when six amiable and amusing friends get into a comfortable and well-upholstered seven-seater, each with a different destination in mind and the driver with an unreliable sense of direction, the result is not unpleasant. sometimes, it may even end in arrival at the well-appointed farrer road apartment of other dear friends, whereupon much carpet-lolling, ice-cream-eating, insult-trading and kitten-teasing (a more gollum-eyed puss i’ve never seen; his name is arthur, wee grey child.)

on the combined ineffectual backseat navigation after a particularly atrocious detour:

j: [navigating from the very back of the car] keep left, you need to… right, i mean keep right, turn right..
various: julian!
jy: it’s almost as if google wants us to weave.
c: “drift inconsequentially for 500m, then make a random left…”
f: where do i go now?
sl: give me the phone; he can’t see from back there.
c [leaning back]: well, this is amiable company to get lost with. in. among?
mz: go back to ‘with’
f: don’t worry, all my car rides are like that.
sl: look she doesn’t know how to get anywhere. you need to give instructions that are precise and step by step.
c: is it because we used to write 抒情文 and 议论文 but we don’t know how to write 说明文？
j: i write in a scientific, precise way.
mz: be quiet, you couldn’t even tell left from right.
f: so i turn here?
sl: no no! now we’re going back to julian’s house!
jy: no! do not let anything decoy you back to julian’s house!
c: ohhh, i see. i thought julian was being uncharacteristically incompetent.

also at one point in the journey:

cp: i went to see a production of a streetcar named desire with gillian anderson as blanche.
me: and was she good?
cp: i don’t know. cate blanchett was in the audience.
me: and?
cp: she was in the front row, and she was caught by the lights. all illuminated like galadriel. i know how streetcar goes. so i watched cate blanchett instead.