Watching this BMW/Rover thing unfurl has been bliss. Because it's all the fault of either the Germans or that former polytechnic lecturer who now runs the Department of Trade and Industry, Stephen Byers.

Choosing which one I want to see take the fall makes me go all warm and gooey.

In fact, I haven't faced such a delicious choice since Hamilton and Fayed went to war over cash for questions. Could it be possible, I wonder, for them both to lose? What sight could be more edifying than watching Byers drive from the top of Beachy Head to the rocks below in a 316i?

No, wait. I'd actually like to see him go in one of BMW's new motorcycle/car/hamster-wheel things. It's called the C1, signifying perhaps that it's a few wheels short of Sir Clive Sinclair's now- infamous C5.

We're told that 5.5m people in Britain have motorcycle licences, but only 1.1m use them. The rest, apparently, have been waiting for something like the C1: a tool that combines the dryness and safety of a car with the nippiness and economy of a moped.

I'm not so sure. The reason 4.4m people don't ride bikes, even though they are legally entitled to do so, is because the only bikes worth having cost £12,000 or more.

People take their bike tests so they can slip into a set of skintight leathers and tear around at 180mph with one knee on the road. Gary doesn't want a C1. He wants to have a proper crash, the sort where he goes directly to heaven without touching the ground once, not some limp-wristed bump while parking.

So I don't see anyone trading in their Yamaha R1 or Triumph Daytona for a C1, which means that the only people who might be interested are normal car drivers. People like me. And I'm not.

This has nothing to do with Longbridge. It's not that I want to twist the knife in BMW's gut until they're on their knees begging for mercy. I feel no need for revenge. It's just that I think the C1 is the most stupid thing the world has seen. If it were to take part in a village idiot competition, it wouldn't even get there.

BMW say it's an alternative to the Tube, to which I say yes, in the same way that being hit in the face with a bream is an alternative to eating dover sole in a white wine sauce. You don't get wet on the Tube. You don't have to wear a crash helmet. No Tube ticket costs £4,000 and, while you won't get your bottom pinched on a C1, workmen will call you a poof.

I know scooter sales have risen by 77% in the past year, but this is because the scooters in question are Italian and puppy dog mad. They're fast, and stylish enough to be the perfect accompaniment to your Versace trouser suit. On a C1, you'll look like a berk. I mean, what good is that roof? In this country, rain always falls at an angle, so it has nothing to do with weather protection.

It must be something to do with safety.

And indeed, BMW is at pains to say that this is the safest motorbike ever made.

Which is like saying the AK-47 is the safest gun.

I know you're strapped in and that there's some rollover protection, but on its press launch one journalist fell off at 0mph and needed medical attention to his knee. That's the thing about bikes. They fall over and hurt you.

You can leave a car for hours at the side of the road and it won't fall over once. I've just been on holiday and, when we got back to the long-term car park, the Land Cruiser was still the right way up.

So what about performance? It's a BMW. It's a bike. And if we make a cocktail of those two images, we're up there at the speed of sound, feeling good and looking cool. Except we're not, because the C1 has a 125cc engine with a three-way catalytic converter, so it's out of puff at 60mph.

On the luxury front, it has a sound system, which may be of some use on the Continent, where a helmet is not necessary, but here Terry Wogan will be completely inaudible. You also get a heated seat, to help disguise the fact you've wet yourself, and heated handgrips. There's even a bracket for your mobile phone, though what you're supposed to do if it rings I have no idea.

The biggest problem, though, is that you can't simply buy a C1 and ride home.

You must spend a day in an anorak, wobbling round some cones in a disused car park to get a compulsory basic training certificate, and even then you'll still have to display L plates.

Trying to mate a bike with a car is like trying to mate a dog with a fish. You end up with something that won't do as it's told and makes you wet every time you take it out for a walk.

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