Dig it

The car manufacturer of the year has to be JCB. I’ve long wanted one, of course, and it’s not hard to find them in the local classifieds. What is hard, for we unlucky enough not to be digger drivers, is to know what you’re buying. It’s not only the nomenclature — what exactly is a four-in-one bucket? — but also knowing how to assess the condition. You see some rusty old dinosaurs lumbering happily across the landscape, digging up mighty chunks to eat, while hearing horror stories of expensive hydraulic and oil-pump failures on other creatures that, to the unpractised eye, look pristine. And they’re not exactly easy to tow home when they break down.

Fear is another inhibitor. Most of us have no better idea how to ride one than we would a woolly mammoth. A surgeon I know of bought one and set about his large garden with vigour.