DIDN'T it get right up your exhaust pipe, that explanation from regeneration chief Councillor Ashley Whalley for most of the main roads into Blackburn being obstructed by roadworks timed to take place all at once?

Better doing them all in one go than spreading them over two years, he said, and, this way, they'll all be over and done with in time for the Christmas rush.

Oh, really? I'm ready to lay long odds that most motorists, neither asked about nor prepared for this lengthy and daily inconvenience, fail to see the benefits of this town hall-inspired all-day gridlock.

And let me put a marker down now - that, hereafter, if none of these roads is disrupted by further digging up in the next two years, I'll happily ride about them with a bare behind on a fairy cycle.

Why don't they have the grace to admit what it is - a mess up, as, to start with, is Blackburn's attempt to design an inner-urban orbital route on roads meant for the horse-and-cart?