Good ambitions for New Year's resolutions

One turkey has been finished, two argumentative families have been visited, a state of the art smart phone has been drowned in a pitcher of bucks fizz and another Christmas has been and gone.

Unfortunately, a predictable tightening of my waistband has led me to start thinking about my New Year's resolutions. It seems that spending too much time on the sofa and watching as many Christmas specials as possible only happens once a year for a reason!

So, apart from the inevitable (and largely unachievable) New Year diet plan, I have been wondering about the other wonderful things I would like to accomplish throughout 2012.

The thing is, I've never really been the type for sticking with planned out ambitions, so I need to think very carefully about the type of missions I will assign myself.

It wouldn't hurt to give my van an extra hose down once in a while, and to be honest, I probably wouldn't notice too much of a difference if I finally made the swap from full-fat coke to coke zero, but my trousers might see the change.

I could join the gym at the New Year's special discounted rate, offer to do the monthly shop for my wife, and even give up drinking beer.

On second thoughts, who am I kidding? You only live once, and there'll always be 2013!

Christmas shopping hell

Christmas shopping is a nightmare. Yes, I know that it's the same every year, but for some reason, once a full year has gone by, I always seem to forget all of the previous horrendous festive shopping experiences I have already had.

So when my wife told me that we were going to join in the fun last weekend, I wasn't exactly thrilled, but went along with it anyway. So off we went in the van (maximum space to store shopping) and parked up at our nearest big shopping centre.

Well, I attempted to park up. Apparently the hell of Christmas shopping starts in the car park! After circling round for a good 20 minutes, and being pipped to the post twice, I finally managed to squeeze my van into a space.

Then we were off into the mayhem of the shops. I wished I had never left the refuge of my sofa. Shoppers are ruthless, especially when they want to be exactly where you just happen to be standing – their eyes narrow, their mouths hiss and they have absolutely no qualms about elbowing people out the way!

I quickly learnt that there was only one way I was going to survive this mission – by standing with all the other poor sods who had been dragged along by their other halves, on the edge of the shop floor.

In the comfort my new safe zone I even managed to share a few laughs with some other similarly terrified blokes.

Somehow, I managed to make it home in one piece, but for the love of god, please can someone remind me next year that I should never go Christmas shopping again!

Thrill without compare

One of the great things about my working van, a Fiat Scudo, is that it's also the perfect vehicle for my hobby, surfing.

I'm able to drive it down to Cornwall or take it on the ferry over to Ireland whenever me and the boys have the opportunity for a surfing break, whether it's a week-long or a weekend-long thing.

Yep, nothing compares to a good surfing holiday – nothing. I've even told my girlfriend that there's nothing she can do that bares comparison with hopping into the van and heading for the surf – and I mean, nothing, if you catch my drift.

I just wish I'd been in Ireland recently, which has been experiencing some of the best surf in its history.

I would have loved it if instead of using my van insurance to drive the Fiat Scudo around the outskirts of London, I'd been able to take it to Donegal and ride the biggest wave to ever hit Irish shores. The 67ft monster really would have been something to behold.

I know I might sound mad, but even if I were to die surfing, it wouldn't be a bad way to go.

But one lucky man did get to ride the wave, even if he did dislocate his knee and snap his board in half in the process, and, unsurprisingly, he said it was a thrill to compare with the very best!

Japanese light trucks would not be suitable for my line of work

I like personalising my van. I have a few obligatory air fresheners here and there, a mobile phone holder and I even have my own mascot in the form of an orang-utan I bought on a holiday to Cornwall one year. For your information, his name is Vince and he is not a toy.
However, I wouldn't go so far with my personal tastes that I would render my van unsuitable for the road – that would be a waste of the money I spend on van insurance, and not to mention incredibly impractical.
Owners of trucks in Japan don't seem share the same concerns as me though – I recently saw some pictures of a selection of very extravagantly decorated Japanese light trucks.
Enthusiasts gather once a year to show off their heavily adorned vehicles, and the trucks are decorated with so many light bulbs that they have to be powered with a separate generator. Fans can't admire the handy work for too long though, the bulbs are likely to overheat after being on for 20 minutes.
The trucks reportedly cost around £100,000 each to decorate, and many feature extravagant illustrations, collections of toys and even carpeted interiors. The dazzling nature of the vehicles means that they are not legal to drive on roads unless the lights are switched off.
I'll admit it, my van strikes a stark comparison to these monstrosities, but at least I haven't bankrupted myself in attempting to make it stand out from the crowd!

Father Christmas is real, don't believe the internet conspiracy

There's just no comparison between childhood as it is today and childhood as it was for me back in the 70s.

Sometimes I just feel sorry for my kids. Yeah, they have a great home, nice holidays, all the latest toys and gadgets and a state-of-the art Volkswagen Touran family van to be driven around in, but somehow it just doesn't compare to what our generation had when we were tykes.

I mean, these days, because of fears of crimes, kidnappings and worse, we just don't trust our kids out on their own. Back when I was a little tearaway, I used to have the run of the downs and would routinely rack up close to a hundred miles on my bicycle each week.

Instead, our kids our left indoors to develop RSI and greenish complexions as they click away at the internet or hammer away at some overblown game on the PS3 or XBOX 360.

