FOR THE QIJEEZY “

Modern motorists enjoy all ” mod. cons.” When they intend to change direction, indicators or winkers proclaim the fact. When they desire to have music or the news or cricket scores a radio gives it to them. If they feel cold a heater can be turned on. When they open a door at night invariably the car’s interior is flooded with light. Already in some cases the gears are changed for them, the effort of steering is lightened and the tyres cannot puncture. Feelers tell if the vehicle is being steered into a kerb, a blue light reminds the owner that the headlamps are full-on, and if the driver troubles to glance into the rear-view mirror as likely as not the reflection of a dolly or a restless dicky-bird will be there to comfort him. Electrically-warmed gloves can he plugged to the battery and television is round the corner if not already mounted in front of the back-seat occupants.

All this adds up, you would think, to very pleasant motoring, but if the motorist suffers from a queezy stomach all is, as the Bard said, undone. In a scientific age this ill is laid less at the door of chocolate éclairs and fishcakes. What Causes the trouble, they tell us, is static electricity generated by the action of the tyres on the road as the car rolls. This, again they tell us, can be cured by dangling an earthing chain from the vehicle, like they used to do front steam wagons and still do from petrol tankers.

Dangling chains are unsightly and wear out, so to help those with tidy minds but less tidy stomachs, Tricol Ltd., of 66, Offiey Road, The Oval, London. S.W.9, have introduced the ” Earth-a-Car,” which is a flexibly-mounted wire-brush affair. Our youngest child had to he persuaded that it does not do its job by being thrust down the throat or anywhere else—in fact, simple fittings are included for attaching it to the car’s exhaust-pipe so that it makes intermittent contact with the road and acts as a thoroughly efficient conductor of the dreaded static electricity.

Claimed to cure headaches as well as nausea and to be capable of being fitted in 60 seconds to any make of car, the ” Earth-a-Car ” is priced at a modest 12s. 6d.—W. B.