And now for my Thunderbirds impression...

The classic 'one-hole-five-workmen' shot. Clearly the emotion of the hole almost got too much at one point so one needed a hug.

Ah yes, the Edinburgh roadworks are back in full swing. As I've said before they don't really affect me on the bike that much, but with this city as my adopted home it annoys me to see it being torn up so regularly, so badly, and for such a reason as a single tramline that is feeling more and more like a personal hobby-horse of a few councillors who feel they have to see this thing through. With one end of the line being at a huge development site that is having work postponed because of the credit crisis, and the other almost, but not quite, reaching the airport meaning a necessary change to a bus to get there, and an independent review showing it would remove roughly 1% of traffic from the route, but narrow the road in places like Leith Walk to one lane each way (meaning a 50% reduction in traffic would be needed to have a standting-still effect on congestion), it all just seems a little 'pointless'.

Naturally costs are also spiralling, and delays have already set the completion date waaaaaaaaaaaaay back. Though that sort of thing isn't limited to the tramworks. A mile or two from my house there's a major roundabout being removed to be replaced by traffic lights, with bus lanes giving buses priority, and apparently easing congestion. Now apart from the fact that in most other places traffic lights are being removed to create roundabouts because there is a general consensus that traffic 'flows' with roundabouts, the work has been going on for something like 6 months. And has been delayed by an extra month or two, according to an email received this week from my councillor, to be finished sometime around April.

To take out a roundabout.

And put some lights in.

I'll save the public procurement (in which I used to work, sort of) rant for another day, but you really have to wonder how little we manage to stick to budgets and timetables and actually do a job correctly. From the Scottish Parliament down. And god only knows what impression tourists take back home of the capital of Scotland.

Anyway, just down from the hole-gazers the traffic was further backed up with a broken down Jag-You're-Not (Moving) XJ6 and two lads who looked like extras from Ferris Bueller. Nice triangle though. The triangle shot actually made me realise I'm losing a bit of that self-consciousness to snapping things. Crouching down on the traffic island between two non-moving lines of cars and trucks, all that was in my mind was getting the shot.

One other discarded blip: A lovely passive aggressive note.