So how was it for you? Have a good time? Eat, drink and OD on the merriment? Yes? Me too – again and again and again.

I’m in such a poor state that my waistline is now in very real danger of developing its own gravitational pull. All that booze, turkey, mince pies and Chrimbo cake have really taken their toll – and even the annual visit of Mr Hankey didn’t shed enough poundage. Currently, I’m very possibly a danger to low altitude air traffic. Belly has well and truly got me, and now, I need to lose him PDQ.

In additional to the usual motivational techniques: trousers cutting off the blood flow to any vessel, organ or limb below the waist; being able to use a public lav without getting stuck: or earn scorn from my GP as he gives a look which suggests I’m endangering the balance of our spinning planet – I have to go and test drive a really small car.

I won’t tell you what it is – client confidentiality blah, blah – but put it like this, this car is so ickle that it would come off worse if it crashed into a clown’s shoe. It’s that seriously tiny. I really am immensely doubtful that I’ll get anywhere near climbing into it – in fact, it’s more probable that it will climb into me.

Would that I could distract my gut and run the other way, for to get any work in January is unusual enough thanks to the road salt demon. It’s a state of affairs which has led me to cook up ever dafter ploys.

Plan A involves modifying an old Hoover for a bout of DIY garage liposuction; however, this is out due to the tired old device having all the suction of a 99-year-old asthmatic hooker.

Plan B, befriend a butcher and ‘borrow’ his meat slicer – but this falls down due to the price of meat and the slicer overheating. Plan C, shackle my ankles to a parked car and wait, shirtless, quivering and face down – I suspect I’d only last a couple of yards before my girlish screams alerted the driver. Plan D, watch Mamma Mia again and projectile vomit the pounds away. (Actually scratch that, because that would end up with me downing a bottle of whiskey and slowly loading a Webley service revolver.)

The thing is that sooner or later – and it’s later, down near Plan Y which comes after the scheme involving smearing my gut with beef paste and dangling it into a tank of hungry piranha – I’m going to have admit that I need one of these diets.

The depressing truth is I know that none of this would have happened if I was still regularly tooling around in the Midget. Pile on the pounds and you just won’t fit, so you end up walking – and hey presto, Major Tubby Watkins soon disappears. Pile on just a few ounces, and the noticeable list was a way of the Midget uttering, ‘Oi, Colonel Blimp, what are you trying to do to me?’

Unfortunately, I’ve left the old girl off the road for such a long time that its fuel pump has packed in. Which is a bind, because that is located beneath the boot floor and I know full well that with this much man-blubber, there’s no way my cheapo jack will provide enough clearance for yours sincerely. Let’s be blunt here, at the moment, certain four-pillar lifts would struggle.

So this is my New Year’s resolution: no more fat bastard and no more neglecting the MG, because here’s the nub – small old cars don’t just keep you thin, they’re actually good for you and your health. It must be true, because you just read it somewhere.

In the meantime, perhaps I should take Mad Mark up on his offer of a half-eaten rotting packet of Werther’s Originals. He found them languishing in the boot of a project car and they sound just the job. They’re black, hairy and are capable of rudimentary conversation.

Related articles:

1. Unhinged: The Old Car Spiral