The Chinese-market Buick Enclave became Autocadeâs 4,000th model today. It wasnât planned: in fact, I had readied a photograph of the Hyundai Tiburon (RD), expecting that would be the 4,000th. But, as happens with this site, you spot something, and you want that clarified. I havenât been methodical about Autocade, everâit has always been about what took my fancy and whether my reference books on the topic were around. (After the move, a few still arenât, so fans of smog-era US cars may have some waiting before they see those increase in numbers again.)
Just as I do with each millionth page view, I thought Iâd see how the entry numbers had progressed:
December 2009: 1,000 models (21 months to first 1,000)
December 2012: 2,000 models (three years to second 1,000)
December 2014: 3,000 models (two years to third 1,000)
January 2020: 4,000 models (six years and one month to fourth 1,000)
In other words, these last 1,000 took ages, and I suspect itâs a mixture of busy-ness on other ventures and the fact that a lot of modern cars that get entered arenât that inspiring.
When many entries of new models into Autocade are of SUVs, especially Chinese ones that have little to distinguish themselves, then itâs not as fun as adding those models that youâve had some connection with from your youth. The first 1,000 were easy: I remembered many of the details (cubic capacities and prices, for instanceâI am that much of an anorak when it came to stuff from my childhood) and while I still checked with books, they didnât take that long to write. But how many of us care about the difference between the Honda Pilot and Passport, or the links between the Beijing X3, Changhe Q35, BAIC X35 and Senova Zhixing anyway?
I imagine that thereâs more editing that goes on today, too. When a current model gets entered, you just put the start of production and âto dateâ. But thereâs no guarantee weâll revisit that page when the car ends production; and often thereâs no announcement of the cessation anyway. Naturally with more pages on the database, the more time youâll spend editing and correcting existing content than creating brand-new stuff. Chinaâs massive boom in the late 2000s and most of the 2010s meant a plethora of models got entered, and with the market the way it is there, cannibalization of your own model lines hasnât struck some car makers as an issue yet.
Thereâs also the issue of translation: you want to go to a Chinese resource when writing about Chinese cars, and my literacy hasnât really kept up with my age.
A middle-aged man uses, in part, nostalgia to make sense of the car worldâI buy Octane and Classic and Sportscar more than Autocar and Car these daysâand while itâs easy to understand Kas, Fiestas, Focuses and Mondeos, itâs not as second-nature to utter EcoSport, Puma, Escape and Mustang Mach-E. It is no surprise to see Mercedes-Benz stick with its A, B, C, E and S pecking order, even for its SUVs (prepend GL). The next generation of motorhead will have no such issue: theyâre used to these big line-ups and where everything sits.
Iâll keep building, and there is plenty of exotica that hasnât been entered. Perhaps between those and the Chinese crossovers, it can remain interesting.
When I first wrote a satirical look back at the decade, which ran on this blog in December 2009 (on the old Blogger service, as I was helping a friend fight a six-month battle with Google to restore his blog), it was pretty easy to make up little fictions based on reality. This one, covering the decade just gone, was a different matter. No matter how you did it, often the reality would be stranger than the satire.
2010 The Australian establishment, especially large portions of its media, are shocked a woman could become prime minister. They spend her entire term telling the Australian public that this is morally wrong.
Americans decide that they needed less honesty from television, so Simon Cowell leaves the US version of Pop Idol, American Idol.
Donald Trump-hosted show The Apprentice gets its lowest ratings ever. He begins planning another show and brainstorms with his countrymen on Twitter.
Long-running shows Ashes to Ashesand Lost end with exactly the same conclusion. Frustrated at years of investment in the two shows, the Anglosphere is so turned off television that they would rather form silos on social media websites to make their owners rich. Two guys in San Francisco spot the opportunity and invent Instagram.
Jay Leno unquits The Tonight Show after discovering the $30 million per annum he made prior to leaving just couldnât sustain his car collecting hobby.
Kate loves Willy, so they get engaged.
2011 Itâs revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger does films, politics, and the family maid.
Following the example of HH the Dalai Lama, Charlie Sheen decides to impart his wisdom to the masses, gaining an extra million Twitter followers as a result. Cheryl Cole starts on the US X Factor amid much buzz, then vanishes from the show. Only her dimples remain.
Proving Apple is either a cult or a religion, Steve Jobs shrines appear all over the world after his passing. How I Met Your Mother concludes as we find out River Song is Amy Pondâs daughter.
