Getting into a Lotus Elise is no easy task when you are 6ft tall, and even worse when you have a garage that is so small you can only open the door halfway. Watching me is like watching a spider being washed down a plughole, body first, legs and arms flailing second. The technique I mastered relies on twisting the body in ways nature didn’t intend. In an ideal world my body would adapt, become stronger, faster, better, but in reality my body decided I was going to develop the first case of ‘Lotus Knee’.

This wondrous condition makes getting in and out of a Lotus a painful experience that is accompanied with an exclusive soundtrack of ‘clicking’ leg parts and swearing. The Doctor diagnosed it as ‘bad posture’ and requires physiotherapy, but I inclined to think it requires 10 hot laps of the Lotus test track and factory tour. Sadly, my health insurance rep said the latter was out of the question.