Don't moan about cones

IT IS just as well that John Major's Cones Hotline has shut down. Twelve years after it closed, due to lack of (serious) calls reporting unnecessary traffic delays, we fear if it was still up and running it would soon face meltdown.

As we report today, Scottish Water is looking to spend £20m on traffic cones, barriers and equipment because it will have to shut off roads and redirect traffic while it copes with a backlog of repairs to pipes. That's enough to block off 700 miles of road, or cut the country in half from Aberdeen to Penzance. Some say as many as two million new cones will be purchased.

This may seem excessive, but Scottish Water is surely just taking a pragmatic approach: the new university term is about to unleash 250,000 students, after all, and they will all be looking to decorate their bedsits. And then there are the thousands of statues out there, all of which need new hats. But don't worry: even if every student and statue gets a share, there will be plenty of spare cones to delay us on our way to work each morning.