Caught handed

Online admissions:I've been having a rough time of late. Not only has my son Turbo got colic, meaning he spends half his life screaming like I've stabbed him with a needle dipped in tabasco, but my car has been testing my legendarily saint-like patience too.

I won't go into details, but let's just say tuning the grotty, gunge-crusted carburettor I bought on eBay proved somewhat trickier than it looked on paper. Having the manual dexterity of an elephant seal doesn't help. How the carb, the engine and the car they are attached to aren't now lying at the bottom of the Grand Canal is a mystery. Maybe it's because I'm too sleep-deprived to find my hands, never mind the Canal.

What I needed was a good laugh. Preferably at the expense of someone doing something so stupid they make my cack-handed attempts at both childcare and amateur mechanics look awe-inspiringly superhuman.

Luckily for me, the world is full of numpties so teeth-clenchingly dense their continued survival must have Darwin doing cartwheels of frustration in his grave.

But few of them are as brainless as the English cretin who came to the attention of his local constabulary after posting pictures of his speedo needle hovering at 150mph on an internet forum.

This genius uploaded two photos taken from inside his Vauxhall VX220 Turbo on a Kent motorway, one of the speedo and another of the road ahead, and sat back, waiting for the plaudits to roll in. Oh dear.

Someone tipped off The Sun, who tracked our witless pal down before gleefully tipping off the police. Einstein told the newspaper that in his case, the camera actually does lie, he wasn't really doing the speed his apparently broken dial was showing and he just posted the photos "to get a reaction". Can't imagine the reaction he expected was the swift, brutal one the cops will presumably dole out.

While on the subject of incriminating yourself with the internet, I also read of another English fellow who crashed his Honda into a biker, leaving him seriously injured. The driver was charged with dangerous driving and brought to court.

What didn't help his case was the fact that when arrested at the scene, some other cars on the drive with him had the name of an internet forum he used plastered on their windows. Diligent chaps that they are, the police visited the forum, found numerous posts by our chum bragging about racing in various different locations, including the actual road where he hit the biker, and used them as evidence against him.

The driver claimed his comments were meant "jokingly" and were taken out of context. The jury didn't get the joke. They ordered him to be taken out of context and into a jail cell for a year.

Finally, Totally Idiotic Self-Incriminating Muppet of the Month Award goes to a biker from a town with the bizarre name of Leighton Buzzard. (Sounds like a 23-stone darts player with massive sideburns and enough gold in his teeth to kickstart a war.)

Philip Coffey (45) hated speed cameras. So he made a point of tearing past them at 150km/h on his motorbike - having first removed his number plates - giving them the two fingers. He must have thought he was a complete outlaw, the poor misguided oaf.

So imagine how sheepish he felt when he finally got dragged to court, convicted of nine counts of careless driving, banned from driving and fined heavily.

But how, you ask, was this master of disguise caught? Simple. The police checked up on the model of motorbike in the photos and discovered there were only three in the whole of Britain.

Not only that, but the other two drivers didn't wear the distinctive set of leathers sported by both Coffey and the Masked Avenger in the photos. It wasn't reported what colour the leathers were, but I'd like to think they were scarlet, matching Coffey's complexion when the law came calling.