If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

Certainly one poor Scot has made it his mission to persevere in the face of repeated failure to pass his driving test.

The lad has apparently set a new Scottish record after failing his test a staggering 36 times. Finally, after forking out £1,147, he passed on the 37th attempt. Hurray.

On the down side, he still has to pass the practical test. Oh. Well, good luck to him, but I'm not sure I'd jump at the chance of a lift, would you?

Mind you, he still has a way to go to beat the record number of practical driving tests failures. A London woman apparently clocked up 110 failed tests before presumably buying a bike.

Perhaps, it's just the nerves getting to him. I still remember the dread of sitting my driving test when I was 17. The test fell on the date I was due to leave for University but the night before, as I lay in my childhood bed for the last time, it was thoughts of my driving test which kept me awake, not leaving home.

The problem was you see I had never mastered the art of parallel parking. Test day dawned and my long-suffering dad took me to an industrial estate to do some last-minute intensive practice. After about 36 tries at wedging my mother's Micra into a particularly generous space I gave up and drove us home in a huff.

I arrived for my test with hopes low. They fell lower still when I was introduced to my examiner. His reputation preceded him. He was notorious in the town for three things; for being extremely strict, for extracting apparent delight from bellowing FAIL into the face of the sweaty-palmed would-be driver and lastly, for being very rotund.

The last quality was only a problem when you needed to change between first and second gear. Such was the vast acreage of his legs that they spilled over the edge of the passenger seat and a low gear change involved having to practically gouge the gear-stick through his flesh. Not ideal.

I can still remember being so up-tight throughout the entire test that my back never touched the seat at any point nor did my hands part from their Ten to Two position. I'm pretty sure I must have left an imprint of my moist brow in the front window.

Through some absolute fluke I wasn't asked to perform parallel parking and managed to get through the test successfully without having a meltdown or damaging the car. No, no, those treats came later.