In my driving lesson today – the third – I drove from Forest Hill to Rotherhithe to Bermondsey to Oval, and in doing so explored the dizzy possibilities offered by travelling in 4th gear. Everything was going swimmingly, but at the last three traffic lights I stopped at, I stalled the goddamned Ford Fiesta. Fortunately I have better control of my bladder than I do of my clutch. “Oh no,” I said in a small voice, as the wrath of London's drivers poured down over me, and my instructor sighed. I still feel safer crossing the road on foot that driving on it. Surely that can't be right.

Hilariously, the thing I'm having the biggest trouble with is steering. Unbelievable, isn't it. You wouldn't have thought a steering wheel could present so many problems – they include them on Fisher Price activity sets these days, for chrissakes. Even with a big bit of yellow tape stuck on the thing at 12 o'clock, I still can't take a sharp right hand turn without demolishing large numbers of local buildings. I tell you what, though, I'm MEAN at windscreen wipers. You'll not see a drop of rain on my windscreen, even if my bloodied head is poking through it.