The OCD model comes with hygienic wipes and an array of small soaps

I found myself stuck in an airport hotel room the other week, watching daytime TV. On offer was an American cop series based on, of all things, an obsessive-compulsive detective.

Talk about scraping the bottom of the genre barrel. Since the 1970s we’ve had every conceivable variation on the theme: fat detective, dirty detective, racial minority detective, sexy female detective, detective-in-a-wheelchair and alcoholic detective. What’s left? Gluten-allergy detective?

Now I hear that Ford has been given an award for its cars, not on the basis of performance or economy or styling or low carbon footprint – but for their ‘allergy-friendly’ interiors. Before you get all uppity and tell me that, for allergy sufferers, this is mould-breaking stuff, let me point out that I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but I don’t see anyone designing cars with hand-washing facilities and little objects to count, adjust and straighten. And what about cars for fat people? Or dirty people? Or alcoholics?

Change out of £190.

Never mind the price of petrol, what about the price of oil?

I have just picked up the Range Rover we use when we are filming our road-test videos.  All I wanted was an oil change yet the Land Rover dealer (in Sussex, not central London) presented me with a bill for £250 – and that was for the labour alone. The oil itself was another £73. Add on the VAT, and the bottom line came to £380.

And since the Range Rover’s oil capacity is about two gallons, that makes the present price of oil around £190 a gallon.

When I started driving, you could buy an entire garage for less than that.

A Bugatti Veyron

That recent news item – about the Mafia-run factory in Sicily building fake Ferraris – made me laugh. Surely a potential buyer would hear the difference between an American V4 and a full-blooded Ferrari V8? Even the Police said the fakes were easily spotted because they have ‘narrower chassis and thinner wheels’.

There was a fake 250 GTO which used to come to Italian classic car events – the last place on earth the ill-advised owner should have shown his face. A collective shudder would go up from the other participants when the car tippy-toed, all tall and deformed, into the display area. People would look away, embarrassed. Except for one chap next to me who muttered, “What a terrible waste of a perfectly good Datsun 240Z.”

A spy shot of the new Speed Watch mobile camera.

The police in Surrey have asked me to help them recruit some more volunteers for the local Speed Watch system.

They are looking for anyone with a pulse, preferably regular, who is able to stand, sit, or lie by the roadside and point a speed camera towards the sound of an approaching car. Persons who twitch or oscillate are particularly welcome as speed readings are consequently exaggerated.

Eyesight is not essential as the camera-operator will be provided with an assistant to more or less read the number plates. A second assistant will write down the registration approximated by the first, and a third assistant will hold the camera still while a fourth reads the recorded speed. A fifth assistant will make conversation, whilst a sixth will wave at drivers in order to distract them. Age or sex is of no consequence unless it occurs on duty.

In certain areas, the police are experimenting with mobile Speed Watch cameras. These will be towed slowly along the pavement edge.

Applications should be made to Surrey Police on 01483 539999. When you call, please mention my name: Massimo Pini Graham Whyte.

Why, oh why, oh WHY did Alfa Romeo gives its gorgeous new sporty supermini such a silly name? First, it was going to be the Alfa Junior, which is bland but inoffensive. Then they decided they didn’t like it, so they held an online poll, asking Alfisti to choose between a list of names which Alfa had come up with. And ‘Furiosa’ won.

But Alfa decided they didn’t like that, either (so why hold a poll?) and called the new car the Mi.To – a name which wasn’t even on the list. And if it had been, it certainly wouldn’t have won. I mean, nobody’s going to vote for My.Toe, are they (which is certainly how all the British punters are going to pronounce it)? Is this toe thing some sort of April Fool’s joke? Sadly, it seems not.