11/05/2025
Hello all,
I spend the majority of my time (could argue life) on the British roads inside a car travelling the UK.
Many days, many nights, unbelievable amount of hours… although from time to time I do see some amazing things a good 95% is just boring motorways with black tarmac.
Just to put into perspective I put 20k miles on my car in 9months, that’s nearly 3 years annual mileage use for the average driver.
As you can imagine driving becomes quite boring, trying to keep myself entertained became difficult. I got bored of my own music, bored of the radio. Sometimes I would just sit in silence but that would majority of the time be torture due to me suffering from tinnitus (constant ringing in the ears). Sometimes I would be on the phone to people but that would quickly become boring & quite awkward due to running out of topics for conversations, also people wouldn’t be able to sit on the phone with me for long anyway due to their own daily schedules.
Many years ago I came up with a game… basically number plate spotting. All it involves is trying to find the best number plate possible.
Now I’ve always had an interest in number plates, privates plates, vanity plates (however & whatever you want to call them, I totally understand the hatred this group has for vanity plates but please hear me out further!).
With the only things me mainly seeing is vehicles & tarmac you could imagine (or not if your not as dull as me) that I quickly became very occupied & entertained (Don’t worry it’s always in a safe manor while driving).
Fast forward many years it’s been doing its trick keeping me entertained, spotted some great, funny, questionable & illegal plates in that time but then last week something extraordinary happened…
Last week I spotted this… “DY 1”
What’s extraordinary about it you may ask? Let me tell you…
DY 1 is the first UK issued registration plate ever released. The very first!
Now… I know what’s going to come in the comments… “A1 was the first registered plate” but for anyone to comment or believe that would be wrong. As you can imagine I took my game quite serious & done my fair share of research to really be able to up my levels on my game. I too also believed many years ago that “A1” was the first but it’s a commonly mistaken fact!
DY 1 was issued November 23rd 1903 in Hastings, A1 was issued the following month in December 1903. A1 was the first issued plate in London but not the UK.
I could not believe what was driving behind me, so much I had to pull over and let them drive past while I pictured this bit of history!
Honestly what’s better to spot than the first ever issued number plate!? How can I get any better than this!?
Then it dawned on me… as happy as I was I soon realised that I had basically completed my game.
What possibly can I do now? How will my driving experience be from now on? So much so that for the last week I haven’t barely driven!
So my fellow dull people I come to you all for any & every idea possible for new & future things for me to do while I take part in the dull task of driving.
M, I’m either 31 or 32 years of age this Tuesday coming 😅 I don’t keep track, size 11, Nick name is victor (One foot in the grave) because I’m always moaning.