Can you put a price on efficiency? I think you can. It’s about £25.

So cranking ruthlessly through his blue task list (Pink Tasks or Blue Tasks – division of labour VW-style) Stuart wanted to get ahead of himself and arrange the SORN-ing of his car a couple of weeks in advance of travel.

A SORN is essential if you don’t want to pay road tax for a car you aren’t using. It looked like advance notice had to be given by phone. So that was the plan. Call the nice folk in Swansea, tell them he needed  his car for a bit longer but could the SORN please kick in on the day the vehicle was abandoned for life in a van.

Stuart responded to all the automated questions, fully expecting to be put through to a human to conclude the business of the SORN. Except he wasn’t. “Thank you. Your car is now off the road.” said the computer. “I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” shouted Stuart at the phone.

It took a further hour of chasing round the DVLA’s phone system to get to a live person who confirmed that, yes, as from 1 hour ago, Stuart’s car was officially off road. Getting into her stride the adviser added: “So if our van drove past your house right now, you’d be fined for having no tax.”

There was nothing for it but to drive (illegally) to the local post office and tax the car again right up to departure date and then SORN again.

I said nothing, apart from this post on the world wide web.