I may be the wrong woman to judge, after all, the closest I've ever come to having a flash car is owning a Red Ford KA - red cars are faster, right? - but if Manchester City footballer Stephen Ireland was my boyfriend, I'm not sure I'd be that delighted to discover he'd spent nearly £300,000 buying me a car for my birthday.

It's not that I would object to having that kind of money spent on me, it's rather more that spending a six-figure sum on a pimped up car seems like an essentially boyish thing to do. It just doesn't seem imaginative or empathetic. It's like instead of asking himself what his girlfriend really wants, Ireland has just gone for the Premier League equivalent of Homer buying Marge a bowling ball for her birthday.

With £300,000 I could pay off the mortgage, treat myself to some expensive make-up, a whole new wardrobe, a decent motor and long holiday in Barbados. And let's face it, what's the likely resale value of a garishly done up Bentley with "To Jess, Love from Stephen" stitched into every seat? I'd rather diamond earrings, any day.

Call me cynical, but premiership footballers aren't usually of the unerringly faithful breed. If Stephen were to ditch me or cheat on me, I suspect the enormous car would put men off. Aside from that it would look decidedly silly parked in front of my modest little terraced house. Being worth 30% more than the value of my home, it would hardly make me look prudent either. I would feel like the CoverGirl for flippant excess.

Yes, perhaps I am being cynical. Maybe it truly is a gorgeously romantic gesture. Sure she's going to have to fork out a hefty sum for her car insurance, but at least the gift will, according to a friend of the couple, do what counts and infuriate the other Wags, "He's thought of absolutely everything. The other soccer Wags will be jealous for sure when they see Jess cruising around."

Image © >wouter< vis Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence

# posted by Fuse @ 7:58 AM 0 Comments

I recently saw an article in The Times entitled 26 reasons to be glad its autumn and far be it for me to criticise, but some of their 'reasons' struck me as a little lame - all apart form the black tights, really - I mean "N is for Nail Polish"! Honestly,any self-respecting female driver out there knows nail polish is for Christmas Day, birthdays and weddings only, so it is not, by rights, an autumn thing at all.

And with this in mind, here at CoverGirl we had a quick think about 'winter wonders' and came up with our top five cold weather treats (we don't have quite as much time to spare as the Times' journalist - we're busy with cheap women's car insurance, naturally).

Wintery reasons to be cheerful
5. TV scheduling - We don't care which camp you're in, but Strictly Come Dancing and X-Factor are a Godsend for those dreary winter weekends when you can't be bothered to fight through the rain to go to the pub, club or cinema. And if you do go out - you can always watch the dancing/singing hopefuls strut their stuff again, at your leisure, on a PC.

4. No more fake tanning - Ok, so it almost goes hand in hand with the black tights issue, but summer mornings are blighted with daily applications of your 'hint of a tan' generic moisturiser, so winter comes as welcome relief as it's officially good to be pale in November.

3. Candles - Copious candlelight every night is good for warmth and cosiness in the CoverGirl compendium of winter wants.

2. Long hot bubble baths - with candles, of course - need we say more.

1. Hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles - ooh er! And with winter food and drink treats firmly in mind, thank goodness also for baggy jeans and big check shirts to cover the cold weather pounds you might just put on.

Yes, Hooray for Winter and all its joy.

Image © Between a Rock via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence

Labels: cheap women's car insurance, female driver, treats, winter

# posted by Fuse @ 8:19 AM 0 Comments

If you have caught yourself drifting off at the wheel late at night, you wouldn't be alone. Falling asleep at the wheel is one of the biggest causes of car accidents and despite government campaigns to target sleepy drivers; it is still a major problem, especially on the motorways.

However, the invention of the SmartCap could change all this and they could even become standard wear for truck drivers if they prove a success.

With clever brain-scanning technology, the SmartCap detects when you're falling asleep by reading your brainwaves. If it thinks the driver is getting sleepy, it sends a message to a computer screen in their cab, which flashes an alert, warning them to take a rest.

Whether this is some made up fantasy invented to catch out the gullible like myself, or whether it is actually a real invention, the SmartCap could prove a brilliant invention. However, for it really to be a success it would need to be brought out in different styles and colours so that you could coordinate it with whatever you were wearing.

# posted by Fuse @ 3:57 AM 0 Comments

According to a survey, 88% of female drivers give their car a name compared with less than half of male drivers. This news doesn't really come as much of a surprise given that all my female friends' cars have names compared with only a sprinkling of my male friends.

However what I have noticed is the difference in the types of names that each sex will go for. While us women tend to stick to rather cutesy names like 'Kitty the Ka' which embarrassingly was the name of my first car, men on the other hand like to go for more ironic or comical names like 'the shed' or 'the beast.'

Swear words also often seem to be at the forefront of male motorists' choice of car names. A male colleague's car has a name so offensive that it can't be repeated and I know of several others who have chosen names that some might deem rather derogatory towards women.

Number plates also prove good sources for picking names for cars. My partner's new car has become known as 'the black goat' thanks to a registration plate including the sequence 6OTE and the black colour of his car.

Shockingly, writing this blog has made me realise that my new car is still in need of a name. As a Corsa it should by default be called something beginning with 'c' like Clarissa or 'Cora' however until I think of something more original, I will have to stay within the 18% minority.

# posted by Fuse @ 1:17 AM 0 Comments