Alan The best thing at a car show is a car that moves. At Blenheim I heard a Le Mans Jaguar go past at walking pace, and then somebody from TWR asked whether I would like to sit inside the Supercat.
For years I decided the Concours of Elegance was too posh for me and never went. I was wrong about the room, wrong about the crowd, and wrong about what a blind man gets out of an event judged entirely on how things look.
CarFest moved to Silverstone for 2026, seven festivals across one enormous site over the August bank holiday. I went on the Saturday, in the rain, with a press pass and no car. The event was generous almost everywhere I turned. The barrier sat outside the gates, in a bus that runs every two hours and stops a kilometre short.
The ExCeL had solved almost everything I normally measure. Flat floors, step-free stations, staff everywhere, live commentary across the whole site. I still went home on Saturday evening wondering whether Sunday was worth the journey. What stood between me and Formula E was not the building.
I decided to go to Edinburgh with fifteen minutes to spare, and nearly regretted it by mid-morning. Then a slice of pizza, a street singer and a chainsaw-juggling unicyclist changed everything. This is what a day inside the Fringe actually felt like, cobbles, crowds and all · ~9 min read ·
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on a night when three festivals had the city at a standstill. Why the hardest part happened entirely outside the gates, what sixteen cast members gave up an hour before curtain, how it felt to be handed a serving airman’s rifle on the cobbles inside the Castle, and the reason a touch tour made the show land harder than sight alone would have done.
Read time: roughly 17 minutes.
A small country fair on a working Dumfriesshire estate, mud and rain included. Why my cane stayed in my bag for the day, how a phone camera became my only way of watching the main ring, the ownership story tucked beside a 1967 tractor, and the Highland cow that made the whole soggy afternoon worth it.
Read time: roughly 7 minutes.
A small volunteer-run museum on the site of a wartime airfield, where nothing is roped off and you can walk right up to a Meteor, climb aboard a Trident flight deck, and lose an afternoon in engines alone.
A two night city break in Prague, a fairytale city built on cobbles. How I learned the route before I left home, why the trams deserve more respect than the cars, what happened when nobody recognised my white cane, and the trick that gave me Charles Bridge and Prague Castle entirely to myself. Read Time – 12 Minutes
I spent an entire Saturday walking up and down somebody’s driveway, and covered more than seventeen kilometres doing it. Goodwood is loud, dusty, crowded and physically punishing, and it is still one of the most accessible major events I attend, because it gives you enough ways to make the day your own. The platforms were full, Future Lab defeated me, and none of that mattered by the time I found the one car I had come to see.
22 min read • Micro-case studies included