I am just returned from the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, commonly known as CES. This event, if you’re not familiar with it, has become a must-visit addition to the traditional automotive show circuits.
I was in the City of Sin for my day job, which entailed Serious Work with which I will not burden the Ti readership, it being both Top Secret and (just between us) really rather dull. But while I was at there, being all earnest and professional-like, orders beamed in from Ti HQ. ‘DT’ chattered the ticker-tape (it’s a bugger having to carry that thing around, but Ti’s budget does not run to international roaming charges). ‘Caterham Project V has surfaced at CES STOP Get down there fast STOP Get scoops STOP Expense account strictly repeat STRICTLY limited STOP Acknowledge last STOP’.
Dammit. I examined my journalistic conscience. What would my heroes and role-models do? How would PJ O’Rourke or Hunter S. Thompson react? So I ignored it and carried on with what I was doing. But over lunchtime I decided to check the Caterham out, rather than pay 30 bucks for soggy nachos and a huge carton of terrible coffee. Your intrepid reporter shoved his Ti press pass into the brim of his hat and rocked up at the XING stand, which was tucked away in a quiet corner of the enormous and enormously disorientating CES main show hall. Getting there was no mean feat. I had to wend my way through a forest of humanoid robots, terrifying robo-dogs, overly-white toothy smiles and various other distractions. But I made it.
