Today’s guest is Stuart Edge who muses about what would happen if he got his hands on a time-travelling DeLorean. Hmm, what would any of us do? Enter Stuart:

I blame the DeLorean. I really do. Ever since Back to the Future first appeared on my TV screen I have been hooked on time travelling. I have read quite a few books about it but I must confess that I am still not any clearer on how it could happen.

That doesn’t stand in the way of my daydreaming though. So what would I do if Doc Brown appeared in my street and left me the keys to his car?

Travel in Time Of Course

This might sound really obvious, but how many of us have a car and don’t use it as much as we should? High fuel prices are often to blame for the car sitting in the driveway for too long, but if I can just get hold of some Libyans with cheap plutonium I should be OK. Even with the tank topped up, sometimes you sit in a conventional car and simply don’t know where to go to, so imagine the decisions I will have to make. Do I go back and see the launch of the Titanic, watch England win the World Cup or find out whether my Dad was really telling the truth about being able to get in the cinema by paying with jam jars?

Cruise the Streets

Ah, the urbane thrill of cruising the streets of a small UK town in a flashy DeLorean. I can imagine my neighbours, hairdresser and work colleagues all watching the car roll past and then saying, “Was that…? No, it couldn’t have been”. Even when your car can travel to any year in the history of the world it must still feel good to just hang out in the present time.

Get Some Music Playing

I think I might have an old Huey Lewis and the News cassette lying in a dusty corner of my wardrobe, and this seems like a good choice for my time travelling vehicle. Without doubt driving with some great music on is one of the most exciting things about having a cool car. Maybe I could go a step further and take songs from other decades, to make me feel at home when I time travel. As well as Huey from the 80s I could get some music from Elvis for the 50s, the Beatles for the 60s, Neil Young for the 70s and Right Said Fred for the 90s.

Of course, I could really confuse people by playing music from the future on my trips. What would a flapper from the 1920s or a 15th century peasant make of the Clash or MC Hammer? When I think about it, time travelling without music would be a lot less exciting than pumping up the volume as I wreak havoc with the space time continuum.

Get It Insured

Maybe I am showing a bit too much common sense here, but I just couldn’t imagine using my time travelling DeLorean and not have it insured. Now the big problem I would have here is that if I bought the policy now it would only cover me for the next year. This means that every time I travelled I would need to get a new policy. This might not be a big problem some years, but what about the period before the car was even built?

I don’t suppose I need insurance cover for the Mesozoic Era, but I would like to be protected in those ages in which some form of traffic could be expected. I couldn’t really cheat either though, could I? If I had a 2012 insurance policy and tried to claim for dinosaur damage or because a hover bike had landed on it I think the claims assessor would start to have some doubts about it.

Don’t forget that the car you own and the year you intend to drive it in are important when you look for car insurance quotes.