Morris Men

Since I was last in the North Country, Tom's acquired a Morris Minor. As far as Tom's concerned, this possession is an unparalleled pride and joy; I suspect that the only way he'll ever surpass this car as a plaything is if he manages to get his hands on a second-hand steam train. Yes, the more safety-conscious among us may point out that the engine sounds like an explosion waiting to happen; that the car contains no airbags, impact bars, or indeed seltbeats; and that if, in the course of driving, we were to hit anything more substantial than a croissant, our remains would have to be identified through dental records. But they miss the crucial point - that roaring around the backstreets of Carlisle in a machine thrown together by some semi-skilled, half-pissed Teddy boy in Birmingham in 1956, is actually quite a lot of fun.

Yes, we enjoyed our beer run to Tesco, zooming down the alleyways like Life On Mars criminals, trying to work the Moggy up to the elusive forty miles-per-hour mark. We enjoyed stuffing our crates of beer into the cramped boot with geometric ingenuity. We enjoyed poking vital-looking things inside the car to see if they fell off. And as we retire to our evening of libations with the smell of leaded petrol rich in our nostrils and our clothes, I'm confident above all else that we've done our bit to make the world a safer and healthier place.