PERHAPS it was the sleep-starved, dawn mercy trip to Heathrow, followed by an uncanny ability to head east instead of west along the M25 on the return – thus adding 50 miles to the journey – that led me to ponder the ridiculous.

No, I wasn’t daydreaming, a hazard to other motorists. Traffic was almost stationary, victim once more of road works – this time on the A40 near Forest Hill, a handful of miles from Oxford. Set on where the central reservation should be, was a blue portable lavatory cabin. It appeared to be leaning at a slight angle.

How could workmen comfortably use this basic facility, I thought, while motorists, a captive audience, looked on? Would anyone wish to emerge like some solo artiste on a music festival stage?

Or when traffic was on the move, would workmen risk their lives and nervous systems to reach the blue cabin only to be deafened and shaken by heavy traffic thundering past on both sides?

I know this isn’t a subject of vital importance (except to uncomfortable workmen) but I did warn you.

NOT yet adjusted to the business of the day (whatever that was) my imagination saw Cornmarket Street as down-town Babel, with a solid mass of many tongues, heading to Carfax, a substitute for the famous tower of the same name. It seemed best to linger in the surprisingly less- crowded Magdalen Street.

“Please,” asked a middle-aged Chinese woman holding out a camera and pointing to a large group of fellow countrymen (and women) ranged in tiers around the base of the Martyrs Memorial. Would I take their picture? How could I refuse what seemed to be half the population of Beijing?

The deed done I asked if they understood the significance of the monument. There was a gap of knowledge here and I was willing to help fill it. We trooped round to Broad Street to show them the cross of stones that marked the site of those execution bonfires. Here things became difficult.

It must have been a small fire suggested one as she measured the stones; why was the monument opposite the lush Randolph Hotel instead of in Broad Street?; how could people be so cruel? asked a third.

Bowing respectfully, I moved on before sparking an international incident…only for me to see a smaller group of Chinese people led by a fellow countrywoman, holding aloft a flag – the Union Flag – while chattering in whatever tongue it happened to be.

I suppose it was made there. Everything else seems to be.