Last updated at 2:28 AM on 27th March 2011
I was extremely fortunate to be given a test drive in the new McLaren MP4-12C sports car this week.
I suspected Ron Dennis's company had targeted me as I'm known to be a vocal devotee of their primary competitor, the giant that is Ferrari. I knew their plan. Surely if they could lure me away from my chosen carbon-fibre idol of many years, they could seduce anyone - and thus ensure the future success of their first mass-production luxury sports model...
Want to own the the new McLaren MP4-12C sports car? You'll have to wait a while...
After a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, including a tour of the space-age McLaren HQ and a one-on-one with Chris, one of the chaps who's been developing the car for the past five years, it came to the crunch. Given the hospitality, it would have been rude of me not to have raised some hope among my hosts.
'So,' I enquired, naughtily teasing the sales executive with an air of vague interest, 'what if I DID want to purchase a vehicle?'
He replied in a flash. 'Oh no, there's no chance of that, sir. Not for at least a year. We've completely sold out.'
Taxi for Evans!
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'So tell us, Chris,' I'm asked on an almost daily basis, 'what do you actually do when you're between radio and TV studios and Ferrari showrooms and the McLaren HQ?'
The answer is, enough to make my head spin, and make the promise of my Friday-night ritual escape to the New Forest with wife and small son all the more critical - although even that isn't guaranteed to make me unwind as much as required. Take a recent Friday.
It began with breakfast with Barry Manilow. My first impression was how surprisingly assertive he is in real life.
On Barry Manilow: You don't bat your way out of Brooklyn as a poor skinny Jewish kid and end up owning a palace in Palm Springs by being a pushover
Thinking about it, I don't actually know why I was surprised. You don't bat your way out of Brooklyn as a poor skinny Jewish kid and end up owning a palace in Palm Springs by being a pushover.
What a schmuck I can be sometimes. At the end we hugged - or rather, I was hugged by Bazza. (I'm never sure about this with people I don't know, especially when they're famous and they go in first. I always start too weakly and then overcompensate by going too tight and holding on for too long.)
When I at last managed to disengage, I skipped down to the third floor of BBC HQ to have a meeting with my agent of the past 20 years, Michael.
A TV show was being offered. There often is. They are usually terrible. This most recent proposition did not disappoint in its disappointment. It was a revamp (beware).
'Bring back WHAT?' I screeched, like John Galliano on his 14th absinthe and Slimline.
To put it politely, it was a no from both of us, which left Michael with another ten per cent of nothing and, more importantly, me with half an hour to spare before I had to be at The One Show. Thus I trotted off to Mario, my magician with the scissors.
Mario looks Scandinavian, but is in fact Belgian - and very Belgian when you get to know him, in that he is utterly pragmatic and so honest sometimes it hurts.
I refer to him as a magician, because that's what he has to be where I'm concerned. There are so few strands to currently work with (my little blue hair pills have still to kick in properly) that he actually has to flesh out my visits with other things to fill the time. There are at least two frothy coffees, a scalp rub, a shoulder massage and what has become a shared reading-and-movie list for us to discuss. Most of the films Mario nominates star beautiful young men.
I don't believe there will ever be a Mrs Mario. The brief for the hair? It's a quick wash and trim plus a peppering of colour. But shhh! Mario said if we applied this gradually no one would notice - unless I told them.
After the hugely enjoyable but gruelling experience that is The One Show, it was on at last to one of those country house hotels that are so gratifyingly posh that there's someone waiting on the gravel drive to greet you personally and park the motor. We go there to do as little as possible and have been getting pretty good at it. Venturing out of our regular lodging is an almost unheard-of occurrence.
Yet by the following lunchtime, the sniff of spring in the air and the golden glow of low, warm sun lured us out of the big iron gates back into the real world. Big mistake.
We went for a steak at a nearby pub. I was starving by the time the meal arrived - we had bravely decided to earn our pub grub via a hearty walk on the beach beforehand. When whatever it was that was sitting on my plate next to some worryingly over-bright yellow chips finally arrived, I had to admonish the young lad who delivered it.
'Excuse me,' I said firmly, but fairly. 'I ordered steak and chips, not teak and chips.'
The kid of course looked lost and forlorn, while the steak just looked lost and like it had never been part of anything that was actually alive.
I own a pub. In fact, I own two. I used to own three. If you have one, never, ever do this to your steaks. Otherwise you too will have to put up with blokes like me, entering their early grumpies, complaining to kids about red meat they shouldn't be eating anyway. And whose wind-down ritual clearly needs winding up.
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Three jollier horsemen of spring: daffodils, on their latest stoic tour of duty. Lambs, blissfully unaware that this is it for them - enjoy 2011 while you can, my little ones; no London 2012 for you.
And with an often brilliant sun at both ends of the day, the first excuse to dust down last year's shades and pop them on your head in readiness for the glare. Which is all fair and good - as long as their mobilisation is not then abused.
Whether your aegis is the breastplate of experience or the scabbard of steely determination, each of us must have something with which to protect ourselves. Such weapons of self-defence cannot be bought; they go by the names of truth, passion and sincerity, and the mark of their presence is the look in the eye of the holder.
What am I on about? Beware anyone who wears sunglasses when it's not actually sunny. And even when it is, hold on to a healthy dose of suspicion.
More from Chris Evans...
I drove some injured soldiers around a private track in one of my stupidly quick cars the other day while trying to remember not to be stupid.
I went as fast as I could, but have to confess I was, at all times, far more nervous than any of my passengers.
Hardly surprising really, when you consider what the guys sitting in the passenger seat next to me must have been through. I thank them sincerely for at least attempting to appear a little unruffled by my efforts. And I am happy to turn up every week until I die, if any of their other deserving pals want to be equally unimpressed.
To gift Help for Heroes a day out - of any sort - email gina.jones@helpforheroes.org.uk.
It's a win-win situation. They escape for a few hours. You are reminded how bloody lucky you are for a few hours.
It's the last episode of Wonders Of The Universe tonight. I do hope it comes back soon. By which I mean our 'soon', not Professor Brian's 'soon', as in 'Betelgeuse could go supernova at any moment soon - that is, any time in the next million years'.
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