Bad company

It was late and I was tired. We’d been on the road for hours. I just wanted a beer and a bed, and I could not care less which variety of either they came in. But I’d been told to wait in the car and, young and keen to please as I was, I did as I was bade.

Pre-mobile telephone, I awaited the return of my colleague to deliver his verdict on the modest but comfortable looking hotel we had finally reached. And as he walked back towards me I knew from his expression before he reached the door that my day was not yet over. Climbing in beside me, he did up his belt, lit a cigarette, leaned across and said, ‘Sorry, mate, no porn channel. We’ll have to try the next one.’

If I am famous for anything on the small sod of earth in the tiny corner of the writer’s field known as motoring journalism, it is for being a simply terrible passenger. But actually and quite a lot of the time I find having a passenger even worse.