A Drive with Simon Darby

A Drive with Simon Darby

Simon offered to take me to the station. He seemed very keen to drive me there, and even though I first insisted I was OK walking I figured a bit of time with the man who has self titled himself Press Officer Simon Darby (Press Officer), Press Officer to the British National Party would be both interesting and enlightening.

We walked over to his car, an older model, not quite sure what. It was clearly looked after, the car was immaculate both inside and outside, despite looking dated and a little chunky, you could tell it was his pride and joy. I asked if he had an interest in older cars, he told me no, but explained this car found its way to him, but he gave no further explanation. As I looked closer, I noticed the words Darby Mobile had been painted on the back, and on the wheels, and the bonnet, in fact at just a glance I saw the words Simon Darby in at least 15 different places on just this one side of the car. As I climbed in, he walked round it three times checking it over, he then patted it on the roof and said something in a deep voice before joining me in the "Darby Mobile".

"So what do you think of the Darby Mobile?"  He asked. "She's one hell of a beast eh?" I didn't really know how to respond, the car despite being clean and tidy was dated, old fashioned inside, but not in a classic way, just in a mid 90's sort of way, it looked tacky also with red writing all over it and a big 'turbo' sticker across the wind shield. He got a check list out, which seemed unnecessary, quite a detailed check list, and wrote the time and date at the top, he then started the ignition and sat looking at the few dials a car like this has, writing things down every few minutes, this went on for about twenty minutes before he put the clip board down and announced "off we go".

We took off down the drive at a steady pace, he put on a cassette and turned the volume up so we couldn't hear each other speak, the first song was 'Shakira - Wherever, Whenever', and he sang along to every word as loud as he could, only pausing it once in a while at a climax in the chorus to shout "SIMON DARBY". When the song ended he rewound the tape and did the same again, I was beginning to worry about him as he wasn't paying any attention to driving, we were winding down country lanes and he drove through several junctions without even noticing they were there, he was completely in his own world and I saw at least three cars have to take evasive action to avoid an accident.When a car pipped him he looked up and shouted "Fuck you! You filthy immigrant! SIMON DARBY!".

When the song ended I noticed he was making engine noises as he drove, like a child with a toy car. He looked up, suddenly realising I was there, and said "shall we listen to the radio for a while, now we're all rocked out?" I nodded, how strange can listening to the radio be? At least there are sane people on the airwaves I thought, pretending not to notice he put another cassette tape in, "how's about radio 1? That's cool!" he shouted, and after come cassette noise, noise I haven't heard in a decade owing to them being obsolete, a radio 1 intro came through, but clearly already recorded on his cassette, as the date was from several weeks ago. We listened to 'No Regrets' by Dappy, which Simon seemed to be getting really into, singing along with his own lyrics.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I don't even recognise myself, 
I got the heart of a Simon Darby
But looking back at me is someone else not as cool as me!

Again this went on for a while, he rewound the tape, or radio as he put it, claiming he had radio plus, and you could rewind live radio. He sang along again, twice more, the same lyrics each time, stopping only to shout Simon Darby once every few minutes. By this point I was beginning to realise the man was completely insane.

Then a news beat came on, it was news from weeks ago. But what could I do, at least he wasn't singing now and he seemed to be paying more attention to the road which was my main concern. He started grinning, and all of a sudden the news cut to what was clearly Simon talking, with some strange keyboard sound in the background.

And now for a Radio 1 political round-up. The Conservative party have once again let the country down by opening up the floodgates for thousands of immigrants and Jews to enter the country and take all our jobs. This has led to a huge surge in support for Britain's fastest growing political party, the British National Party, who have recruited over 6000 members each day for the last week since news of this immigration scandal broke. Our political analyst.. err..Simon.. Derby.. shire.. predicts the British National Party will have 400 MP's within the week, and will soon move into Downing Street taking over the UK and returning things to the good old ways. That's it for political news, now back to radio 1.

And it cut straight into the middle of some song, which is where he turned the player off and announced "well hows about that Mr. Reporter man, you have something else to write about now, the British National Party are on the up!". I looked at him, I really didn't know what to do, we also seemed to be driving up and down the same stretch of road. He carried on, the man really didn't know when to stop "I suppose it will be a busy night back at the headquarters now recruiting all those new members, still, we're used to it!". I wondered how many times he had tried this on other people and who would actually fall for it?

We drove a little further, Simon was talking about himself and what he plans to do with his evening. Pointing to a button he said "want some fun?". The button had 'SD Mode' written on it, it was one of the those fake push-start buttons you can buy from car spares, except this one was clearly placed to enable 'Simon Darby Mode'. He slowed the car down on a straight bit of road, pulled the car down a gear and then pressed it, as he did so he screamed "SIMON DARBY" and floored it, although it made little difference, the car made a lot of noise but didn't really feel like much was happening, he slowly gathered pace, going far too fast for the road and conditions, he overtook a family cycling and beeped as he went past shouting "HIPPIES! SIMON DARBY". He was very excited, with his head perched right over the steering wheel, he only took his eye off the dial to look where he was going once in a while, I was starting to fear for my life, "Look! We're doing 55 now! SIMON DARBY", he drove clean through a junction at which point I said I'd had enough. I told him to stop the car and let me out, at first he was quite angry, accusing me of being a red, a wimp and of not being able to handle the Darby Mobile, and then he started to look at bit sad, his eyes welled up. As I got out he looked at the seat where I had been sat as if he was still imagining me, or anybody being sat there while he sang and shouted his name.

"Can I have some money for fuel please?" He asked, this seemed cheeky, considering he offered the lift, and drove me around the countryside for forty minutes, not to mention actually dropping me off further from where I needed to be. Still it had been enlightening, I gave him a twenty and shut the door. He wound the window down, marvelling at the electric windows by telling me to 'watch', he looked up and asked "is she dirty?" I told him there was a bit of mud on the sides now, "ahh, I'll get Clive to come over and clean her then". He revved the engine a few times, shouted his name and drove off. I wondered if he would ever get home alive.

And that was the end of that, although he is mostly harmless, just a bit lonely, at times I had feared for my life and would not recommend getting in a car with that man.