Kate loves Willy, so they get married.
Reality is stranger
Facebook launches Timeline, but it actually doesnât work on the 1st of each month as no one there has worked out there are time zones other than US Pacific. Still no one thinks theyâre stupid. Google gets busted over its advertising preferencesâ manager, which actually doesnât stop gathering your preferences after youâve opted out from having them gather your preferences. None of the other NAI members seem to have a problem with their opt-outs. As far as I can tell, Google has been lying about its opt-out for two years, affecting millions.
2012 President Obama finally figures out that same-sex marriage would not bring about disasterâthat could safely be left to Big Tech, as it enjoys monopolies. As a result, Facebook has its IPO.
Forget 2011âs Steve Jobs shrines, Jesus got a new look in Zaragoza, thanks to a repair job. Not everyone is enamoured with the updated Jesus, but it saves the town and numerous businesses.
Prince Harry parties and brings a new meaning to ‘Las Vegas strip’. Got to have something to mark his grandmotherâs 60th Jubilee. The Hunger Games makes stars of Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth, although people over a certain age thought it was The Unger Games, a remake of The Odd Couple.
Kate loves Willy, so they expect a kid.
In the real world Malala Yousafzai kicks ass and a bullet to the head doesnât stop her. If anything, it makes her stronger and grows her reputation.
E. L. James gathers up her Twilight fan fic and puts it all into a book, called 50 Shades of Grey. Remember, this is where Boris Johnson is mayor: the London Olympics use the Kazakh national anthem from Borat. High five! Google gets busted over bypassing the âDo not trackâ setting on Iphone Safari browsers by The Wall Street Journal. Despite trying to look innocent, it stops this the same day. Several US statesâ attorneys-general decide this was such a gross violation of privacy that they fine Google a few hoursâ earnings.
2013 Jennifer Lawrence brings publicity to her new film, Silver Linings Playbook, by falling at the Oscars.
Miley Cyrus mainstreams twerking, which showed how far society had already descended. Her Dadâs âAchy Breaky Heartâ release in 1992 wasnât considered a cultural high-point at the time: the apple does not fall far from the tree.
Edward Snowden exposes mass surveillance on US citizens and even US allies. There is mass panic over the collection of data and the private sector pushes back, ensuring encryption of usersâ private information ⊠actually, nothing happened, and the NSA continued with its data collection while the Obama administration charged Snowden with a crime and tried to extradite him from Russia, where he had more freedom of speech.
HM Queen Elizabeth II evens things up with Helen Mirren by winning a BAFTA for playing HM Queen Elizabeth II.
Kate loves Willy, so they have a kid.
In the real world RIP Nelson Mandela.
2014
Ellen Degeneres broke Twitter with a selfie, but since everyone knew why, no one recalls if the fail whale went up.
The world got a reminder not to upload private stuff to the cloudâas celebrities found out the hard way when their intimate pics were leaked. En masse, the world stopped uploading images to the cloud and to social media while they waited for Big Tech to fix things with their privacy ⊠actually, nothing happened, and people uploaded more photos, in the hope that hackers would find them and release them.
Scotland decides to stay part of the Unionâfor now. Of course they could trust London not to do something silly like leave the European Union.
Bill Cosby makes Mel Gibson look respectable.
Jay Leno decides heâs made enough for his car collecting hobby and leaves The Tonight Show, though he might still unquit. Watch your back, Jimmy.
Kate loves Willy, so they expect another kid.
In the real world Youâve heard of the website You Park Like a C***? An American exchange student in Tübingen wanted to be featured on Youâre Stuck in a C***. RIP Robin Williams, one of the funniest actors on Earth.
2015 Volkswagen, trying to outdo its links to Nazism and allegations of labour relationsâ corruption, recalls tens of millions of diesel vehicles to see how far its brand would stretch. The US plans to fine VW way more than Ford or GM when they cheated on emissions, because, foreign.
Donald Trump hits on an idea for a new reality show where he runs for president. Casting begins.
Steve Harvey named the wrong winner at the Miss Universe pageant. At this point, being âHarveyedâ is a fairly innocent term.
Jon Snow is very much alive and continues fronting the news on Channel 4.
Kate loves Willy, so they have another kid.
2016 The Chicago Cubs win the World Series, as detailed in Greyâs Sports Almanac. In November, the unthinkable happens: Wellington has a massive rainstorm, followed by an earthquake that triggers a tsunami warning, followed by flooding and extreme fog that leave the city cut off from the rest of the country. Summer would be called off while citizens figured out what to do. The UFO invasion does not take place, though with local body elections, certain candidates were replaced by replicants.
