Britain hasn’t been so great of late…

Maybe it’s a case of nominative determinism – or manifestation or something – if you call something ‘great’ then the hope is that one day it will be?

At the moment, I think ‘Mediocre Britain’ or ‘Distinctly Average Britain’ would be more appropriate!

And yes, among the other things that seem to have gone very badly wrong, this is going to be another column about the state of our roads, because they are – for want of a better word – absolutely shocking, a local, if not national, disgrace.

I’m told that we’re the sixth richest country in the world – I’m going to have to stop now and look that up now because I just don’t believe it… yes, apparently it still is if you consider nominal GDP.

However, if you adjust for purchasing power parity (PPP, whatever that is!) the UK drops to about ninth (hope the AI summary is correct, if not blame that not me please).

So, the sixth richest country in the world, by GDP anyway, has some roads which simply aren’t fit to be driven on, and resemble a lunar landscape.

Some roads are more pothole than actual road. You all know this, I’m sure, we all drive about with one eye on the vehicles etc in front and one eye scanning for the huge holes in the road, desperately trying not to burst a tyre or damage our suspension.

You see the cars in front swerving, so that gives you a heads up that there’s a crater looming ahead.

Sure enough we drove down Rockingham Hill the other day, and it was similar to a slalom race on the Winter Olympics.

Genuinely, in the half-century or so that I’ve walked or driven about on this planet, I’ve never seen our local roads this bad!

Our car tax goes up every year, as does our council tax – repairs are done, but seem to last days, if that.

Before anyone says it, I appreciate that we’ve had a lot of rain, but I thought Tarmac was waterproof?!