I was absolutely fascinated and made him repeat the process over and over again, just to observe how he walked along and the rods then suddenly moved in his hands as though of their own volition, always over the same bit of roadway. My architect wife says water divining is not uncommon in the construction business to find springs as well as leaks but I had never seen it done before.

Anything that saves unnecessarily digging up the roads seems OK to me. And there is something pleasingly old-fashioned about the whole idea.

There must be a political metaphor there somewhere but I will leave it at that.

They in turn are indebted to their reader Paul Smith for alerting drivers to ongoing and rather prolonged roadworks in Hertfordshire, albeit with “slight” impact on traffic flow. They publish a screen grab of the ELGIN (electronic local government information network) website showing planned roadworks – you can see it here.

Readers will be pleased to know that according the the ELGIN site roadworks are currently ongoing by Three Valleys Water having started on 06/12/2001 and with an estimated completion date of 10/12/2201. They advise that the impact is “slight” but “delays possible”.

As The Register says, doubtless the gas board will move in as soon as Three Valleys complete and extend the roadworks for another 200 years…

You could not make it up!

PS Elgin is a very handsome stone built town in the north-east of Scotland with some very fine buildings – it does not deserve to be used as an acronym for Hertfordshire road misery