Surrey's latest traffic car.

I got a tug last weekend. A police incident car followed me for several miles then eventually pulled me over with a quite unnecessary surfeit of blues and twos.

At the time I was driving ‘Old Bill’, my 1947 MG TC police car, which was once a proud upholder of the Road Traffic Act in distant Yorkshire and still decked out in its original livery. That is to say, it has a sort of number plate on t’back reading ‘Police’.

The young constable was eager to demonstrate that I was committing the offence, as he put it, of “…impersonating a police car.” Quite right: you could easily be fooled by the fabric roof and wire wheels.

Then he noticed that, according to the car’s road-fund licence, the fee paid was zero. This struck him as mysterious and possibly the source of another offence. And when his PNC check revealed the elderly MG to be an ‘Historic Vehicle’ he seemed unaware of such a taxation class.

Suspecting a ruse, he used his mobile ‘phone to engage the services of a traffic inspector, by way of a consultant. The conversation was fairly short, and as far as I could gather, quite pointed. A number of “Sirs” were appended at our end.

We left shortly after that, and on the way home I booked a couple of Beema drivers for speeding.

I recently had occasion to drive to Kentish Town. The journey was quite uneventful until I reached Kentish Town Road, northbound from Camden.

Then suddenly what had been a quietish journey turned into a nightmare of diesel fumes, belligerent bus drivers, hooting horns, and little or no progress.. In fact, it took me almost 30 minutes to travel some 400 yards along the aptly named A400, and I was even overtaken by some old boy with a Zimmer frame.

And the reason? Road works, of course. Except they weren’t so much road works as a tiny depression in the gutter, which, presumably, some council loony had decided should be fenced off in the name of Health and Safety. The patch in question could not have covered an open magazine, yet the fence around it could have contained several cows. In consequence, the road width was reduced to that of a single bus.

Mind you, the fenced-off area appeared to have trapped all the rubbish that normally tumbles down Kentish Town Road, blown by the winds from the Highgate foot hills. For a change, the place looked quite respectable, and the wag who doctored the local Northern Line sign may soon regret maligning such a clean and tidy neighbourhood.