As I write this, I'm sat on the sofa in my mum and dad's house in West Cork, having just driven here from my own home in Belfast.

My youngest son is driving my dad demented with requests to go out and play in the garden, even though it's teeming with rain (of course it is, it's a Bank Holiday weekend) and my mum has just plonked a cup of hot, fresh tea and some Jaffa Cakes next to me. The world could not be a better place, right now.

And yet. My hands are shaking, just a little.…

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein.

It is not often I begin a column with a quote from the genius with the mad hair, but bear with me here. What many believe Einstein was referring to (if he did indeed make that statement - there is some debate over that) is standardised testing and the fact that people are individuals, with their own talents, strengths and weaknesses. Some people are…

Someday, maybe sooner than any of us imagine, a reckoning is going to come.

each of of our favourite sci-fi tropes are now looking more and more as if they may become actual events. Towering tsunami, belching volcanoes and catastrophic storms are now ten-a-penny and even someone as serious as Stephen Hawking is warning about reaching out to possible alien species, lest we accidentally send out an invitation to the invasion, formal battle-dress required.

Maybe a zombie horde really will arise, or perhaps it'll be a Red-Dawn-style invasion by some nameless, faceless fascist foe. Either way, you're going to…

Sit down, please. I'm going to ask for forgiveness in a moment, because I'm about to do something that is utterly shocking for a professional motoring journalist. I'm going to recommend you buy a automobile, which I haven't driven yet - which no one outside of the company that makes it has driven yet. A automobile which, in all fairness, might be utter shite to drive or appallingly expensive and difficult to own. In fact, given the history of some of its forebears, that's actually quite a likely outcome.

But if I may divest myself of my Sweaty Cloak…

What has happened to the humble spare wheel? For years it sat in your boot, largely ignored, but there when you needed it most like a good spare tyre should. They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes; from the space-saver (or donut for our American readers) to the full-size spare, or, if you were so inclined, you could even get a fifth wheel with matching 20-inch alloy to go with the rest of the automobile so swapping over because of a puncture did not leave you looking like a donut (maybe that's where American's got the term from…

It's old enough for a bus pass now, 65 years this month. Of course, it actually is a bus, so having a pass might be something of a moot point. Call it the Bulli, the Transporter, the Type 2, the Kombi - whatever, it's the Volkswagen van and it has become part of the tapestry of our lives. Only the Ford Transit can match it as a commercial vehicle that has achieved anechoic status.

It all began in 1950 when Ben Pon visited the Volkswagen factory. He was the Dutch importer for Volkswagen (which then meant the Beetle and…