The Irritations of Modern Life 40: round cars

A HERD of rooting pigs appears to have taken over the country. Snouty, bulbous or simply infantile, such aesthetic irritants represent the face of contemporary car design. And this strange fin de siecle aberration in style is becoming the norm.

For the last couple of years, the standard car has gone all bubble. Ballooning curves, chubby tail-gates and inflated panels have infected everything from the basic Peugeot to the Mercedes.

Take, for example, the new London taxi - a shockingly piggy- nosed hybrid, its front grille slanting and snouting like an amputation. Few seem to like it. And it nudges its way through traffic that is becoming equally swinish. Even the new Peugeot 206 looks as though it's been inflated with a dinghy pump.

Such non-threatening design is meant to appeal to women. Why? Do women like chubby men? They do not. Do women enjoy being chubby themselves? They most certainly do not. Take the new Golf. Does one's bum look big in this? Yes, madam, it does.

Sleek design is a thing of the past. Consider, if one must, the Ford Ka. Ah yes, very amusing. Like the new Beetle, this belongs in toytown, but a car is for several years, not for a season, and the much vaunted "irony" wears very thin very fast.

I blame middle-youth and thirtysomethings' sentimentality about Sixties childhoods. They want enormous roadside sunflowers, Noddy's car and Tufty directing the traffic. They want plastic Sixties futurism-meets-nostalgia. But such toys for grown-ups are the visual equivalent of a romper suit on a 6ft children's TV presenter.

Look at the Ford Focus, the Renault Scenic and Clio, and the Mercedes Elegance. They marry invalid carriage with moon boot. Windows sprout at "clever" angles. The smaller versions mimic truncated space capsules; the larger ones resemble guillotined mini-buses in hernia trusses.

These are monstrous carbuncles, not cars. OK, this is the nature of change: the shock of the new drags us kicking behind it. Yes, yes. But these are not avant-garde classics. They are porcine pests. They are mud-snouting sea monsters wearing puffa-jackets.