beauty that is Mercedes' E500 Cabriolet

Minutes after Danny the horse and I posed for this picture, the men from Mercedes came and collected their lovely new motor and I got in my own car to head to London for an important meeting. It wouldn't start.

So I cadged a lift to the station, where at this precise moment I'm sitting on a bench at the end of the platform like some lunatic trainspotter, with my shoes covered in horse dung, my hair coated in diesel dust and my brand new Tom Ford suit streaked with pigeon poop from the canopy overhead that's supposed to stop things dripping on you. I've written this column from some grim places, but this takes the mick.

The Mercedes E500 Cabriolet is more impressive with the roof up - mainly because it's so quiet that you forget you're in a convertible

Still, as all the trains are delayed, it's as good a time as any to crack on. So, why the horse? Well, originally, a cabriolet - from the French cabrioler, meaning to caper (thanks, Google) - was a light, two-wheeled carriage that could be pulled fast by a single horse, making it the best way of getting around a large town. 'Cab', as in taxi, is an abbreviation of the word. So 200 years ago, Danny here would have been pulling the cabriolet.

I don't think he could pull this one, though, big boy though he is. You can probably tell I'm keeping my distance. I don't do horses. Horsepower, yes - horses, no. I like them, but I don't think they like me. If you had the chance to lounge around in a field all day, eating grass with all the lady horses, I don't think you'd be much impressed by some 14-stone Yorkshireman trying to hitch a ride on your back. I went on a horse once when I was younger, and within ten seconds I was on my back looking at the clouds with my spine lodged in my throat. It was three days before my lungs worked properly. Nope, it's definitely not for me.