Kate loves Willyâand Harry loves Meghan. Not a bad way to mark HM the Queenâs 90th birthday.
In the real world The UK votes to leave the European Union: Nigel Farage is overjoyed, but Boris Johnson and Michael Goveâs body language and facial expression reveal their dismay, and their words donât match. I discover first-hand that Facebook is forcing downloads on people with the guise of âanti-malwareâ, even though this claim is dubious, and Facebook admits data are transferred back to the mother ship. I spend two years finding a journalist with the guts to write about it. Potentially millions have already been affected stretching to the beginning of the decade.
RIP David Bowie.
2017 With the approval of the US audience, a massive, multi-channel series débuts, starring Donald J. Trump. It shows a dystopian America that elects a game show host its president, and warns us what can follow. This four-year experiment is expected to culminate in 2020 with an election special, which determines the seriesâ fate for a renewed batch of episodes.
Kendall Jenner can do anything. She can solve riots with cans of Pepsi. Forget flower power.
Kate loves Willy, so they expect another kid.
2018 Kanye West became Donald Trumpâs biggest fan and joins the cast of his experimental four-year show. He plays an unhinged character who believes slavery was a choice.
Harry loves Meg, and tie the knot. Meghanâs Dad, however, was too busy pursuing a career in modelling to attend.
Taylor Swift gets the voters out, and the public hasnât seen anything like this since David Hasselhoff brought down the Berlin Wall.
Kate loves Willy, so they have another kid.
2019 To keep the ratings up for his long-running show, Donald Trump gets jealous of Greta Thunberg, as she didnât have to fake her Time Person of the Year cover.
He heads to the UK for the D-Day commemorations, and bonds with HM the Queen, telling her, âMy Dad was German and my Mum was Scottish, too.â
The British attempt a remake of Donald Trumpâs show. They search for a man who is born in New York, cheated on his first two wives, has five kids, funny hair, used to espouse more liberal views, before trying to sell ethnonationalism as part of his schtick. They find him: Boris Johnson, best known for his earlier work on Little Britain USA. Within weeks heâs already cheated on his partner Carrie by giving everyone in the UK a weak pound.
Harry loves Meg, and this year, they didnât need Kate and Willy to provide the baby news.
Itâs Boxing Day here, but Christmas Day in a lot of places. And Autocade is about to hit 18,000,000 page views, in record time (under 7,000 to go at the time of writing, which it will comfortably hit within hours). Not a bad Christmas present in terms of the business.
March 2008: launch
April 2011: 1,000,000 (three years for first million)
March 2012: 2,000,000 (11 months for second million)
May 2013: 3,000,000 (14 months for third million)
January 2014: 4,000,000 (eight months for fourth million)
September 2014: 5,000,000 (eight months for fifth million)
May 2015: 6,000,000 (eight months for sixth million)
October 2015: 7,000,000 (five months for seventh million)
March 2016: 8,000,000 (five months for eighth million)
August 2016: 9,000,000 (five months for ninth million)
February 2017: 10,000,000 (six months for 10th million)
June 2017: 11,000,000 (four months for 11th million)
January 2018: 12,000,000 (seven months for 12th million)
May 2018: 13,000,000 (four months for 13th million)
September 2018: 14,000,000 (four months for 14th million)
February 2019: 15,000,000 (five months for 15th million)
June 2019: 16,000,000 (four months for 16th million)
October 2019: 17,000,000 (four months for 17th million)
December 2019: 18,000,000 (just under three months for 18th million, from first week of October to December 26)
Weâre sitting on 3,981 entries. We might crack 4,000 in January, or, if the mood takes us, we could see the milestone before 2019âs out (it wouldnât be unprecedented to have a big updating session in the last week of December).
There was some sort of a surge during December, as detailed in my blog post on Christmas Eve, although generally traffic had been up over the last three months.
I really had hoped that for the next Bond, we wouldnât see âBrofeldâ.
Iâve never had a problem with M being a woman or Q being a nerd, but ignoring Flemingâs entire background for Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Daniel Craig movies, and supplanting him into the Franz Oberhauser family as a foster brother to Bond, felt a step too farâa step, incidentally, that we have Sam Mendes to credit. We have yet another Bond villain, as penned by screenwriters Purvis and Wade, with Daddy issues, the same plot device used in The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day in the Brosnan era.
