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Last week, in my digital dealings with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, I experienced something truly fascinating. Yes, I know. Subjective. Dangerous sentence. Bear with me. It was an epi- phany. The right time of year for it, I am told.

In a few weeks’ time I have to hire a car. A few weeks ago I lost my wallet, which contained my driver’s licence. With exactly the sort of organisational forward planning that normally escapes me, I had considered these two details in tandem, and acted to prevent the wife and me ending up on one. So, I trotted along to the DVLA website and I applied for a new one. It took me about 20 minutes.

That was not the epiphany. Indeed, etymological pedants of a religious bent may feel that it was nothing like an epiphany. Something as mundane as a miracle, perhaps. I filled out boxes, I ticked squares, everything worked. I kept waiting for the usual snarl-up, the seemingly innocuous instruction that takes you a week to fulfil — ‘tick this box if you have already delivered eight photographs of your maternal grandmother signed by your family dentist to the following business park in Swansea’, that sort of thing — and it just didn’t happen. I didn’t need to register, as I had apparently done so already, by creating something called a Government Gateway account when filing my tax return. I didn’t need to send them a photograph, as they still had my old one on file. I didn’t need to prove my address, as they had the electoral roll. I didn’t need to send them proof of identity, as they could look up my passport, just from the number. Seriously. Twenty minutes. Bang. The website said it would be with me in ten days.