‘Ooh, Mrs Mason, the car – it is running away!’ As a piece of English prose it might leave something to be desired, but it got Mrs Mason’s attention as she glanced out of the kitchen window. A bit like the old WW2 test question in the RAF, where the candidate is asked what he would do if he was flying Winston Churchill in a Dakota and the great man mistook the side door for the toilet – plummeting from the plane…

I heard about it all in more measured tones when I had a telephone call from Mason Towers to tell me there was good news and there was bad news… The bad news was that an unapplied handbrake now means that the lovely Audi RS4 that I’ve been driving was going to need a little attention to the rear bumper.

By ‘attention’, I mean that no amount of T-cut is going to sort this one out. The good news was that our grindingly slow automatic gates had opened slowly enough to intercept the car before it rolled majestically onto the street, causing real alarm and despondency to passing motorists.

I should also admit that I don’t actually own this particular Audi, so as a great believer in the old adage that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, I’m hoping to enjoin both the manufacturer and an insurance company or two in the debacle.

A post-mortem found the handbrake to be working fine, but slightly obscured by a 12v charger plug for a mapping system. This is becoming an ever-increasing problem as more and more gadgets are loaded into the vehicle. I don’t know about anyone else but I find it harder and harder to concentrate on driving, what with the constant chatter on board. I’ve got Tiff Needell ranting about safety cameras, and a girl from TomTom advising me that I should make a U-turn if possible. The parking warning sensor is telling me I’m about to nudge the car in front, while the mobile is on hands-free so that I can phone in if I see poor driving from the van ahead (that’s not something I would advise, as I believe most of those ‘Please report me if I’m driving badly’ phone numbers on white vans actually route straight to the driver’s hand-held, and you can expect swift retribution in the shape of some advanced brake testing from the subject). Frankly,
it’s a relief to get out of the car and get a bit of peace and quiet.

As some of you sensitive types might have worked out, I’m actually not very good at delivering bad news, which is why I haven’t been able to pluck up the courage to call Milton Keynes yet, and am hoping this will be read in the Press and Marketing Department while I’m away. Obviously I would also like to make the point that the car is probably the wildest of wolves in sheep’s designer clothing; that accidents happen and that I’ll be more careful in future. Oh, and I can’t wait to have a go in the new RS6…

I don’t like to suggest I’m not careful with cars. It’s a long time since I had to fill in the form explaining how I hit a patch of ice at the top of the hill and was unable to stop my 246 Dino sliding elegantly under the rear of my wife’s 3-series BMW, which then punted the back end of the nanny’s Renault 4, all parked outside our house. And the portion of humble pie was made an even larger slice because I was returning from a marshals’ dinner, where I had been pontificating on motor sport with Derek Warwick and Andy Wallace. I probably had a slightly steely racing driver-type expression on my face at the commencement of the debacle. I’ve been trying to stick it back on ever since…

As I write this I’m in Los Angeles, where for the first time ever I haven’t rented a car. In the old days it was a Z28 Camaro; now it’s a car and driver. We pull out of LAX and I assume America is being invaded by Cuba. The freeway is locked solid and the lanes are full of the military on manoeuvres in a plethora of Hummers (or are they Humvees?). Apparently the mandatory Prius hybrids are all parked in their garages. Oh, and everyone is paranoid about drink-driving because every third car is driven by a lawyer specialising in accident litigation. Despite the mandatory jail sentence, it’s harder to get time inside than a table at the Ivy in Beverly Hills, since the jails are now overflowing with Hollywood celebs.

The answer to the Churchill question, by the way, is that you should retrim the aircraft due to the weight transfer.