Sir – Oh joy. Another epoch-long reconstruction of a major Oxford artery. It’s Iffley Road, again, barely a gasp for breath after the achingly slow redevelopment of the Donnington Bridge Road junction.

I wonder, are these road surfaces biological organisms, grown from seed? Does that explain why it takes as long to patch up a stretch of road as it would to build the entire thing from scratch?

They certainly have the fragility of allotment soil, given how few weeks it takes before the first potholes appear.

Joss Knight, Oxford