ROD KER

In 2003, I bought a battery at a car boot sale. It was an impulse purchase – and a reckless one, because at a rough guess 90% of car batteries nestling in long grass fields are faulty. They may have enough power to excite a glow worm, but will fail miserably to reactivate a dormant Datsun or wake a slumbering Spridget.

The vendor in this case was young and female, but obviously that didn’t sway me when she fluttered her eyelashes and told me it was virtually new, bought in error by her 98 year-old great grandfather, who had been a fighter pilot in the war, etc. Judging by appearances (the battery, not