Clarkson - Clarkson on Cars

The bungalow itself warranted little merit. The bay windows played host to a selection of bulls-eye glass, carriage lamps illuminated the neo-Georgian front door and gnomes with fishing rods frolicked among the horribly organised front garden.

There is little doubt that I would not enjoy the company of whoever had chosen this mish-mash of tasteless addenda. People with carriage lamps are people who have children called Janet. And children called Janet arent allowed to eat sweets between meals or wear jeans.

Ordinarily, I would not concern myself with this sort of house or the people who occupy it, but in this instance I am sorely tempted to write them a letter explaining why they are the most ghastly individuals this side of anyone who indulges in tactical voting to oust the Conservatives.

You see, nailed to their teak gatepost is one of those polished tree-trunk slices with the legend Olcote picked out in Olde Worlde York Tea Shoppe script.

Thats bad enough but to make matters much, much worse, I have learned that this quaint mnemonic stands for Our Little Corner Of The Earth.

Point one: if your house is numbered, dont mess up the postmans schedule by giving it a name. And point two: if you insist on making everyone wait two weeks for their letters, at least give it a name with some credibility.

If you have an awful bungalow with a ning-nong illuminated doorbell, you should call it The Foul Little Bungalow Thats Equipped With Every Nasty Piece Of DIY Kit I Could Find At Alabama Homecare.

You should never call it Olcote. I can think of some pretty unsavoury corners of the Earth to which I would despatch people who do: Beirut for those who do it by accident, West Thurrock for persistent offenders and Basrah for those who see nothing wrong with it.

Out there it would be a case of calling your AK47-pock-marked shack Olcote Babama. This, for the uninitiated, stands for Our Little Corner Of The Earths Been Annihilated By A Mig Again. And given half a chance, Id be the pilot.

Its all to do with taking the art of personalisation to extremes. You can make your house more comfortable by fitting central heating and thick carpets or you can distinguish it from those up the road by painting it day-glo lime green. These moves are fine; they make life more comfortable, more aesthetically pleasing. More of a statement.

But do tell, what are the advantages of changing your address from 22 Laburnum Drive to Sunny View, Laburnum Drive? Do you really think you should command any more respect from people who are writing to you simply because Sunny View might conjure up the mental picture of a Baronial Hall perched atop a cowslip-thronged hillside meadow, whereas number 22 sounds like its just part of a vast neo-Georgian estate?

Its the same with motor cars. Speaking personally, I dont much care for after market add-ons like spoilers and floodlights and rear speakers the size of Wales but if such paraphernalia are your bag, then go ahead.

Similarly, if it riles you to spy 2000 other guys driving around in identical Ford Sapphires every day, go on, get the spray can out and give it one of those paint jobs which hippies lavish on their ageing Bedford vans.

But, for heavens sake, stop there. Do not invest in a personalised number plate or else the next fully operational jet fighter that whistles toward your frolicking gnomes will have me at the helm and my fingers on the Sidewinder release mechanism.

I do not understand what appeal a cherished registration plate has unless it says something funny like DEV 1L, or ORG45M, or PEN15.

I have spent, oh, it must be close on fifteen minutes now, desperately trying to think of one reason why I should spend many hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds just so those within the vicinity of my battered CRX would know my initials are shared with Mr Christ.

If I were so intent on relaying this information to all and sundry, why couldnt I simply put up big notices in the windows? Or buy one of those electioneering loud hailers?

I was once forced to spend a week behind the wheel of an FSO which sported a registration plate that said FSO5. This was more embarrassing than the time when I spent an hour damning the dreadful Shake n Vac advert on television only to discover I was sitting opposite the copywriter whod written it.

You see, FSO5 is probably worth well into four-figure territory and I could see the drivers of neighbouring cars howling with Pythonesque laughter at me, the buffoon they thought had spent so much on a number plate, he couldnt afford anything better than a Polonez.

Worse are the idiots who spend a fortune on numbers like 316BMW for their BMW316s.

We all know its a 316 because the badge says so and anyway, had the buffoon not bought the number plate, he could probably have afforded a 325i.

While I object in the strongest possible sense to those who simply buy their initials or those of their car and to hell with what number comes in tandem, I have been amused in the past by various stories and sightings.

Theres the tale of a chap who lost a retina in World War II and now drives round in a car which bears the registration number, 1 EYE.

Then theres a friend of Beloved, called Tammy, who has TAM1 69. Ive been dying to meet her but, so far, various endeavours have ended with stern words and threats of no morning coffee for six weeks.

According to the autonumerologists bible, called Car Numbers, Jimmy Tarbuck owns COM1C but unless he drives a black Mini which is parked in a very seedy part of Fulham every night, I suspect an error has been made.

Other celebrities to own cherished plates are Max Bygraves who, it is said, turned down a 30,000 offer from Mercedes Benz for MB1, Kevin Keegan with KK A1, Jimmy White with 1 CUE, Bernard Manning with BJM 1 and Petula Clarke with PET 1.

Notice any similarity between these characters? Well Ill tell you. They are the staple diet of TV Times profiles and ITV quiz shows which have purple and orange backdrops, question masters in brown suits and lots of inane innuendo about bottoms.

In short, they are working-class heroes, the televisual nouveau riche, beloved by the kind who live in gaudy bungalows called Olcote.

And dont think Ive been through the book looking for people of this ilk. I searched in vain for mention of gentlemen like David Attenborough and Michael Palin but I fear they are not the sort to advertise their arrival.

They are the sort who would invest in a cherished plate only if it were likely to shock or amuse. And theres plenty of scope. Michael Palin would, Im sure, shy away from PAL 1N but if you offered him TAX1 or TUR8O, Im sure hed take the plunge. I know I would.

The thing is that when the registration system changed from suffixes to prefixes in 1983, the chances of any more cherished plates emerging from the DVLC evaporated.

In a bid to cut the pressure on staff who were forever being pestered by dealers for decent combinations, they no longer issue plates bearing any number less than 21. So its tough luck to all you Dianas and Nigels out there who were waiting with bated breath.

However, it is still possible to buy numbers that were issued when civil servants didnt mind spending a few minutes each day acting the role of their job title.

If you wish to buy a registration number, it must be from a vehicle that is currently taxed or has been taxed within the past six months.

No longer is it any good to find some old wreck in a farmyard with the plate youve always wanted. And anyway, in 1983, the Swansea computer erased all knowledge of any car which hadnt been taxed within the previous two years.

Providing, however, the donor and recipient vehicles meet with the approval of those inscrutable chappies at your local vehicle-licensing office, all you have to do is obtain a V317 form from your LVLO, fill it in, hand it, along with the two requisite tax discs and registration documents to the inscrutable chappie, give him 80 and head off back to your little corner of the earth.