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ANTHONY MARTIN IS INTO VROOM SERVICE, HAVING DISCOVERED THE INCLUSION OF A SPECIAL EXTRA IN HIS NEW CAR. WHILE MOST OF US DISPOSE OF OUR WASTE IN AN ECOFRIENDLY BAG, HE WANTS TO KEEP IT CLOSE AT HAND

AT LAST finally it’s on its way. Due to the economic conflict between the USA and China, the severe drought in Taiwan and the little Slavic man in the big Red Square, my delivery is taking a while to get here. But, thanks to the person who found a stash of semiconductor chips down the side of the sofa, my mobile waste-paper bin, complete with spring- loaded lid, is finally on the move, ten months after the initial order.

It is not, I hasten to add, an ordinary bin, but a classic example of blue-sky thinking, of thinking outside the box as, to ensure its mobility, they wrapped it in a car. A car of Scandi origin, built by a company owned by the Chinese, but manufactured in Belgium. This being a good thing, for the Belgians are good builders, if you remember they built Audrey Hepburn, and they did a firstclass job on her.

But this is not a piece about La Hepburn, nor is it about the car, with its myriad of widgets and gizmos, and the fact that you can chat to it and it will answer you without telling you to slow down and stay in your bloody lane, as some passengers are prone to do.

No, this is about the fact that I have, over the years, owned a few cars and driven a lot of cars, but never come across a car with a spring-loaded removable lidded waste bin being an integral part of the centre console.

I could go on, in Jeremy Clarkson style, about engine size, torque versus horsepower and that cars no longer have switches, just touch control icons that will do everything from keeping your distance from the car in front, to lowering the rear headrests, but frankly I’m more impressed with the waste bin, so this piece is to honour the Sven or Birgitta who came up with this stonking idea.

Finally, I will have a place for those unwanted till and parking receipts, lolly sticks, dead batteries and Mars Bar wrappers. When I got rid of my last car it carried 14 years of detritus: under the seats, the mats, in the cup holders.

All the storage areas had something hiding there, be they nuts or washers, or a black plastic clip that you know came off something or other but could not be thrown away as it might be important: it could well be the sprocket, widget, thingummy from the whatsit that you will one day be searching for, and spares will not be available. These important bits and bobs cannot be put in the waste bin, which, after all, needs to be emptied on a regular basis. Disregarding all that, a man’s car should have character. With lots of small cubbies and hidey-holes in which to put his ‘car things that might be needed someday’, like the sprocket, widget thingy.

His wardrobe drawers might hold old screwdriver handles, his ancient Ovaltiney badge, the swimming certificate he won for doing a width of the pool summer at camp in 1952. These are the little drawers that hold the mementoes of the important milestones in his life.

But the car’s hidey holes – now they hold the mementoes of ‘car’ memories. The speed camera photograph of the rear number plate doing 127mph on the A40, the mechanic’s inflated bill for what was effectively just a missing hinge nut, or an article of clothing left by a long-forgotten girlfriend. All these are of importance but none so vitally important, as this 21st century must-have.

Google ‘car waste bin’ and it will produce 310 million hits, but it took over 100 years for a Sven or Birgitta to think of building one into a car itself. Why is it they have only just thought of this? These are the people who gave us Ikea, Nobel, smorgasbord, meatballs, dancing queens and even an angry munchkin, called Greta Thunberg. How is it possible that the springloaded lidded waste bin took so long?