Marcus Berkmann: Circles of hell

Every route we tried, the satnav eventually led us back to the same roundabout

Every route we tried, the satnav eventually led us back to the same roundabout

I don't drive, so when I'm playing for my oldsters cricket team I usually beg a lift from one of two team-mates who live nearby. But on this particular Sunday neither was playing, so I ventured down to the badlands of Highbury to get a lift from Tim, our incredibly angry fast bowler, who is no longer fast but still incredibly angry. Tim drives down motorways at the speed of a V2 rocket, beeping dawdlers and deploying the middle finger for anyone who hogs the middle lane.

“Where's the map?” I asked, for although I am no driver, I am a navigator of rare skill and acuity.

“Just behind you,” said Tim.

“I don't think this is going to help.”

“Why not?” asked Tim, irritably.

“It's a map of France.”

Still, we had satnav and a postcode, and we reached our Suffolk destination eventually – for satnav, I find, is unequalled in finding and recommending the seventh or eighth fastest route anywhere, even to the end of the road. If I'd had a map, we'd have got there much more quickly. Possibly before we'd left, with Tim at the wheel.

Several hours later, after squeaking a slightly ill-tempered draw against much younger and better opposition, it was time to go home. On this occasion I blagged a lift from Tom, who was going to see his girlfriend, who lives not far from me. Tom had a shiny new car, and satnav, and no map. Who needs a map these days? Old technology.

There was a diversion outside the village, and we didn't really know where we were anyway, so Tom followed the satnav's instructions, while Alex, the other passenger, and I drivelled inconsequentially. There had nearly been a fist-fight during our team's innings, so there was much to discuss.

Half an hour later, having anatomised the parlous state of current pop music, we found ourselves in a town, in a traffic jam. Where were we? Tom wound the window down and asked. The man in the hi-vis jacket looked at us pityingly. We were in Sudbury, and the centre of the town was closed because a substantial chunk of it appeared to be burning down.

How were we to get out? The man in the hi-vis jacket recommended that road over there, so we took it. The satnav kept telling us to go back the way we had come. After six miles or so of this nagging, we gave in, turned round and went back.

“No, that's definitely the way you want to go,” said the same man in the hi-vis jacket, whose integrity we were beginning to doubt. But every route we tried, the satnav eventually led us back to the same roundabout, often by the most circuitous of routes. We had no mobile coverage, so could not raise a map by those means. It was like an episode of The Prisoner. Every wrong turning we took, we expected a huge white barrage balloon to head us off.

Eventually, at a bleak and abandoned roundabout, we chanced upon an unusually sad McDonald's. Even the happier ones are quite miserable, but this was the black dog of fast food joints. We stopped there and munched hamburgers in gloomy silence. There was nothing more to be said, possibly ever.

Finally we escaped, found a mobile signal, sourced a map. It took us three and a quarter hours to get home. Tom rang his girlfriend to check she was awake, and woke her up. He wouldn't be going round there tonight after all. I have now bought a map. Hooray for old technology.