Looks like the third Austin Powers movie contributed something back to the cinematic Bond-lore, when we learn Dr Evil was really Dougie Powers. The ret-conning of the first three Craig Bonds in Spectre felt forced. And professional reviewers have said plenty. No Time to Die looks decent enough from the trailer, but once again weâre exploring back stories. While this may be how blockbusters do it in the 2010s and the start of the 2020s, I just really donât care about Brofeld and the silly world we find ourselves in now. The sooner they can get away from this tangent, the better, and as much as I liked Daniel Craig as Bond, Iâm looking forward to the start of the new actorâs tenure some time early next decade. Iâve no idea what the world would expect in cinematic tastes come 2023 or so, but letâs hope all the pieces fall together once more for a satisfying Bond entry, well away from Mendes.
Trivium that no one cares about: No Time to Die is the first James Bond movie to be released in a year ending in 0.
As a child of the 1970s, I was exposed to this English word: new. Now, before you say that that isnât anything special, for some reason, in the â70s, there was an obsession with newness. It wasnât like the news (by this I mean the plural of new) of Amsterdam or Zealand, but an adjective that was adapted to really emphasize that you should pay attention and consume, consume, consume.
Perhaps the earliest exposure was a Tomica model I had: the Blue Whale Crown. The base plate and box read âToyota New Crownâ. Even as a child, I wondered: what happens to the old Crown models? And what happens to this Crown model when a new new Crown comes out? It didnât matter: Toyota wanted us to live in the present and bask in the newness, and back in the early 1970s, this Crown certainly looked like nothing that had come from Toyota prior, or since. It was almost saying, âYes, we know it looks weird, but hey, itâs ânewâ, so that means itâs good!â
The real car flopped (relatively speaking; they still shifted plenty given top Japanese managers still needed transportation), and it was the last generation of Crown to be sold in the US, but to me it remains iconic, even if it is garish. After a mere three years on sale, very short even by Japanese standards, its âNewâ successor emerged in 1974 with all the idiosyncrasies gone. Conservatism ruled in this segment, at least till fairly recently. The old toys hung round, still ânewâ, so even if your parents bought you one in 1975 or 1976, you could still relish the adjective.
It wasnât a case of Japlish. It was all over television as well. When we emigrated here, the Anglophone television introduced me to The New Dick Van Dyke Show. Never mind that I had never seen the old Dick van Dyke show at this point. This was the white-haired man doing the New Zealand Fire Service PSAs. Everyone knew him. And why was it The New? Because we needed to be told that despite the same network in its home country (CBS), Dick van Dyke wasnât playing Rob Petrie, but a new character altogether. Please donât take this as a continuation of the previous one.
Here are the News:The New Dick Van Dyke Show; The New Perry Mason; and The New Avengers.
Van Dyke, in his autobiography, recounts a fan coming up to him berating him for leaving Laura (Mary Tyler Mooreâs character from the earlier The Dick Van Dyke Show), so itâs not as though the qualifier worked; goodness knows how the same fan would have computed The Mary Tyler Moore Show, on the same night as The New Dick Van Dyke Show. Maybe that was proof that Rob had left Laura or vice versa and they were forging ahead with their separate lives. The New Dick Van Dyke Show wasnât alone. A couple of years later, there was The New Perry Mason (1973), starring Monte Markham in the title role (though no one ever called him âNewâ). The Fred Steiner theme was nowhere to be heard. Iâve seen a few of these, and they are pretty good in a 1970s sort of wayâwhich is to say more exterior filming and more flash cars (product placement was growing) on the back lot and on location. To make it more confusing, when Perry Mason returned in a bunch of TV movies in the 1980s, starting with Perry Mason Returns, it wasnât Markham, but original actor Raymond Burr once more. You see, it wasnât The New Perry Mason Returns. The New Perry Mason starred a different actor, so I can comprehend its Newness, and at least the presence of another actor underscored this. It didnât do that well, which is probably why hardly anyone remembers it. Probably more people remember Markham as the Seven Million Dollar Man. Iâm not kidding.
One that I do remember extremely well was The New Avengers, in 1976. Again, given when I was born, I had no exposure to The Avengers, but The New Avengers was a favourite of mine then, and I bought the DVDs when I saw them decades later. Unlike the other two series, this was a direct continuation, though it wasnât explained just how John Steed returned to Earth after Tara King blasted them both into space when they had their Endgame in 1969; but we do know they enjoyed Laurent Perrier champagne when they got back. Itâs a third definition of new as far as the TV shows were concerned, with the same motive: if you want to be seen as in, hip and groovy, come watch the new.
