Yesterday, after nearly 4 years of happy driving, I handed in the keys to my Jaguar XF (coloured like Mr Crepsley's clothes) and picked up my new car -- a Tesla Model 3 (coloured like the paleness of Darren's face at the end of Killers Of The Dawn when Steve whispered in his ear near the end of the book!!).

I've been eager to join the ranks of electric car drivers for quite some time now. When I was growing up in the 1980s, electric cars were the stuff of science fiction. Sure, we'd all heard rumours that an electric car had been developed and the traditional car manufacturers had bought the rights so they could suppress them, but nobody really believed those stories. It just didn't seem possible that a car could run on batteries alone.

I'm still getting to grips with the car, and it's going to take me a while to go through all the different operating screens and get comfortable with them, but I already love it, because even more than smart phones and Wi-Fi and streaming movies and all the other technical wonders of the 21st century, THIS makes me feel like I'm REALLY living in the kind of futuristic world that I could only dream about in my teens and twenties, and indeed my thirties.

It's an exciting time to be alive, people -- even the vampire generals are impressed by our electric cars, and it takes a LOT for humanity to impress that sneering crew!!!