Yesterday saw the first issue of 70 registration plates, the first time they've nudged into the seventies. Anyone seen one yet?
This isn't a proper 70 reg, this is a personalised plate owned by someone in Docklands who presumably knows what S70OYY stands for. But real 70s now exist out there somewhere and will be appearing on every vehicle registered before the end of February. For the last six months it's been 20, and before that a different two-digits half-yearly all the way back to the start of the current numberingscheme on 1st September 2001.
One thing the 21st century system has made much more difficult, indeed nigh impossible, is Consecutive Number Plate Spotting. The is the game in which you attempt to spot a plate numbered 1, then 2... all the way up to 999 - a lengthy task which took me four years back in the 1990s. It passed the time, if nothing else.
Playing Consecutive Number Plate Spotting with the new system of numbers is much less fun because you can only get as far as 20 before you have to jump to 51, plus there are only forty numbers altogether, indeed the whole thing has become restrictively unconsecutive. Also there are no 01s, and 51s are already somewhat rare (appearing on cars that are nigh on nineteen years old) whereas the teens and the sixties are superabundant.
I tried playing Reverse Chronological Number Plate Spotting on Monday, starting with 20, then a 69, then 19, 68, 18, 67, 17, 66 etc. In two hours I managed to get all the way back to 04, but things were drying up by that point, even though I'd been stalking some of the poorer streets in Newham in the hope of seeing older vehicles. I decided not to play RCNPS again yesterday because I'd have had to start with a 70 and, as I said at the start, there are hardly any of those.
Alphabetical Number Plate Spotting isn't much fun either because although there are a lot of Ls for London round here, and a surfeit of Es, Gs, Ks and Rs from the Home Counties, there are relatively few Welsh Cs and Scottish Ss. Also you don't want to be waiting around for a J or a U because they appear as the first letter only on personalised plates, and I, Q and Z don't appear at all.
I've attempted Sequential London Identifiers where you have to work your way through all the initial pairs from LA to LY, but again LI, LQ and LZ are absent. I've tried Car Number Plates That Could Be Roman Numerals, but they're super-rare as only those released in spring and summer 2011 could be potential winners. I've even considered Number Plates Where All The Characters Have Vertical Line Symmetry but that smacked of desperation.
What I'm in need of is a decent Number Plate Spotting Game, one that isn't ridiculously complex or tediously protracted... just to pass the time while out pounding the streets. ?