Perhaps more obscure were one-off TV movies: Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977), which had the same cast (grandmother aside, as actress Blossom Rock was ill), and where the new serves no useful purpose other than attempting to sell us on newness where there is none; and The New Maverick (1978), which sees the return of James Garner as Bret and Jack Kelly as Bart, though thereâs no sign of Roger Moore as Beau (presumably too busy being James Bond) and Robert Colbert as Brent, but it did introduce a first cousin once removed called Ben Maverick (Charles Frank). I imagine Ben is the new Maverick, and a short-lived TV series, Young Maverick, did appear afterwards.
No one really did much more New shows after thisâit seemed to be a 1970s phenomenon. With one exception: CI5: the New Professionals in the 1990s, an attempt to recapture the glory days of The Professionals but winding up more like episodes of Bugs. There, new sort of meant old, reminding us that some of the writing and directing was out of step with late 1990s’ audience expectations; and, with the greatest of respect, showed that certain parties were past their prime. By then, we had had seven episodes of Bodyguards, which perhaps showed how a modern-day Professionals might be. All that needed was to be âladdifiedâ for the FHM audience, at least in theory, and certainly, after 9-11, there may have been some scope for an élite, globally coordinated, anti-terrorist squad (which is what The New Professionals suggests the fictional CI5 unit morphed into, probably to accommodate its backers and the South African location filming in some episodes). But in 1998, there was less of an appetite for revival shows, especially when the top-rated series were ER and Friends, and the Americans were a year away from The Sopranos. Britain, meanwhile, was gripped with the tension of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and the FHM lads were more than catered for by Babes in the Wood.
PS., December 6: How could I forget this item of regular childhood viewing? From the US, in 1979.
In the last month, maybe the last few weeks, my likes on Instagram have halved. Interestingly, Lucireâs Instagram visits have increased markedly. But as I use my own account more than a work one, I can see the trend there a bit more clearly.
Itâs not unlike Facebook, which, of course, owns Instagram. While I havenât used it for personal updates since 2017, I maintain a handful of pages, and I still recall earlier this decade when, overnight, engagement dropped 90 per cent. It never recovered. Facebook, like Google, biases itself toward those who can afford to pay, in the great unlevelling of the playing field that Big Tech is wont to do.
They know that theyâre structured on, basically, a form of digital drug-taking: that for every like we get, we get a dopamine hit, and if we want to maintain those levels, we had better pay for them and become junkies. But hereâs the thing: what if people wake up and realize that they donât need that hit any more? I mean, even Popeye Doyle got through cold turkey to pursue Alain Charnier in French Connection II.
Iâve written about social media fatigue before, and the over-sharing that can come with it. More than once I blogged about being âFacebooked outâ. And as you quit one social medium, itâs not too hard to quit another.
Iâve made a lot of posts on Instagram but I value my privacy increasingly, and in the period leading up to the house move, I began doing less on it. And without the level of engagement, whether thatâs caused by the algorithm or my own drop in activity, Iâm beginning to care less, even if Instagram was more a hobby medium where I interacted with others.
And since I have less time to check it, I actually donât notice that I have fewer likes when I open the app. I only really know when I see that each photo averages 15 likes or so, when figures in the 30s and 40s were far more commonplace not very long ago.
So whatâs the deal? Would they like us to pay? Iâm not that desperate. I donât âGram for likes, as it was always a hobby, one that I seem to have less time for in 2019. I never thought being an âinfluencerâ on Instagram was important. The novelty has well and truly worn off, and as friends depart from the platform, the need to use it to keep them updated diminishes. In the last fortnight I recorded three videos for friends and sent them via Smash or Wetransfer, and that kept them informed. You know, like writing a letter as we did pre-email, but with audio and video. Instagram just isnât that vital. Email actually serves me just fine.
As I said to a friend tonight, even Twitter seems expendable from oneâs everyday habits. Especially after March 15 here. You realize that those who are already arseholes really want to stay that way, their life ambition probably to join certain foreign-owned radio stations to be talking heads. But since they lack the nous, the best they can manage is social-media venting. And the good people want to remain good and have the space to live their lives happily. So why, I began wondering, should we spend our time getting our blood pressure up to defend our patch in a medium where the arseholes are, by and large, gutless wannabes who darenât tell you have of the venom they write to your face? Does anyone ever put a Stuff commenter up on a pedestal and give them respect? While there are a great many people whom I admire on Twitter, and I am fortunate enough to have come into their orbit, there are an increasing number of days when I want to leave them to it, and if they wish to deal with the low-lifes of this world, it is their prerogative, and I respect them for doing something Iâm tiring of doing myself. Twelve years on Twitter is a long time. At the time of writing, Iâve made 91,624 Tweets. Thatâs a lot.
