The obvious flaw in this plan, of course, is that there’s a good chance that whatever vehicle it was in which Mr Fagan was planning to leave town would have gone missing on Black Monday – and not been recovered during the intervening three days.

The latest press release from Retainagroup claims that no fewer than 681 people reported their vehicles stolen on (Black) Monday 26 July, and that barely half of these individuals will ever see their vehicles again.

You can greatly reduce the risk of having your ride purloined, of course, by not driving a Ford Transit - the number-one choice of ride purloiners. In fact, more than 10% of the vehicles stolen on Black Monday (26 July 2010) were “vans, pick-ups and other light commercial vehicles.”

But owners of newer more car-like vehicles shouldn’t feel complacent either, Retinagroup argues: “We are constantly told that car theft has fallen by 65% since the bad old days of the late 90s. But now immobilisers are a standard feature of newer cars, thieves have found new ways of stealing them, and more than 25% of vehicles stolen on Black Monday were 2007 or younger.”*

If all this has left you feeling a little nervous, fear not! Salvation is at hand.

Retainagroup offers a simple affordable solution to all your ride-purloinment worries. This involves registering your vehicle with the International Security Register, whose 24/7 phone number and a unique identifying code are chemically etched into the glass of its windows, thereby allowing instant verification online by public or police.

End result: risk of theft cut by 55% - prospect of recovery up by 42%.

Because they are ineradicable, Retainagroup’s markings also provide an effective deterrent against cloning – reckoned to affect between 70,000 and 80,000 UK motors annually. A quick (free) visit to www.ISRcodecheck.com soon confirms whether a vehicle has been stolen or cloned. Bingo!

Bankstone News cannot help thinking – in a purely impartial way – that this kind of peace of mind would surely provide a highly attractive added benefit to customers of motor insurance organisations of all kinds. And it’s eminently affordable, just so you know.

—

* This statistic presents an interesting contrast with human beings, of whom 100% are 2007 or younger. It’s different with vampires, obviously.

Has Dickon picked up any tips on how to run a charity event? You’ll have to wait til 18th and 19th September to find out, when Bankstone’s fleet of mini motorbikes rides out in aid of Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Be that as it may, nothing chagrined by the cruel omital of any wooden spoon award, new course record holder Mr Tysoe reports an excellent time being had by all, admist valuable fund raising, obviously, for the Hammersmith Hosptial-based leukaemia charity.

After rubbing elbows with various celebrities, Mr Tysoe offers the arresting observation that – uncannily - hardman Ashes to Ashes star Philip Glennister is exactly the same height in real life as he appears on TV. Who would have thought it?

In this case, to be specific, Euan was leading a thriving team out of Marsh and into Aon, via an extended horticultural sabbatical.

But according to his former employees – rather than gardening – young Euan was busy helping Aon net erstwhile Marsh clients Italian energy firm Saipem. That and – more recently - hurling computer hardware into nearby ponds and waterways, leaving egg-faced Aon cast adrift on the stormy waters of adverse publicity.

Fresh from the disappointment of sponsoring a shirt Man U fans refuse to wear in defiance of the Glaziers, Aon have now seen the man who forsook the marshes for deeper waters roundly rebuked in the High Court for destroying evidence of his misspent leave. Accused of contempt of court and making false statements, Euan could yet end up behind bars.

In apparent defiance of a court ruling won by Marsh ordering him not to “destroy, tamper with, cancel or part with possession, power, custody or control” of any computers or data storage devices that might contain material evidence, Euan betook himself early one morn to a mist-enshrouded lake and did a Bedivere on his laptop, before allegedly dispatching three or four USB memory devices to a nearby riverbed.

But forensic frogmen have since retrieved the laptop, 59% of whose data is still readable – yielding potentially interesting reading on Euan’s contacts with fellow ex-Marsh gardeners and with Aon’s Saipem tender team.

Magne Seljeflot, Chairman of Aon’s Energy Team – whose name, fact fans, is Old Norse for large salty floating thing – says “Bringing Euan in to our energy team underlines Aon’s commitment to building first-class teams that lead the industry.” Such was Aon’s excitement at landing such a catch, it seems, they may have reeled him in a little hastily.

Aon, incidentally, is Gaelic for one or oneness. Euan is Gaelic for born yesterday - out of a cleft in a yew tree.

She went on to claim that the decision by an entire generation of middle-aged people to add literally hundreds of children – well, one or two at least – to their insurance policies had led to their motor insurance premiums increasing more than anyone else’s.

Confused Simon Lamble blamed Switzerland’s largest city: “Zurich publicly announced in January it was looking to raise prices by up to 20% and it appears the rest of the industry has followed suit.”

Bankstone News would love to tell you what all this means but a) we’ve no idea and b) we’d probably have to kill you.

That at least is the claim from shadowy alien busting agency Men In Black. However improbable its source, this is clearly good news - because you’re kind of supposed to have insurance if you’re planning on driving a motor vehicle around these days.

MIB’s investigations show there’s been a 20% drop in the number of Brits driving without insurance over the past four years. But that still leaves 1.5 million drivers eschewing its proven benefits. How do MIB know all this? Best not ask - they just know!

