I haven’t finished ranting about travel yet (that’s two blog entries in a row, oh dear) and who can blame me, apart from a few good friends who think I’ve turned into a Grumpy Old Woman (“but you used to go on about parties and fun, blah blah...”). The life of a motorist ain’t an easy one – especially not in Brighton or, in fact, the South in general.

For starters, Brighton’s road system was designed by a cyclist, not a driver, which doesn’t do it any favours in my opinion. If the endless congestion isn’t causing you consternation, the lemming-like behaviour of pedestrians hasn’t induced a blast of your horn, and the city’s parking fees and penalty fines aren’t making your blood boil, then surely the proliferation of road works is enough to drive you potty (or potholey, perhaps).

What is going on? Yes, the Big Freeze caused potholes to form (such as the ones on Marine Parade, I guess) but the South’s entire road network appears to be afflicted with diggers, cones and diversions. On Sunday evening, I drove from Dalston Kingsland in London to East Molsey near Kingston on Thames. This 20 mile journey is supposed to take a mere 45 minutes according to Multimap (I don’t have a sat nav because I’m assured that it will direct my van into a narrow, dead end alley at some point) but it actually took more than two hours because of the endless road works en route. I’ve never known anything so tedious and I feared that the dinner and calming vino at my host’s house would be on the table 90 minutes before I was. In the end, I diverted off route near Kingston because the A3 was at a standstill due to yet more road works. While focusing on making sense of the unfamiliar route, I believe I set off one of those pesky camera thingies that could serve up a nice penalty fine. Damn.

Perhaps the government’s trying to ‘help’ the economy by pouring funds into public works – a tactic used by President Roosevelt in an attempt to halt the Great Depression before the WW2 effort helpfully turned the US economy around. Well, gee, thanks but I’d rather not sit in the van for hours staring at cones and breathing in exhaust fumes. And, no, WW3 isn’t the answer either.

It’s enough to make you want to leave the country. But, haha, Gatwick Airport is installing one of those naked body scanners, following in the footsteps of Manchester, Heathrow and Birmingham airports. It is up to the security staff to select which passengers go through the scanner. If a selected passenger refuses the naked body scan, they won’t be allowed on their flight. Now come on guys. No matter how many times we’re reassured by Lord Adonis (what a name!) that the images featuring our ‘private parts’ (a quaint term favoured by my Mother) aren’t saved and everything is above board, what would you do if you were bored midway through your shift? I think it is only human nature that, according to their gender predilections, the staff will select passengers they suspect to be well-endowed (big hands, big nose...) or ‘hot chicks’ travelling to Ibiza. And we’ve already witnessed the incident of Bollywood star, Shah Rukh, signing print-outs of his naked scan for the delight of airport staff at Heathrow. But the images aren’t supposed to be printable... doh!

I could conclude that we should “all stay at home” as per my last blog entry but I’m starting to sound far too like ‘Mrs Brady Old Lady’ of Viz infamy, stuck in my own one-way system of ‘Groundhog Day’. Instead, I suggest that people get on their bikes ready for Brighton’s ‘World Naked Bike Ride’ this summer – it could be handy practise for those revealing scans at Grotwick too.