Unlike the arseholes, each and every one of these decent human beings have successful lives, and they donât need to spend their waking moments dispensing hate toward any other group that isnât like them in terms of genitals, sexual orientation, race or religion. And, frankly, I can contact those decent people in media outside of social.
Maybe the fear of Tweeting less is that we believe that the patients will overrun the asylum, that weâre the last line of defence in a world where racists and others are emboldened. That if we show that good sense and tolerance prevail, as my grandfather and others wanted to do when they went to war, then those who harbour unsavoury thoughts toward people unlike them might think twice. I canât really argue with that.
But I wonder whether Iâll be more effective outside of social. I publish magazines, for a start. They give me a platform others do not have. I donât need to leave comments on articles (and over the years, I havenât done much of that). And I have websites I visit where I can unwind, away from the shouting factories of American Big Tech. Most of us want to do good on this earth, and the long game is I may be better off building businesses Iâm good at rather than try to show how much smarter I am versus a talentless social media stranger.
No, Iâm not saying Iâm leaving either medium. I am saying that Iâd rather spend that time on things I love to do, and before 2007 I had enough to do without sharing. Some of the colleagues I respect the most have barely set foot in the world of social, and right now I envy just how much time they have managed to put into other important endeavours, including books that are changing lives.
Big Tech must know the writing’s on the wall.
PS.: From a discussion with the wonderful William Shepherd when he read this on Twitter (the irony is not lost on me given the subject).âJY
One thing about Twitter, it never sleeps. So when I can't sleep, it is an easy way to waste the early morning. 4:15 in LA, hey Jack.
"Last line of defense" is a good way to phrase it. Or, at least know when they have gone totally crazy from their own venomous rage.
My feeling is there will be an exodus soon but I donât know why yet. My online activity on Facebook is not unlike my forum activity during Bush 43. And I know itâs diminishing here and on Instagram.
I remember on Vox, I was happy blogging to an audience of strangers, and I wonder whether something similar is going to be the next creative outlet for people, especially as workâlife balance becomes more important, and the US â20 election cycle heats up.
The media will give politics wall-to-wall coverage, the consequence being that the public tires of it when going on to social media platforms. At some point, self-preservation has to kick in and that rage is going to do no one any good. The bots will also put people off.
We almost never plan which car winds up being the x hundredth model entered into Autocade, and here’s proof.
The humble, boxy Mazda Demio (DY) was the 3,800th entry in Autocade. It makes a nice change from all the SUVs that have found their way on to the database in recent months, even if it isn’t the most inspiring vehicle.
The vehicles either side of the Demio weren’t terribly interesting, either: the Sol E20X (the Volkswagen badge-engineered JAC iEV7S) and the current Fit-based Honda Shuttle. But if you want to be complete (we want to, even if we’re far away from it), you have to include the everyday workhorses.
This is how big an Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei nerd I am.
Three years ago (April 7, 2016), we were introduced to Daniel Roesner as Paul Renner in âCobra, ĂŒbernehmen Sieâ. There is a flashback scene dated April 7, 1996 when Paul and Semir meet for the first time, with Paul as a child.
There are a few problems with the scene.
If it was April 1996, then it would have been around the events of âTod bei Tempo 100â, and Semir looked quite different:
His goatee only begins appearing in episode 33 (production order), âEin Leopard lĂ€uft Amokâ (October 1, 1998), and the BMW 3er with the registration NE-DR 8231 made its first appearance the episode before, âDie letzte Chanceâ (which was actually shown later, on October 8, 1998).
Also in âCobra, ĂŒbernehmen Sieâ, Semir is on the radio to Andrea, when Andrea was not working for PASt in 1996. She made her first appearance in âRache ist sĂŒĂâ (November 18, 1997).
I can understand star ErdoÄan Atalay being reluctant to shave his goatee for the flashback, but it would have thrilled fans if he called to base for Regina and not Andrea.
Jennifer Lawrence brings publicity to her new film, Silver Linings Playbook, by falling at 
