On one occasion it spent a worrying few seconds on what sounded like a less than full complement of cylinders. A couple of blips of the throttle acted like a cold shower and roused the remaining pots, but it was still slightly concerning.

As with so many cars nowadays, the Golf decides for itself when it would like to be serviced. Nonetheless, I thought I'd have a squint at the manual and check that GOX wasn't due a fettle. The glovebox file told me that I could easily discover how long the Golf had left until a meeting with its dealer by pressing the trip computer button for two seconds. The answer was a surprisingly lengthy 6400 miles or 438 days, which means I'm obviously not giving the Golf enough of a caning. Consequently I will be setting off early every morning from now on to give the GTI a damn good thrashing - assuming I wake up in time, that is.