Never judge a book by its cover, don't get too excited or you'll only be disappointed and don't run before you can walk.

All valuable lessons taught to me by my mother.

That other well-known phrase 'always listen to your mum' is a lesson I obviously paid no attention to because when the Civic Type R arrived on my doorstep on the eve of its decommissioning by Honda, I'd had the last three years to pre-empt what I was going to write: "Super fast, super fun, but largely impracticable for more than two people."

The problem being I have always wanted a Civic Type R.