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What to do when you've an hour to waste before your movie starts: Wander round bookshops looking for the most unlikely sale item... Found it!

The other evening I was at a loose end while waiting to go in to see Iron Man 2 which incidentally is – in the great tradition of movie sequels – mediocre. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I’d wait til your little Chinese DVD lady comes round. Especially if it means you avoid sitting in the middle of an overweight local family munching through jumbo buckets of popcorn and hot dogs throughout the film.

So there I was beforehand, twiddling my thumbs and the thought struck me: I’d pop in to Borders to see what was the most obscure book I could find to read over a cup of Capp and slice of carrot cake. Naturally, I was drawn to the motoring section like a dog to a lamppost, and no sooner had I arrived than ‘pop’ – there it was. A Haynes Gör-det-själv handbok for the 2000-05 VW Passat.

Of course, why wouldn’t I find a Swedish language repair manual for a ten-year-old car be in a fashionable bookshop in Mall of the Emirates! I was only disappointed that they didn’t stock Ian Fleming’s ‘Chitty Chitty Bäng Bäng’ (it’s funnier when you say it out loud with a Muppet chef kind of accent).

But whö am I to täke the mickey öut of the Swedes. För a country with just 9 million inhäbitånts and räther inclement weåther they’ve pröduced some ämazing and gröundbreäking cars: the beäutiful Völvö 1800 and Amazön, the Sääb Sönetta and späce-åge Aerö X, and then of cöurse there’s the Köenigsegg CCXR.

The mötoring wörld owes a greåt deäl to the Swedes and I för öne äm going to dö my bit. So now åll I have to dö is buy an öld Pässåt (they didn’t håve any Volvos or Saabs) – preferåbly one that runs a bit röugh, and leårn Swedish. Then my AED45 will be möney well spent.