18 Dec 07
That said, I've not given up on paper maps entirely. The big family holiday in the summer was done without sat nav but with the benefit of some proper Michelin maps and a very fine Michelin book called Camping France 2007. It has details of campsites, divided up by region, and enough maps to get you there. It also tells you which proper map to go to if you want more detail.
Using a good book like this gives great flexibility and 100% portability - no need to switch anything on, or reboot anything, or zoom in. But it does feel like the days of paper maps and guidebooks are numbered.
From a tech success to a tech failure: the Roomster's headlights went haywire while deputy editor Farah AlKhalisi was driving in Sussex. The lights started flashing at random, which is at least annoying and at most highly dangerous. So even though she wasn't far from home Farah did the decent thing and stopped in a pub car park, with a handy pub attached. Even though she turned the engine off, the lights carried on strobing uncontrollably.
'What an odd little car,' said the guy from the RAC, who turned up impressively quickly. Any ideas about the cause of the flashing? 'I've never seen anything quite like this before,' he said, before removing the fuse and relay for the full-beam circuit so Farah could get home.
While the Roomster was off with Skoda for an investigation into the fault, Farah had time to speculate. 'There had been rattles and squeaks from behind the dashboard for some time, making me suspect there was some loose trim there somewhere. The Roomster's large glass areas also seem to be susceptible to misting up, with heavy condensation on the inside of the windscreen now it's got colder, so perhaps damp has crept in and got to the electrical circuitry.'
Skoda's technicians fixed the problem by replacing a fuse and a lighting relay.
