Real life | 5 July 2018

Opening a button of my shirt to get the horse lorry through its MOT is the sort of thing I like to kid myself about.

I know I’m not really getting a lorry through its MOT by unbuttoning my shirt, but at my age it makes me feel good to think that I might.

So I put on this tight gingham number, one less button done up than usual, denim shorts and a Stetson cowboy hat I bought in Bozeman, Montana, and I drove my lorry to its MOT retest on a stinking hot day looking like a poor man’s Shania Twain because I had it in my mind that I had to give it my all.

Never let it be said that I do not go all out when push comes to shove. And this was shove because the lorry is an old E-reg rust bucket of a Ford Transit.

It had failed because of a tear in a back tyre (fair enough); indicators that were ‘not working’ (not fair, they were working, he obviously didn’t turn the key in the ignition when he tested them); headlamps that weren’t ‘intense’ enough (seems a bit philosophical); brake oil that was ‘contaminated’ (again, very subjective); and a bulb out on the dash so the speedometer wouldn’t light up.