I’ve got all ‘nesty’, and I actually like being at home and pottering about. “I remember watching my parents grow old and reach the stage where their world had shrunk so much, the only thing they really thought or cared about was their next meal.

“I turned 60 this year,” he says with performative (or possibly authentic) glumness. Mortality looms large throughout, thanks to a recent milestone birthday.

But before the conversation turns down that road, May makes it clear he is very much behind the wheel and is taking the scenic route via his half-a-pub (The Royal Oak, Swallowcliffe near Salisbury in Wiltshire), bicycles, downsizing his car collection, death and the late-life joys of craftsmanship. It’s sensibly written and beautifully illustrated. It’s called Marvellous Vehicles and is part of the Little Experts non-fiction series other celebrity authors include Dragons’ Den presenter Deborah Meaden on Why Money Matters. We are ostensibly here to talk about his first new factual book for children. I can’t confirm whether Captain Slow, as his co-presenters have dubbed him, really does understand the workings of a woman’s mind, but he makes for affable company. Instead, I find myself nodding ruefully at mild-mannered May’s “incontrovertible truth” and, yes, helping myself to one or two crunchy outliers off his plate. His other sidekick Richard Hammond would have received short shrift, too. To be quite honest, if those sentiments had been spoken by his Grand Tour compadre and lifelong loudmouth contrarian Jeremy Clarkson, I’d have tipped the ketchup over him quicker than you can yell “toxic masculinity!”. I’m not being sexist, I just know how women operate.” I own half a pub and I’m going to introduce mini side portions on the menu called ‘For Her’. So instead of getting your own, you will steal mine. “Do you want me to order you some chips?” he inquires. Breakfast in a west-London greasy spoon café, and James May is ordering bacon, egg and chips.

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