Emissions / Kilian Doyle: The past few days have seen me get a bit wistful for the past. Our balmy late summer has me thinking of long-gone childhood days cruising around in the back of my father's Citroën DS, with its frankly immoral curves drawing stares of envy, derision and amazement like no other car I've been in since.
In the Ireland of the 1970s, this burgundy beauty with its big ol' bug eyes and eight-foot long bonnet stuck out like a plate of pork chops at a bar mitzvah buffet.
It was in this rolling palace of a car that we spent many a youthful holiday, driving around Ireland in search of wet fields or beaches to sit on and eat "hang sangers" while gamely pretending it was infinitely preferable to being at home in front of the telly.
Despite this torment, I have fond memories of stopping at a succession of tumbledown petrol stations, all invariably manned by some old geezer, his half-wit son and assorted mangy hounds.
I had a vivid recollection of one such establishment near Holycross Abbey where I was handed a key tied to a cavity brick by a bit of baling twine, when I asked to use the toilet. "It's to stop dem nicking it," the jug-earred pump jockey who looked like an extra from Deliverance told me in answer to my quizzical look. Of course, my seven-year-old brain, frazzled by over-indulgence in red lemonade and Fox's Glacier Fruits, had visions of this poor soul running down the road to Abbeyleix chasing the mad feckers who'd driven off with his commode.
Even the truck stops, populated by immense tattooed chip-guzzlers tanked up on pints of enamel-stripping tea and caffeine tablets, had some aura of romance and mystery to them in my eyes, like these guys were the cowboys of the modern era, pushing the frontiers. I was an odd child.
Anyway, I'm all for progress, but some things are, to my nostalgic and irrational mind, sacrosanct. So it's with a modicum of sadness that one drives past the dozens of derelict, abandoned garages that litter the country.
And what are they replaced with? Acres and acres of franchised "convenience" stores, a blight of bland forecourts, strip-lighting and plastic awnings on the landscape.
Admittedly, they're practical. But they're also soulless, dehumanised and impersonal.
They're so handy, you retort. Okay, so I can get myself a double decaf cappuccino, a sun-dried tomato ciabatta, a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, a bottle of fabric softener, a tub of hair gel, 11 different types of cigar and check the balance on my Swiss bank account while filling my car with petrol - but can I get someone to wash my windscreen and check my tyre pressure? Or fix a puncture while my five hungry kids scream their heads off in the back seat? It's got so bad that in most of these joints they're more likely to offer to wax your legs than your bonnet.
Try sparking up a conversation with the spotty resentful teen behind the counter about anything other than the price of your petrol and you're liable to be arrested on suspicion of planning a robbery.
Call me a Luddite, but I just think it's a sad reflection on society that the idea of placing windscreen de-icer and baby's nappies on adjacent shop shelves is heralded as a monumental breakthrough in improving our quality of life.
So what's it to be - community or convenience? We'd better hurry up, before our Master the Car decides for us.