Motorways

Today's feature: the M6 during rush hour.  There's probably not a great deal more I need say on that subject to conjur up a clear image of the kind of evening I've had.  It is now almost one in the morning and I am just returned from a  journey to Leicester and back via that dreaded pathway through hell.   There surely can't be many other driving experiences around Britain that are quite so frustrating, although regular users of the M25 may disagree.

On the way to my beloved hometown (around 4.00pm) the motorway was its usual, hideous, jammed-up self but I expected that so no issue there.  The journey back was another story however.  I was certain that coming home late at night (Mum and I having been out to the theatre - Woman in Black - great, see it if you get the chance!) would be a breeze.  After 11pm there's usually just a few lorries on the road which providing you don't try to get between them and their motorway tag game is generally simple stuff.  Tonight however they (they being whichever numpty is in charge of Midlands Motorway Maintenance) have decided to carry out road works for its' entire length.  Firstly came the Electronic Message Signs   requesting me to slow down to 40mph because there is apparently a 'work force' somewhere in the road.   Unless this workforce are short, orange, cone-shaped men with lamps for a head, then I must be going blind.  Another 500 metres further on the signs  have changed again and, although nothing else seems to have changed, suddenly I can go 60mph - presumably this section of the 'workforce' are more expendable.  A mile or so more and its now 20mph with speed camera alerts -seeming unnecessarily slow unless said 'workforce' are recruits from the local nursery school;  and so it continued.  I counted 22 different speed requests in the space of  as many miles.   What is more, although several displays had warned  "Workforce in road slow" I didn't actually spot one single living person doing any work in the road, simply thousands upon thousands of motorway cones layed out in pretty rows creating all manner of fancy chicanes to maneuver.  Proving my theory that cones are now being employed to do the work of Motorway Engineers,  in which case no wonder they are slow.  Perhaps someone needs to have a word with the man at the top.  King Cone perhaps.

In absolute seriousness the only person I did see out on the roads was laying ........can you guess??  Yes that's right, motorway cones.  Presumably this is some massive ploy to make us, the unsuspecting general motorway-using public, feel reassured that the Government is sufficiently maintaining our highways.   By sending confusing electro-messages, erecting numerous signs, laying out several hundred thousand cones and making reference to a pretend work force, it instills us with confidence that our money is being used wisely and we continue to pay our road fund licence.     Foolish Government, if only they understood us Brits better they'd appreciate that we would carry on paying our taxes even if the roads were literally crumbling beneath our wheels.  It would simply be too un-British not to.

And how do I dare to make such a sweeping statement against the great British Public?   Well because I have tried to engender the masses to fight against the establishment and it didn't work.  So there.  When our local hospital, The Princess Royal, first introduced pay and display to its' car parks, general outrage followed.  The newspapers milked the story for all it was worth which, in a singularly dull town where Asda introducing a new brand of cereal is likely to make the headlines, meant it had real legs.  Petitions were signed and folks gathered on every street corner to ruminate over the fate of the NHS.    On my next visit to the hospital, for a routine ante-natal appointment, I stood in the queue for the ticket machine listening to the grumbling complaints and numerous protests of the hospital visitors.  The more I listened and pondered on the unfairness of the charges, the more the Bambi of old, the remonstrator, the anarchist, the fighter, emerged and I made an announcement.  "What say we all refuse to pay the charges as a formal protest?  After all if everyone stands together on this then they can't physically deal with us all".  To which I received the following response.

Yes that's right absolutely NOTHING.  Not a peep.  Not an acknowledgement, not a cheer, not a "I wouldn't do that if I were you",  just absolute, mortifying, silence.   The only change was that now the grumbling had ceased too.  Possibly they were thinking I had temporarily lost my sanity, brought on by raging pregnancy hormones, and so they handled me in that typical stiff-upper-lipped-always-stand-in- queues orderly British fashion, and just pretended I wasn't there.

I did however follow up on my own suggestion and went on a one man crusade to war against the capitalist regime.  Did it work?  Well I didn't pay and I didn't get a fine but no it didn't work because one man (or pregnant woman) by themselves cannot change the world. 

And so it is dear readers.  Whilst we can try and make a difference to our surroundings, we alone cannot alter a great deal.  The power of the masses, as huge a potential as that is, never seems to generate change on the scale it could, because we generally lack unity.  I know I am generalising here but let me rant.  Ranting is what I do best.

Happy news today is that I had a delicious lunch (food is always a happy thought) with an equally delicious friend (female I might add); really, really enjoyed the theatre and, after much to-ing and fro-ing of complaints,  I have received a full refund from EGAMER for the illegal (in my opinion) texts which they had been sending to my phone.  Not sure whether they actually were obliged to refund me or simply just panicked that I was psychotic and going to make a complete pain of myself....either way who cares.  I have my money and Danny can live to play his X-box another day.  Anyway it is now a quarter to three and I have to be up in about 4 hours.  Margaret Thatcher Sleep System here I come. 

Morning x x