Lewis seems to be able to act as well as being an F1 champion. Let’s just hope he fails to become a celebrity chef as well this year

Over the Christmas holiday I made some progress on the case of the Ferrari California’s non-cooperative voice recognition system. In doing so I met a very interesting French gentleman who introduced a miniature battery-powered model helicopter, controlled from an iPhone and fitted with a mini-cam.

It was such fun, and imagine the possibilities if it had a trigger system to scramble it when prompted by an intruder alarm. Even without carrying armament, it should scare off most burglars as it buzzes menacingly overhead. But back to the California…

This man had been involved in the system’s development and was able to explain that it was an early version of the system, and that consequently the most useful tip for persuading the voice recognition to operate is to make the name as long as possible. So the solution is only to call your friends who have long names or titles. Apparently ‘His Grace, the Duke of Canvey Island’ should work perfectly well, whereas ‘Ronnie Kray’ or ‘Jedward’ will cause confusion and failure. Ferrari has created a system with built-in snobbery. Goodness knows what Rolls-Royce’s system does.
 
The other point of interest this month was to observe that Mustique has begun to embrace the electric vehicle. Interesting, because if ever there was a good opportunity to attempt a complete switch (ho ho), this island could provide the perfect test bed. It’s only two miles by one, which would be a manageable size, and I did a check on the mileage we did over a couple of weeks. In theory, many of the new entirely electric cars could manage the 120-odd miles on a single charge. Certainly, at the speeds achievable by the Tesla I drove last year, you could probably manage double that.

Recharging would be easy, as apart from the villas themselves there could be points at the three main beaches and three main bars. That’s about all you need as I don’t believe anyone on the island goes for more than 24 hours without stopping for a drink.
 
Speeds could be easily controlled and so could the size of the vehicles. The island’s narrow tracks inhibit speeding and are already too narrow to allow the regular vehicles – usually small 4x4s, which are beginning to replace the incredibly noisy and uncomfortable two-stroke mules – to pass easily.
 
I also like the opportunity to revisit the concept of being able to add that audio warning facility in such an idyllic environment. Perhaps Joanna Lumley’s voice repeating ‘Excuse me – coming through’ or even ‘I’m terribly terribly sorry old boy, but I’m a bit drunk so if you could just remind me of the way home I’d be so grateful…’ And all this in three or four languages.

Electric vehicles have made an appearance in the Mustique transport system but, perhaps due to the rough terrain, or perhaps because of a particularly persuasive salesman, the carriage of choice is particularly odd. A cross between a Disneyland ride and something I imagine a ladyboy in some Far Eastern city might use instead of a rickshaw, it requires an absence of taste to be seen in one.

Talking of Teslas, I loitered through the TAG Heuer exhibition in Geneva recently. To complement the watches they had a magnificent display of cars, including Fangio’s Mercedes W196 plus others illustrating a brief history of Formula 1, as well as the Tesla electric car that the company had taken on an around-the-world trip. Various luminaries had driven the car on sections of the trip, which should ensure good residual value when it is described in the sales brochure as the ex-Leonardo di Caprio, Prince Albert and Sir Stirling Moss car.

There were two other highlights. One was viewing the extraordinary concoction of film depicting Lewis Hamilton and Steve McQueen racing each other at Le Mans (type both their names into the YouTube search engine to find it). It’s only slightly irritating that Lewis seems to be able to act as well as being an F1 champion. Let’s just hope he fails to become a celebrity chef as well this year.

And finally for all those horlogerie enthusiasts out there, TAG Heuer is making something called the micrograph. Watch bores can easily outperform trainspotters and petrolheads in the Temazepam substitute stakes, but this is something different. It has a rotating second hand that revolves at a second a revolution. You really can see your life dribbling away in front of your eyes, and after ten seconds or so it’s like a session with Paul McKenna. I think I was still convinced I was a teapot as I climbed onto the plane to get home.

NICK MASON

Pink Floyd’s drummer and a great car enthusiast, Nick has raced classic and modern cars for the last 30 years and has written two books: one on cars, Into the Red, and one on his version of the history of Pink Floyd, Inside Out.