can't move for at this time of year.

Stretch limousines.

If you've been out on the roads over the past few weeks you might have seen them out and about, and in isolation they're harmless enough, but stuffing them with noisy Prom night students and then sending them out in fleets of three or four at a time is about as sensible as unleashing a herd of elephants into a city centre. Both are noisy, excessively large and somehow - although I know I'm going to get a bit of stick for saying it - just not suited to Britain's crowded highways and byways.

More than once I've got stuck behind one of these things in either Ormskirk or Southport town centre when the driver realises he's taken a wrong turning, and needs to perform the sort of three point turn which would take but a femtosecond in the miniscule machines us non-limo drivers are used to. But in a Ford Excursion the size of Florida, the manouvere seems to take the rest of time.

When everyone keeps telling us to buckle down and get ready for an age of austerity, manouvering around town centres in a Hummer that's thirty feet longer than its creators intended just smacks of the slightly cheesy consumption you only ever get on hen/stag nights and high school prom nights, which ironically seem to provide most of today's stretch limo passengers. You don't look like Lady Gaga getting out one of these things. You like someone who's wasted their money.

If you need to flash the cash, go for a Jag, a Rolls or anything that doesn't need an aircraft runway to turn in. If you need to carry lots of people somewhere, hire a minibus.

If anything had to be on the endangered species list, I'd rather it be limos than wasps.