"I can't believe it didn't catch fire."
"Well, we did check for a spark after chucking petrol all over the engine bay."
"That's what I'm saying, man - we did our best to make it flammable before checking for a spark! It should have gone up in smoke, but it didn't!"
"Who's round is it?"Thus was celebrated the non-passing of the newly-christened Jennifer in the Holly Bush, Hampstead. And it's all true - we did spray the engine bay with petrol and then check for a spark. But we didn't mean to.
Our mission for the evening was to see if we could get the old GS Break, which hadn't moved since 1987, to start. We knew it was unlikely, but it was worth a try. Some stupidity ensued.
The car didn't have a battery in it, so we took two with us - one from a Vauxhall Corsa, which would fit in the GS battery bay but which may or may not be working, and another from a Rover P6 which was about two times too big, but was fully charged. We decided to go with the good battery, sat it on the floor and connected it to the car with jump leads.
Fire extinguisher at the ready, I turned the key. The ignition lights lit; the horn, wipers, screen washer and lights all worked perfectly. A really good start - it proved that mice (there are nuts all over the engine bay and signs of nesting in the heater pipes) haven't eaten all the wiring.
Right then, shall we see if it starts?
Next problem; we couldn't reach the filler cap. Did I mention that the car's jammed into the garage with a load of general household hoarding? No problem; we took the fuel feed off the carb and dropped some fresh fuel straight in, dropping quite a lot of it over the engine as we were doing so.
It didn't.
Why? No spark. Of course, there was even more petrol spilled everywhere by the time we found this out - manky 20 year old petrol pumped out of the disconnected fuel line every time we turned the starting handle with an HT lead held against the bonnet strut to see if it would spark. Thank God it didn't!
Anyway, I've taken the dizzy away to replace the points and we'll try again next week. We might just put petrol in via the fuel tank this time though, now that we know for sure that it works.