Good thing for uninsured drivers that MIB don’t have a licence to prosecute terrestrials – because they even know where all these insurance dodgers live – mostly in Bradford (why is it always Bradford?), Greater Manchester and Birmingham, since you ask.

Armed with this valuable knowledge insurance providers may wish to consider targeting residents of postcodes BD3, M12, B10 and B12 with marketing literature saying something like:

Attention small time criminals! Want to make an honest motor of your ride? You could qualify for our special No Insurance Bonus when you take out a policy with [insert company name]. No questions asked. Cash up front only.

OK, it’s not the greatest marketing idea ever. But it’s certainly a cut above Legal Assistance Direct who proudly differentiate themselves from non-English speakers without any legal training - with the distinctly underwhelming boast: ‘Real lawyers who speak your language.’

Check your car insurance before travelling overseas this summer warns the Car Insurance Mega Store. Apparently things can go wrong when driving on ‘The Continent.’

Check your car insurance before heading off to one of this summer’s music festivals warns the Post Office this week (even though the good ones have mostly come and gone already).

Check your car insurance before borrowing a car warns confused.com, who recently uncovered ‘an alarming host of misconceptions about the cover your motor insurance gives you when driving someone else’s car.”

Check your car insurance before switching off your bedside light each night advises the National Insomnia Helpline.

Check your car insurance before scratching your arse warns Bankstone News.

Whilst full of praise for the home of TV’s Johnny Vegas, Virgin Money’s team of expert rankers reckon London is the UK’s most car-hostile urban centre. Their rankings take account of things like petrol prices, parking availability and cost, traffic congestion and speed camera density.

It seems the capital’s 600 speed cameras cost it dear in Virgin Money’s survey of 65 UK towns and cities. But surely speed cameras are only looking out for the best interests of their friends the cars, by discouraging their owners from driving them too fast.

Other allegedly car-unfriendly locations include Manchester, Reading, Glasgow and Watford. If you don’t want your car to feel unwelcome, best steer clear of them as well.

Grant Bother, of Virgin Money Car Insurance claims: “Everyone will have their own definition of driving hell – whether it is hunting for a parking space, being stuck in a traffic jam, or being caught by a speed camera. Our research attempts to show which cities and towns are best and worst for drivers.”

Hang on – wasn’t this about cars, not drivers?

Accident Exchange has said it is happy about this, and that it will continue pursuing Autofocus for damages and get some previous cases back into court.

Autofocus are presumably less happy that their cunning plans to keep the evidence of allegedly dodgy former employees out of public view have come to nought.

Accident Exchange now intends to drag these non-immune witnesses into the High Court, claiming tantalisingly that “we (now) believe we have further evidence of dishonesty.”

Two cases involving evidence from one of these suspect employees (Archer v Skanska and Stewart v Rees) will now be reopened.

“We are delighted,” said Accident Exchange chief executive Steve Evans. Notwithstanding his frustration at six months’ delay whilst awaiting the Court of Appeal’s decision, Steve went on the declare, succinctly, that:

‘Following today’s judgment in the Court of Appeal, we have decided to bring into the main action against Autofocus, as co-defendants, the majority of those 13 employees of Autofocus who left the business hurriedly in September 2009 and against whom we have evidence of improper behaviour in order that they can fully account for the investigations that they say they conducted on gathering hire rates, the veracity of the evidence they gave and the reasons for their rapid departure from Autofocus when our suspicions were aroused.”

The Bankstone team are crossing their fingers that a freak combination of excessive weight, the wrong kind of weather, the distractions of food consumption, and general indolence will not once again thwart their hopes of a podium place.

Having barely scraped into the top ten last year, Bankstone are now riding a wave of confident expectation eerily reminiscent of the one that bore England’s footballers all the way to a magnificent Round of 16 exit in South Africa.

The Milton Keynes Endurance event looks set to be bigger and better than ever this year, with even more teams entered than in 2009. So Bankstone will have to apply themselves in earnest this year to achieve the imperious victory their outstanding talents so obviously merit.

The six-hour kart endurance race takes place at Daytona Milton Keynes (n.b. not in Florida if you are leaving it to your personal assistant to make your travel arrangements). In addition to the endless racing round a wiggly track fringed with car tires, it also features a Formula One style Pit Stop Challenge.

To book a place one of few remaining places on the grid, please contact Lee Jackson on 0845 644 5503 or email lee.jackson@daytona.co.uk

Rogue ungulates are taking out 15 to 20 motorists a year, and seriously injuring a further 1,000, causing untold human misery, and costing the NHS an estimated very large sum of money.

“These attacks can no longer be tolerated,” an anonymous source told Bankstone News. “These animals are ruthless fanatics, prepared to use their own bodies as deadly weapons. It’s cull or be killed out there.”

The Telegraph estimates that deer are responsible for around 74,000 collisions a year, while “one insurer” estimates that 11,000 privately insured vehicles suffer “significant” damage in such incidents, costing £14m – with damage to commercial vehicles adding a further £17m in repair costs alone.