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.