Only for three days, from Europcar, via AutoEurope’s ridiculously low rates. The specific timing results from a combination of the Belfast Comedy Festival and Ulsterbus’s failure to acknowledge that any culchies from the far West might want to stay in the big city later than eight o’clock at night. In between Tim Minchin and Russell Howard it will be called into service as a book-hauling vehicle, as always.

I picked it up yesterday, after my usual pre-car nerves – night spent wondering whether I can remember how to steer, find the biting point, dip the headlights, find the windscreen wipers (most vital part of a car in Northern Ireland) etc. all expressed in the usual way by a dream in which I have to look after a baby. Analyse that.