DON'T believe everything you hear about the mid-life crisis.

For instance, let me tell you from experience that all that rubbish about men of my age wanting a sports car is. . . well, rubbish.

Sure, if somebody gave me a Ferrari I'd drive it, but I don't wake up in the morning, having dreamt about owning one.

I don't really want a Ferrari. I want a van.

Owning a van has always been an ambition of mine, and now I reckon I am at an age when I should be able to have one if I want one. What I'd like most of all is one of those split-screen Volkswagen camper vans I what my son calls a 'hippie van'.

Mind you, it would have to be a modernised version, because of something that my mate Percy once said.

"You always see them on the hard shoulder, " he says. "On fire."

It's true. It's something that I hadn't thought about before he pointed it out, but I guarantee that the next time you see a van on fire, it'll be a VW.

Part of my problem is I was exposed to the joys of vans at an early age.

Our dad had one of those Bedford Dormobiles - and not only that. It was the Romany version - a camper van with the tilting roof extension, made of deckchair material.

In short, it was a van made in heaven.

I don't necessarily want a camper van, with windows, though. I'd be more than happy to have a little Austin delivery van, like Wallace and Gromit's. All these years it's been hard to make a case for a van when we needed a car to ferry kids around in.

Even when I took up drumming, five or six years ago, I still didn't need one because I had no intention of playing in front of anybody, so the drums stayed at home.

But when I was asked to join a band, before Christmas, it dawned on me that a van was surely going to be a necessity.

And because our car will soon need renewing, suddenly it seemed I would get one sooner rather than later.

But then my wife came over all anti-van.

"We're not getting a van, " she said. "We don't need a van. Your drum kit squeezes in the car if you put the seats down. We'll just get another car where the seats go down."

So that's that.

If there's one thing I've learned in life it's that if a woman says that's her final word on the subject, she means it.

And if there's one thing that women will never understand, it's that the last thing motoring should ever be about is practicalities.

It's not about needing a van. It's about wanting one.

Sure enough, a couple of weeks have now passed since she crushed my van dream, and I don't believe a single van-related thought has entered her head since.

2:04pm Thursday 3rd April 2008

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