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. Jeez, I don’t drive the horses around at night. Come on! I argued the toss, but he wouldn’t have it. The entire dash must illuminate.

I rattled back to the stable yard in my unpassed lorry and asked my mechanic to take another run at it.

He came over one night after work and starting siphoning off brake oil, sighing with exasperation: ‘Really? Is this a fail now? Oh, hang on, they’ve just changed it, haven’t they?’ And there followed some expletives.