COLUMNIST: Steve Parrish

EX-RACER & TEAM MANAGER RACE INSIDER

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Happy New Year, folks. It's only 300-and-something days until we get to do it all over again! I'm quite pleased to be through it, if I'm honest, but we were blessed with my grandson on December 30, so that was by far the best thing to come out of the festive period and a great reason to put my engineering expertise to good use while I was bored over Christmas. I set to and built him a crib out of a petrol drum, which he only just fits in; I wasn't expecting him to be quite so big, to be honest, but at least when he outgrows it, we can use it as a barbecue.

It comes with a nice smell of petrol which knocks him out and sends him straight to sleep, and when he has a pee, you just crack the bolt at the bottom and let it run out - I think it's quite ingenious and suspect I might have stumbled across a new business venture... they'll sell like hotcakes. I might have to make one out of a 45-gallon drum when he gets bit bigger, least then I can go in it too.