I tracked down the problem with our old car's headlights today. It's increasingly been flicking the main beam on when we've been driving round with dipped lights, so people think we're either flashing them or gone crazy. I checked the connections to the headlights themselves, and there was no problem there, but it eventually manifested itself in the indicator/main beam stalk. Clever clogs here decided to unplug this from the car (thank God it had a simple plug) and then start fiddling with it. Clever clogs now has an indicator stalk in five or six different pieces, not sure where any of it goes. Lucky clever clogs is currently bidding for a replacement on Ebay that will - hopefully - be literally plug and play. At least clever clogs was able to verify it's the correct model number before bidding; now he must wait and hope he's not outbid in the next six hours.

In clever clogs' defence, it was clearly the indicator stalk that was the problem, and fixing it would have involved opening it up anyway to clean the contacts, etc. This way I don't have to try and learn how to refit this - assuming I win the auction, of course. Whatever happens now I'll be walking to and from the station for five-a-side tomorrow as I can hardly drive a car with no indicators (or lights for that matter; they don't work when the stalk isn't plugged in)...