I'm sure you will all have heard me say that an antique' is considered to be at least 100 years old. Well, the photograph illustrated isn't, and neither is the Jaguar SS motor car shown in it.

The venue, however, is a different kettle of fish. The car is racing around the bend at our very own Shelsley Walsh hill climb, run by the Midland Automobile Club.

Both the course and the club were founded more than 100 years ago and that surely makes them antiques. Anyone with a remotest interest in cars of all ages should take a trip out there this year. The paddock at Shelsley is pure magic and is another one of our hidden Worcestershire secrets.

The photograph, incidentally, has just sold for £140.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPINGTHere's only 327 days left till Christmas and judging by my recent sale in Malvern, very few of those will need to be shopping days as there seemed to be a frenzy of bidding and buying on all areas in the sale. I know I keep saying how we should all buy at auction, or from the antiques trade, which represents such good value for money; and in this sale there was another classic example of a bargain. Just after Christmas I received a catalogue from one of the major London stores telling me that in their forthcoming January sale, a canteen of solid silver cutlery had been reduced to about £8,000. Well, a happy buyer in my saleroom picked up this top quality 12-place canteen illustrated, dating from the 1970s, for just £1,900.CHAIR OF TORTURE?The house contents sale to be conducted in my saleroom next Thursday on behalf of the executors of the late Lady Coventry is creating a massive amount of interest.

One of the quirkiest items in the sale is this chair-like-contraption illustrated. It is made out of mahogany with a canvas bellow-type cushion with a spring action. It dates to the back end of the 18th century, but what does it do? (The answer is below).

THE CONTRAPTION IS...What looks to resemble a torture device is, indeed, a gentleman's Georgian exercise chair. Our Fielding character - following his surfeit of lampreys - would have sat on this chair and, in simple terms, bounced up and down as a form of exercise. A rather novel approach to fitness, I think, and likely to cost less than a year's gym membership!From Wellington boots to Davenport desksBeer at home means davenport. I'm really showing my age here but it was just my way of introducing the word, davenport.

The desk shown derives its name from the well known firm of furniture manufacturers by the name of Gillows.

They were asked to make a desk of this particular design for a certain Captain Davenport and then it became known simply as a davenport'.

A bit like wellingtons' and sandwiches' really.