Just look at that optimistic little face. She has no idea her Daddy's cursed by the gods of motoring. If she did, she'd be crying as much as I am.

Suffice it to say it's been another day of joy on the roads. I've had my Mum's car for... oooh, a full three days now, so it's about time I managed to knacker this one too. I was just pulling into a parking space at Brighton General Hospital this morning when I suddenly lost direction in life, and felt a general sinking feeling. I promptly got out of the car, only to be greeted by the pssssssst of a tyre rapidly deflating. Which is not the news you want when it's pouring with rain, you're two minutes late for work, and you've already written off one car this week. With luck like this, anyone would think I'd broken a mirror, but ironically the wing mirrors were just about the only part of my Skoda still intact when they towed it away.

Anyhoo, the good news is I'm getting my money's worth out of the AA. Although if I carry on like this, they'll be following Woolworths into administration. I'm a one-man profit warning. But fortunately they managed to afford the petrol to rescue me again today, and I spent an enjoyable fifteen minutes standing at the pharmacy door, watching a man in day-glo waterproofs kneeling in a puddle to fit my spare wheel. At which point I realised how stupid I'd been not to have kept the one from my old car. I think I was too busy saving my Homer Simpson ice-scraper.

But talking of AA, I was reading this article yesterday about a miracle cure for alcoholism. Apparently taking 270mg of baclofen a day completely removes your urge to drink. Frankly it's not surprising. We stock baclofen tablets at work, and they only come in one strength: 10mg. Never mind supressing your cravings, by the time you've got 27 pills out of a blister pack, you don't have time to open a bottle of wine.