I was nicked by the polis last night.

I was turned in by an off-duty police officer for exuberant driving.

Yesterday was St Patrick's Day, but it was not the luck of the Irish that lead to the offensive behaviour.

Yesterday was a good day. I picked up my Chief of Staff, Gordon in the west side of Glasgow and we went into Great Western Road to get the Crise Jaguar XF lettered by Chris at Sign-a-Rama. A couple of "guanyersel.com" signs on the side windows and the back window. Tony Crise's design catches the attention of passers by and they needed to be directed to the web site to get the message.

After a blether with Blair Willoughby at Glasgow Ducati on the perils of under-trained riders on machinery that is too quick for them, we headed for Edinburgh and the RBS Headquarters at Gogarburn.

Yesterday's Scotsman carried a story on page 2 of the Business Section "Investment bankers at RBS awarded pay rises of up to 100%". Now I own a majority stake in the bank and nobody asked me about this pay rise. The article indicated that "Despite the bank's continuing battle with losses, more than 100 staff will receive bonuses in excess of £1 million and at least two will get about £7m each as part of a £1.3 billion bonus pot for the bank's leading performers."

Stephen Hester and the RBS Board continue to live in some world of their own divorced from real life. I thought that it was time for a reality check so I left a message at reception for Mr Hester.

"Persist with this behaviour and you will be in jail on May 7th 2010. You will join Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Lord Turner, Mervyn King and Lord Myners"

With the entire RBS Board joining them, we have a definite prison overcrowding problem. However, Barlinnie is a solid Victorian structure and we will be out of the EU by 8th May 2010 so slopping out will no longer be a human rights matter.

On the way to a meeting with Mark Nicolls of The Electoral Commission to file the papers for registration of The Jacobite Party in Ulster, I passed The Henderson Gallery which is also on Thistle Lane. The outside wall carries a quotation from Duns Scotus -

"By a first act of knowledge the mind has a direct but vague intuition of the individual concrete object as a "most special" image, a particular glimpse of 'thisness'. It is through this knowledge of the singular that the mind, by abstracting and comparing, in a second act arrives at its knowledge of the universal"

Heavy stuff from a fourteenth century resident of Jim Clark's home town.

From Edinburgh, we went to Galashiels to conclude some business with Peter Tubbecke at Cleland's Jaguar.

The A7 from Edinburgh to Galashiels is a fine winding road, more of a driving challenge than the A68.

The Jaguar XF is a beautiful machine. Smooth power from the twin turbo 3.0 litre diesel, good handling, good brakes and comfortable to drive. In the S mode, the paddles on the steering wheel control the gear changes. A flick of the left finger for down shifts, a flick of the right finger for up shifts.

Its magic.

I know that I am not Michael Schumacher and the public road is not the place to test the limits of the car.

It is possible to drive quickly in safety. The power of the car is an important safety feature that the Honda Jazz I normally drive does not have. In the Jazz, when overtaking another vehicle, your only option if you run out of road is to brake hard.

With the Jaguar, there is always power on hand. A couple of flicks of the left finger, you are down two gears and smooth power gets you out of trouble.

Somewhere between Galashiels and Peebles, I passed an off-duty police officer who took offence, called his on-duty colleagues and the chase was on.

The Borders and Lothian police were chasing a Jaguar XF S specification in a van.

Fortunately, another police car was stationed at the entrance to Peebles and they pulled into traffic behind me. I stopped when the officer turned on the blue lights and the van was able to catch up.

The officers were most civil and a credit to the force. I haven't had a drink since 1980 so passed the breathalyser with a 0.0 reading.

I was allowed to continue with the appropriate warning not to annoy off-duty officers by overtaking them on the open road.