Who is she?

It's a commonplace that people indicate their style and taste and income bracket (and, regrettably, their ego) through their home, the car they drive, and many other things, such as what kind of holidays they have, and which schools their children attend. In those respects, I have little to flaunt. I've only a modest home. I take modest caravan holidays. I have no children to boost my image with. And until very recently I was driving around in a thirteen year old car. Even the replacement is seven years old. 

Nevertheless I'm as keen as anybody else to express my individuality - and maybe my 'style and taste' - when out and about. I can do that by driving a car that itself has some distinction. However, a grey car, even if it's a Volvo XC60, is a common sight nowadays. So how do I make mine stand out? Well, there's the registration plate. That can catch the eye.  

But should one try to draw attention in this way? That depends on what you think of personalised number plates and the type of person that buys them. But I made the point in a recent post that if you own a grey car, and you want it to stand out among other grey cars in a crowded car park, you need something like a distinctive plate that you can instantly recognise. So there is a practical reason for embellishing your car with one.

Personalised plates say something about the car, or its owner, intentionally or not. Often they convey a message - sometimes a challenge - to other road users. Whatever combination of letters and numerals the plate has, it courts trouble if it might be thought offensive. So 'hey, you' plates are very risky. As are, obviously, plates that give the finger to police officers. 

Fiona's plate was SC10 CUR, which was bad Latin for 'I know why' (bad, because I'm certain no Roman would ever have said 'scio cur' when speaking, as a stand-alone phrase). Only one person ever understood the Latin translation. But I sometimes got hooted when overtaking, not because what I'd just done had been unsafe, or unskilfully accomplished, but because the driver overtaken objected to the CUR part of Fiona's plate - a 'cur' being a mongrel dog of low breed, the sort that might turn on you and bite. They felt bitten, and hooted their displeasure. 

So I let SC10 CUR go when trading-in Fiona. That left a small stable of other SC10 plates that I'd bought over the years for cars to come. I had one of them - SC10 SHE - lined up for my latest car Sophie.

But now I've bought another plate, and it isn't an 'SC10' plate. I had a rethink. 'SC10' is meaningless if not part of a Latin phrase. That freed me up to consider what else would be distinctive. I'd long noticed plates beginning with OO. They drew the eye, and were easy to spot. I still wanted the 'SHE', also highly noticeable, to refer either to Sophie or to me. If me, then it would warn other road users that a dangerous woman was at the wheel of a powerful car. Beware! 

A plate in the format 'OOxx SHE' then. 

I logged into the DVLA Personalised Registrations website (I am a registered user) to see what plates were still available. Not a wide choice in the particular format I had in mind. There was OO13 SHE, OO14 SHE, OO15 SHE and OO16 SHE. OO01 to OO12 had already gone. I couldn't use OO17 or higher on Sophie as she was a 2016 car, and it was illegal - misrepresentation - to put any plate on her that suggested she was younger. Of the four I could use, OO15 looked the best. I bought it.

I'd immediately seen that OO15 SHE could be read as 'Oo! Is she?' or even 'Who is she?' if you aspirated the OO. Either interpretation was fine. Importantly, the plate was very distinctive, and it could only raise a smile. I wouldn't be hooted at for being a cur.

This is roughly what it will look like on Sophie, when I receive the V750, and can get new number plates made and fixed on:

It conforms to the modern pattern of letters and numerals, but doesn't look as if it does. As to what it conveys, I don't think many people will see beyond the 'SHE'. I hope it will make other road users wake up and pay attention, and either back off or give me a suitably wide berth.

But looking at that picture, it belatedly dawned on me that there was a James Bond connection here: the car that belonged to Double-O Fifteen! Clearly, a lady licenced to kill! Damn. I'm going to get hooted after all. And probably chased by SPECTRE operatives and similar gentlemen.

There's also an Inspector Morse connection. It's subtle. You have to know that normally all registrations beginning with O mean 'first registered in Oxford'. Cue Barrington Pheloung's theme tune...