Emissions/Kilian Doyle: Some weeks ago the Motors editor suggested that this would be a good time of year to unleash abuse on a certain element of the motoring fraternity.So specific a sector did he have in mind that I suggested there might have been some underlying childhood trauma behind the request.
"No, not a bit of it," he retorted, sounding hurt. "They're just rubbish." Orders is orders, so - steeling myself for humiliation - I sneaked into a string of newsagents to do some research. If I'd dressed myself up in a nun's outfit or a Saddam suit I would have felt less self-conscious.
Here's me, reasonably debonair and possessing passable social skills, rummaging through all the biker magazines festooned with half-naked slappers, desperately seeking some reading material on....wait for it...caravanning.
Eventually I found a relevant magazine. "This'll do," I thought, rolling it up tightly so nobody would see what I was buying. I would have been less embarrassed if I'd walked up to the counter with a copy of Busty Belgian Babes in one grubby paw and the Gary Glitter Annual 2002 in the other. The girl at the register looked at the magazine and then stared at me as if I'd just asked to borrow her underwear for a few days.
At home, I took it out of the paper bag like some raincoat merchant with his stash. "Exclusive!" the cover said. "Caravans! Freedom! Value! Mega test!" (There were a lot! And I mean, a lot! Of exclamation marks!)
Inside it was all photos of smiling middle-aged English people in comfortable slacks and cheap hats, price comparisons between second-hand caravans, tow car reviews, lists of best parks, that kind of thing.
Pride of place was an interview with the so-called King and Queen of Caravanning. And how did this retired civil engineer and his wife qualify for such an exalted position?
They own a caravan each. I kid you not. Eat your heart out Posh'n'Becks, eh? You better watch your backs - the Grimethorpes (names changed to protect the guilty) have their eye on the title of world's most glamorous couple.
There's also a piece about a fellow from Norfolk who brings his wife and seven children caravanning three times a year.
Seven kids in a caravan? What kind of sado-masochistic freakery is that? And where do they go on these merry jaunts? "Norfolk, mostly. It's nice to be able to nip back home to watch the football."
I have to take a step back here for a second. I must point out that it's not the magazine itself that rankles. It's actually quite well laid out, reasonably written, very informative and contains plenty of shots of happy campers. But then I'm sure the average political party manifesto is quite well laid out, reasonably written, very informative and contains plenty of shots of happy voters. But that doesn't make the subject matter any less noxious.
It's caravanning itself that I have issue with. It is pure pants.
The idea of crawling along roads at 30 miles an hour, the hot rage of a thousand irate motorists burning the back of your neck as your bickering offspring push you to the brink of infanticide, with nothing to look forward to but two weeks in a muddy field with a tap and a Portaloo in the corner, is not my idea of a holiday.
Maybe that's me being elitist? Maybe I just don't appreciate the whole caravanning experience? After all, in the words of the Grimethorpes, "green grassy sites are so much more appealing than hotel rooms," aren't they? Perhaps.
But answer me this one question: Is it elitist to want to sleep somewhere where my head is actually more than three feet from a caravan's communal toilet? I rest my case.