Why our new Astra stayed in the car park

This week, I jumped into an Astra 1.7 CDTI SE to go to a meeting in Slough (oh, joy). I needed to use the phone, so I tried to set up Bluetooth while I was still in the car park. The handbook said to select the phone menu, except I could not find it. Cue a sheepish phone call to Vauxhall : "Motoring journalist cannot understand handbook" is a bit embarrassing.

Apparently, this £21,000 business tool does not have Bluetooth as standard, and Vauxhall had not bothered to fit it to the press cars. So I could not be bothered to drive it, swapping into a Citroen C3, whose Bluetooth bonded in seconds.

Petulant? Possibly, but being able to use a phone safely in a new car is an absolute pre-requisite nowadays. I can happily drive a car without air-con, let alone sat-nav, but I can't be out of touch with the office all day for no good reason.