Real life | 8 January 2011

‘Hello, Miss Kite, this is the RAC solutions centre.’ Oh, dear god, it’s all over, I thought. Nothing except the exact opposite of a solution ever comes out of a place called a solutions centre.

I had hit a curb while driving over Chelsea Bridge and my front tyre was in shreds by the time I’d nursed the car to a side street. I abandoned it (it’s a convertible with no spare) and went to wait at a nearby friend’s house for the recovery people.

For a while, however, I could not remember who I had breakdown cover with. This is because, like everyone else, I suspect, I have to change car insurance every year using price comparison websites guiding me towards increasingly improbable-sounding insurers in order to get a reasonable price. Why is this? You start off with Direct Line, then it’s Sheila’s Wheels, then Kwik-Fit, then before you know it your car’s covered by Burger King Finance.

Eventually, after resorting to insurance offered by Ikea or the Boden catalogue, I will become such a distant memory of Direct Line’s that it will decide it wants me back.

As it was, my tax disc holder said Sheila’s Wheels, and, although I was sure that was at least five companies ago, I rang its breakdown number anyway, whereupon a vicious-sounding woman demanded I recite my membership code.

‘Oh, dear. I don’t have it…oops, hang on, I need to move the car up a bit it’s sticking out.’

‘Wait! Are you driving the vehicle?’ she barked.