Yeah, I might drive them to football practice in the Volkswagen Touran, but this form of legislated, prescribed time outdoors just isn't the same as the boundlessness my brothers and I enjoyed – the two don't compare.

The same goes for Christmas. I think that its commercialisation has continued apace since my youth and now the wonder of it all feels a little, well, televised.

It is a useful illustration to compare my Christmas dilemma as a seven-year-old to that of my son today.

When I was seven I heard rumours that Father Christmas might not be real I decided to do some research on the subject so asked around. Expert witnesses included my grandparents, my teacher, my neighbours and an old lady from a couple of streets away. Naturally, I soon discovered that Father Christmas was indeed real and that the rumours were just scandalous nonsense perpetuated by ill-willed humbugs.

Whereas, my son, now seven, when faced with the same doubts, simply went onto Google and asked the question "Is Father Christmas real?"

On receiving conflicting information he then very cleverly went to Wikipedia and soon learnt that Father Christmas is a "fictional figure associated with Christmas".

And if you're a child who's been brought to this webpage with the same question, I just want you to know, yes, he is real and that Wikipedia page, it's been hacked by humbugs – horrid humbugs who are out to destroy the spirit of Christmas.

So, we at Van Compared have a message for you people at Wikipedia: get it sorted, you're in danger of serious misinforming millions of young children – spreading lies and damaging their experience of Christmas!

Happy Christmas, and may it bring you joy and love without compare!

My broken windscreen wiper will not ruin my festive cheer!

Winter has officially arrived. I established this when I went out to my van this morning and found that it has acquired a rather crunchy coating of ice. Ten minutes and two jugs filled with water later, I was on the road and raring to go.

Only once I'd had the heaters on full whack and the vents pointed firmly at me could I begin to forgive my van for forcing me out of bed earlier than I otherwise normally would.

However, it seemed to be a case of one step forwards and two steps back as later on, when I wanted to clear my windscreen, I learned that one of my wiper-blades had given up the ghost. Just before Christmas too! Fantastic, I thought. Today is not panning out to be a great day.

After some reflection on the broken wiper-blade, and cursing at my van for eating into my Christmas budget, I realised that now probably isn't actually the worst time to fork out the money for a replacement.

At least at the moment I'm quite jolly, enjoying the run up to Christmas and of course treating myself to the odd mince pie or two. If the blade had broken after Christmas, I would be poor, lacking in mince pies and most definitely a little bit chubbier than I am now.

So I won't be letting this glitch put a downer on my Christmas spirit – it would have hit me a lot harder during the post-Christmas blues.

All is forgiven where my trusty Ford Transit is concerned. Now I just need to work out whether I can get away with buying my wife another scarf this year...

Console toilets urinals compare!

I don't know about you, but having driven a van around various cities in the UK for the past two decades I've had to make many a lunch and toilet stop so am in the privileged position of being able to make an expert comparison of the nation's pub and café toilets.
In my time I've seen more than a few fetid and rancorous restrooms. You know the kind; tiles falling from the walls, hideous inch-thick stains in the urinals, taps broken, urine all over the floor.
But I've also seen some that are the very acme of luxury – gleaming clean, moisturisers, hand towels, hi-tech turbo driers and, in one Manchester establishment, a comparison-busting heated toilet seat.
But until now, aside from the odd mounted newspaper or private eye, I've never had any in-stream entertainment. But all this might be about to change now that a British marketing company has come up with the idea of urinal mounted, urine-controlled games consoles.
Mounted above the normal oval ceramic urinal bowl, users have a choice of three targets to aim at: Start, Left and Right. By using these targets they will then be able to play sports games or undertake quizzes.
The whole thing will be tied-in to social networking, with users able to post their high scores on Facebook and Twitter.
I don't know quite what to make of idea but apparently it improves cleanliness – early trials suggest that user target accuracy statistics for urinals with the consoles compare favourably to those without.
What a mad world we're living in. Sometimes I'm just glad that I can retreat to the safety and normality of being behind the wheel of my Vauxhall Combo van!

Warning! Low Bridge!

There really are some plonkers on the road, aren't there? I might be a humble van driver, not a rocket scientist, but compared to some of the numpties out there I'm the Albert Einstein of the nation's roads.

I mean, if it's not someone following their GPS so that their van plummets from a pier or gets squeezed between two buildings in an alleyway, it's some bloke crashing into a lamp-post as he compares a lingerie model on a billboard to his oversized wife at home.

For example, I read this week about a bloke who'd bought himself a brand new van – he'd just got the motor insurance for it and everything – only to get it wedged tight under a bridge.

This isn't the first time this year that such an incident has happened. I mean, can't people read the signs. They're there, loud and clear: Warning! Low Bridge.

Network Rail seemed pretty peeved about this latest incident. After all, it's meant to be their job to delay the trains, not some van driver's from Cambridgeshire. "Bridge strikes can be extremely disruptive for both road and rail users," said a spokesperson.

"They lead to delays on the roads and can lead to speed restrictions and sometimes even closure of the railway while the damage is assessed, causing disruption for potentially thousands of rail passengers.

"Drivers should know the height of their vehicle and this bridge is clearly marked. We would urge people to drive with care and consideration to avoid these incidents occurring."