Excuse number 1: the FIAT 500

This car has the same age as me. Her name is Bianca, and she lives on a farmhouse in Apulia in Southern Italy. Now, I am not oversensitive about cars, or engines, or technical stuff, but - how can you not love her? She is compact, friendly, very fuel and space efficient, and was designed by someone called Dante, in the 1950s. Driving her is like driving your sofa... a comfortable seat with wheels and a teeny engine. She is as much a part of Italian industrial heritage as well as a key ingredient of Italian common phantasy. A recent PhD thesis at the University of Urbino states that:

"The Fiat 500 is much more than a car. The car is a synonym for Italian-ness, design, freedom, youth, love, work, the future, children"

All still recognisable as key values for Italian society past and present. Driving her around the countryside was the most enjoyable experience of the last year. The relationship between this car and its memory is an emotional, Italian thing. And yet - this is probably the only car that has gone round the London Eye in one of its capsules - the official UK launch of the new 500, in 2008.

It is uncanny, but a model of the FIAT 500 (Cinquecento in Italian) is also displayed on Park Lane in central London - as a public art initiative for the city of London in the run up to the Olympic games in 2012. Designed by Italian sculptor Lorenzo Quinn, its title is "Vroom Vroom" - the cartoony sound effect or onomatopaeia which in Italian indicates an engine revving up. A tiny little car, put in perspective by that huge hand. What a wonderful sculpture, what a wonderful little car - truly, it gave me back a sense of unadulterated fun!