IN THIS FEATURE Not a bad incentive Corporate-looking Bedouin camp Crossing continents More to fast cars than just being fast Groundhog Day

7.00am: (3.00am GMT) Thursday 19th January
Another bloody alarm call. This one summons me back to Heathrow for an industry dinner which requires me to be in both a Park Lane hotel and a dinner jacket by the early evening. Taxi!

8.00pm Monday 23rd January
Rendez-vous with editor Conway for flight to Cape Town for perhaps the most eagerly anticipated launch of the year: the new Jag XK. We try to sound objective, nonchalant and impartial. We fail. We're both excited as hell.

10.00am Tuesday 24th January
Three days in South Africa, one of my favourite places on earth, in a car that's turning out to be everything we'd hoped. It is, in one respect, very predictable insofar as it pulls no great surprises, but it is brilliantly executed and, given Jaguar's currently parlous state, an astonishing achievement. Is this the end of Jaguar's woes? Not even close, but it might just be the beginning of the end.

The XK may be the beginning of the end of Jaguar's woes

1.00pm Wednesday 25th January
I feel lucky to do this job most days, but rarely more than today. Conway and I have just drained the XK's tank on the best road I've ever encountered, where speeds you'd not reach in a lifetime in the UK are entirely routine. The XK coupe, playing its combined role of sportscar and GT was in its element.

8.00pm Thursday 26th January
A helicopter ride around Table Mountain before we leave Cape Town basking in sunshine. The next day some idiot drops a cigarette and sets the mountain on fire, with fatal consequences. Heathrow, by contrast, is cold and wet.