I'm trying really hard here, but I can't recall any roadworks in France this year. There was one bit where they'd just finished a new bit of road but hadn't painted tghe lines on yet, so there was a sign up saying "marquages effacés," but that didn't affect the flow of traffic.

And then as soon as we join the M27, about three minutes after driving off the ferry, bam! It's fucking Cone World. It's a bit of Cone World that I'm fairly familiar with, at J12 westbound. It's been there for a while now - a couple of months at least - and I've driven past it many times. I have never seen one fucking person working there!

The other day we did actually see someone, he was the bastard who puts the cones out, and then presumably fucks off home for a cup of tea. Two lanes coned off for what? For jack shit. The road surface hasn't changed since they started 'working' there, I haven't seen them mending any bridges, or even digging in the embankment. Nothing has happened, they just cone off two lanes every night and leave it.

Now you'd think with all this practice, they'd be pretty good at putting cones out. Oh, but you'd be living in la-la land. They've not reduced the speed limit, so the flow of traffic still moves at 70mph. You'd think then, for safety's sake, they'd put up the signs which say 'lane closing in 800yds/400yds/200yds,' and then merge the two lanes gently.

La-la land.

No, these Masters of The Cone think it's more sensible to simply have a 'lane closing' sign, and then a couple of hundred yards later, block the lane off at 90 degrees with some cones and a fucking great big 'keep right' sign.

So of course, everyone gets up to speed with the outside lane, ready to merge, and then aaaargh fucking hell the lane just stops!! and it's on with the brakes, everyone's confused and angry, and the flow of traffic is shafted.

What a smart way of doing things.

I notice as well that there's another few miles of cones which have massed forces on the hard shoulder past J12, and are planning an imminent attack. I think they've started digging trenches and writing poetry about the occasions when one of them will fall into the 'no man's land' of the inside lane and will get run over. Not that it happens very often of course, seeing as no fucker ever drives in the inside lane anyway.

Then of course we've got other local delights. Like the weak bridge on the Redbridge road out of Southampton. The inside lane must have been coned off for a couple of years or so now, and the speed limit has been down to 30 all that time as well. Again, I've never seen so much as a wheelbarrow there, although to be fair there is actually evidence of some work having been done. But Christ, how long does it have to take?

Once, returning from the Alps, I noticed one road which we'd used in the opposite direction on the way down. In the two weeks between us travelling on it, a rockfall had taken out a whole switchback, and they'd built and resurfaced a replacement. If that had happened in the UK, they'd have coned it off for six months, had an enquiry, employed four men to put on hard hats and reflective jackets and look at it for three months, then they'd spend eight months sending men down to move the cones around, then they'd declare the adjacent two miles of road hazardous, repeat the whole process with the whole road, and then spend four years putting in a new road. And then the following week someone would drive a lorry over it and it would be completely fucked again.

Another time, two of us spent a month driving through France, covering over 3000 miles in total. We saw two sets of road works. We got back and drove from Dover to Southampton, and counted twenty-two separate sets of road works.

Last time I came out of the Channel Tunnel, the cones started even before the fucking motorway!

What is going on? Why is this county so unfathomably shit at anything to do with transport? It's mind-boggling.