I can just about change a tyre, but that's it. I don't mind admitting it here, but stranded by the roadside, I'm paralysed by automotive machismo. When Spanner Man sticks his head into the engine bay, points and says 'There's your trouble!' I nod. I have no idea what he's talking about. I'd rather clip a jump lead on my right nipple than admit my ignorance. Still, I'm not in denial. Something's wrong and someone knows what it is. All that's left is the hassle, delay and a hit on my credit card that makes filling a Murcielago with Super-Unleaded seem like a bargain.

I just wish someone could have warned me, you know, before. When it comes to performance cars, an ounce of prevention is worth 1120 kgs of immovable TVR. In fact, I reckon the government should force TVR to put a warning label on their product: 'Warning: This Car Breaks'. Not that it would work. Even a sticker proclaiming 'Driving this Car Can Lead Directly to a Tree' wouldn't put off members of The Cult of Unbridled Horsepower. Once they hear a TVR's burble and roar- a sound that will one day cough, splutter and die- they have less reasoning ability than an Irish Setter on heat.

There's an absurd scene in Goldeneye, where agent 007 races a hottie through the winding roads above Monte Carlo. Bond is behind the wheel of a DB5. The girl is driving a Ferrari 355. Guess who wins? Preposterous. That said, if you're not the type of person to take an informed view on the relative merits of Aston's straight six vs. Ferrari's 32-valve 8-cylinder power plant, or the handling implications of conventional vs. electronically damped suspension, the scene made perfect sense. Handsome Bond in beautiful car duels beautiful girl in gorgeous car. That's more than enough information for the average moviegoer.

Encountering a fully restored DB5 39-years after its screen debut (in Goldfinger) it's easy to understand the filmmakers' choice. The Aston still looks fast enough to take on a Ferrari – any Ferrari. Although Touring of Milan sculpted the shape, the DB5 is nothing like the delicately proportioned Ferraris and Maseratis of its day. Examined in detail, the Aston appears to be an automotive farrago, combining a 'smiling bulldog' front grille, muscle car front air scoop, mini-Cadillac tapered wings and Volvo-esque rear window. Taken as a whole, it's the automotive equivalent of a Saville Row suit: butch, yet infinitely elegant. Like Bond himself, the DB5's design somehow manages to combine infinite sophistication with unbridled aggression.

Strange people start cults. A science fiction writer who "discovered" that tomatoes feel pain created The Church of Scientology. A Dutch man convicted of mail fraud convinced millions that their ancestors had sex with astronauts. A talking salamander founded the Mormons. And a racetrack owner who decided to let complete amateurs onto his concrete playground created the Trakult.

Ask a Scientologist why they follow a doctrine created by man who ended his years on his own cruise ship staffed entirely by teenage girls in matching halter-tops and hot pants. You'll get a perfectly plausible explanation involving negative engrams (shouldn't it be "enmails" by now?), followed by a damn fine lawsuit. Ask a Member of the Trakult why a professional race circuit is a better place to drive fast than a public road, and you'll get an equally belligerent and self-righteous reply: safety. Trakultists argue that racetracks are the best—nay the ONLY place— for their speed-afflicted brethren to indulge their love of lateral G's.

On a clear day, it takes me three hours to drive back from Gatwick. I'll never forget the fateful day the journey required seven hours. Seven hours stuck in a car with the secretary from Hell. Seven hours listening to her bouncer boyfriend's [allegedly] successful battle against booze, fags, cocaine, speed, angel dust, in-bred in-laws, chronic unemployment, a nasty temper, asthma and a criminal record. The reason for this endless exploration of the existential maxim that "Hell is other people"? They closed the motorway. They closed the M25. There was an accident.

I have no idea how many people died that day, or how they met their Maker. God only knows what horrific scenes greeted the fine men and women of the police, fire department and paramedic squads on that bloody afternoon. I have nothing but respect for those who had to deal with the aftermath. And my heart goes out to all the people— mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, etc.—bereaved by this regrettable tragedy. But did they really have to close the motorway? At the risk of giving politically correct "safety campaigners" an apoplectic fit, why didn't they just shovel the wreckage to one side and let everybody else get on with it?