Which is why Ogmios’ School of Zen Motoring has become something of an obsession over the last couple of years. Debuting just as the pandemic was truly taking hold in the spring of 2020, it’s just about everything: ostensibly a collage of dashcam footage with soothing commentary from sometime battle rapper Ogmios, it’s a fascinating chronicle of a country undergoing one of its biggest societal changes since World War 2, a pseudo-documentary sitcom complete with recurring characters and catchphrases, an invaluable document of a London that’s so often overlooked. It’s also got some incredible driving in it. As entertainment, it feels both thoroughly modern and rooted in some old masterpieces. In each episode, Ogmios drives the streets of north London, picking up dashcam footage as he exercises his teachings from his own zen school of motoring. It’s a simple but intoxicating mix: there’s the thrilling verity of the footage, an actual slice of the streets in all their glum, frequently gaudy brilliance, all mixed in with the ASMR smoothness of Ogmios’ near-horizontal approach to the calamities of your typical Stamford Hill side-road on a Saturday afternoon. It’s a beguiling halfway house somewhere between rubbernecking Russian dashcam disasters and Patrick Keiller’s Robinson trilogy.
