Now isn’t that the absolute limit?

I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened a recent edition of the local paper.

It was either the Examiner or the Independent and it referred to the latest temporary roads closed order to the junction at the bottom of Broadway and the promenade.

For the last few months, if you are anything like me, you have obviously been kidded into thinking that it has actually been closed for some time already. Wrong.

The latest short-term inconvenience is intended to last for another three months, from the end of May to the beginning of September.

OK. Fair enough, I will never pretend to be an expert on road repairs or the like and I was going to change the subject when the bombshell dropped.

I was under the impression that the tramlines were going to be relaid on the full length of the Promenade.

Not only that, there was going to be two separate lines. These would be specially laid at a slightly wider spacing to accommodate both the Manx Electric Railway and the horse trams.

That would be a great idea, but there is a slight snag. The railway requires power cables.

Now I know that nothing is impossible, but some things can be very difficult.

Then I read that the plans had been altered: the horse trams were only going as far as the Gaiety.

Fair enough, but what about the plans for the Electric Railway to go all the way?

So the diggers dug, the excavators excavated and the planners seemed as confused as the rest of us.

The job went on and on. Every week the roadworks got longer and longer and the chaos got worse.

But we had faith and we had stamina. We got used to carriageways changing direction and still it continued.

Until one day. The new announcement.

The railway lines are now to run as far as the Bottleneck but not before 2023.

Everyone seemed puzzled.

Even the nice man who runs the buses (and the trains, the trams and the patient transfer service) was confused. Why is it going to take so long?

Well I sat and I thought about things, and my brain got onto the subject of motorists and their pride and joys.

The car.

In the old days when I learnt to drive, a car was a luxury. That was some 60 years ago. We were trained to use hand signals to indicate our intentions to other drivers. This meant manually winding the window down and waving to the other road users.

Try doing that today. The reply would probably resemble an outstretched arm ending with either a clenched fist or an upright finger.

Our cars had electric semaphore indicators. This was a posh name for the short, illuminated arrow-shaped object that was supposed to point left or right, depending on the often faulty switch on the dashboard.

And, by law, our cars had to show a parking light for overnight safety. All clever stuff.

We had it all.

Many of the cars of the day had three gears plus reverse and they even had synchromesh on third gear. Wow!

Try and explain what you did with a starting handle and watch the eyes glaze over.

A modern car in the hands of a modern driver is like opening the door into a mobile computer.

The machine does all the work for you.

A satellite to guide you, all-round cameras to deter raiders and to help you to park and a fully-automatic umpteen-speed gear box that is capable of achieving speeds you could only dream about.

Maybe one day, an ’outside the box’ forward-looking young designer, will fit a switch to press that will help the driver to become more courteous and considerate.

Now wouldn’t that be nice?