'Chee, any chance I could borrow the Skoda for the weekend?’ I’ve got used to this sort of request, and whether I agree or not usually depends on what’s on offer in exchange. In this case it was Tomalin making the request, which meant I’d have the Jag XK to swan around in for the weekend. Needless to say, I agreed.

Turned out that Tommo needed the Octavia to transport some gear for the dodgy rock band that he and photographer Kenny P play in. It was the latest leg of Oldplay’s ‘world tour’ and Tommo had to lug his drum kit, amplifiers and big boxes of Sanatogen to the local school hall where, later, their ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ would apparently go down a storm.

But back to the Octavia. As mentioned last month, I’ve been experiencing a slight but annoying knocking noise from somewhere up front (and, no, it’s nothing to do with Tomalin’s drumming). At first I thought the dampers were on their way out, as the vRS was pattering along on bumpy roads and weaving slightly at high speeds. But at just 16,000 miles this surely couldn’t be the problem, so I booked the car in with Autohaus Skoda in Northampton for them to investigate.

I demonstrated the noise to the service manager and left the car with them. They called back later to say they’d located the problem: a loose steering arm. Easy enough to fix, but not what you want to hear. The manager said he’d inform Skoda UK of the problem.

Collecting the car, I left the dealership in a positive mood. The vRS felt like new again, and a quick thwap back to the office seemed in order…

Now, the vRS had been displaying a tendency to lurch into understeer very sharply if I accelerated mid-corner with the TC off, and I wondered if this was down to the loose arm. Turning off a dual carriageway onto a wide sliproad, I thought I’d boot the throttle to find out; the Octavia responded by understeering so severely that it felt like I’d hit a rug on a polished floor.

Then I lifted off and an almighty four-wheel drift ensued… Thankfully I managed to get it straight again with no damage done, but I was left bewildered by what had happened. Until later, that is, when I noticed that the car had been cleaned particularly thoroughly while it had been at Autohaus, including spraying the tyres with some sort of ‘back to black’ rubber renovator. Maybe that was to blame.

Still, I didn’t have to wait for it be scrubbed off as, shortly afterwards, the Skoda received a fresh pair of ContiSportContact 2s on the front to make sure it was fighting fit before being pressed into duty as a camera car for the Welsh leg of eCoty. Always in demand, the Octavia.