TO THE GUY IN THE WHITE BMW: OH YES, WE HEARD YOU, CHAMP.

It was Monday afternoon, 15:00 on the dot, and the village had settled into that peculiar post-lunch haze where time slows to the pace of an old dog with arthritis and a bowel condition. The school mums were heading home, prams squeaking, kids in tow, wielding juice boxes like hand grenades. The shopkeepers were restocking shelves with baked beans and existential dread, and I was walking back home with the kids—two backpacks, a chorus of questions, and the kind of headache you only get from simultaneous shouting and yoghurt tubes.

​The sun, that cruel deceiver, had poked its head out just enough to make you sweat in your coat and freeze in your T-shirt—a classic British weather psych-out. The air was thick with June pollen and burnt brake pads from the Lidl car park. There was peace. There was calm. There was the delicate scent of fried chicken from the kebab van drifting across the road like divine incense from a temple of questionable hygiene.

And then, like the final bowel-shaking roar of a T-rex crashing a yoga retreat, YOU appeared.

White BMW. Loud as God. Approaching the zebra crossing like you were rolling up to a private runway in Monaco. No screech, no speed—just that smug, crawling menace. And I’ll give you this much: at least you weren’t speeding. Points for restraint, even if your exhaust was going off like a fireworks display in a metal scrapyard.

Your exhaust—bless its fragile, overclocked heart—wasn’t purring, or growling, or even revving. It was detonating. A full-frontal assault on every eardrum within a five-mile blast radius. It didn’t sound tuned. It sounded angry. Like a toaster possessed by Satan. Like you were driving a landmine.

Or, more accurately, like a hippopotamus with flatulence and follow-through—a deep, gassy rumble of digestive chaos punctuated by sudden, thunderous regret.

The pigeons took off like a biblical plague. An old man dropped his 99 Flake and swore with his whole face. The dog tied outside the chippy tried to climb into a wheelie bin.

You weren’t going fast. No, that would make some sense. You were doing about 18mph, creeping through the village like a nervous burglar with a megaphone up his trousers. And every time you lifted your foot off the pedal, it went off again:

POP. BANG. POP-POP.

A symphony of artificial violence. The soundtrack to a music video nobody asked for. One imagines you imagined yourself surrounded by drones and slow-motion shots of bikini-clad admirers tossing Monster cans in your wake. But what you really had was a loose air freshener and a Bluetooth speaker that keeps disconnecting.

Let me ask, with all due sincerity and only some sarcasm: what do you think is happening? Are you under the impression we’re clapping? Cheering? Do you believe the village petrolheads are high-fiving behind hedges every time your fart cannon goes off like a Roman candle?

Because let me tell you, what you’ve got here isn’t a car.

It’s a cry for help on four wheels.

And I get it, brother. I’ve stared into the abyss of car finance and identity collapse. You’re in that golden age of twenty-something to early-thirty-something where you either develop a deep interest in IPA and woodworking or slap a “Stage 2 Remap” on a lease deal that’s bleeding you monthly. This is your power move.

Loud car = confidence.

Louder car = legend.

Except, lad, no one’s buying it.

You’re not Dom Toretto. You're not storming Monaco. You’re holding up the 301 bus and startling pensioners in mobility scooters. The sound you’ve paid good money to emulate is the same sound the rest of us associate with an appliance breaking or a gas leak in a curry house.

And let’s not forget the noble ritual of the High Street Rev. You pulled up outside Greggs like it was the Nürburgring pit lane. Left it idling—spitting carbon and bass—while you strutted in for a sausage roll and an energy drink. A young lad on a BMX nodded with the solemnity of a knight witnessing Excalibur. Everyone else silently prayed your manifold would detach and roll under a parked van.

You returned, key in hand, smirking like you’d just headlined Glastonbury, and fired that poor BMW up like you were launching the Space Shuttle.

More pops. More bangs.

The pigeons—bless their twitchy hearts—were done.

So were we.

So here’s my message to you, mate, loud and clear (which I assume is how you like things):
You are not a race car driver. You are not the main character. You are a very loud man in a very white car pretending to be fast in a very small village.

But I salute you, in a way. Because it takes a special kind of madness to spend £400 on a remap that makes your car sound like it’s breaking itself on purpose—just to impress people who are mostly trying to figure out if you’re okay.

So carry on.

Bang away.

Pop into Tesco like you’re in Need for Speed: Bishop’s Stortford Drift. But don’t be surprised when, one day, your big, bad, booming exhaust finally coughs its last wheeze—and a small child yells, “Mum, the car farted again!”

Because that, my loud friend, is your legacy.
​
And we heard every bloody second of it.