FORD CAPRI

There and back again: an unnecessary journey doesn't go to waste

- STEVE CROPLEY

It was the closest thing I can remember to a completely wasted journey. I set off from home in Gloucestershire midway through a Sunday afternoon - when I could instead have been watching an absorbing Six Nations game on TV - in order to position myself in good time for an early Monday morning meeting in London.

Such was the importance of this meeting that the sacrifice seemed justified, and so it remained until I reached the outskirts of London - to be dead accurate, that raised bit of the M4 just east of Heathrow airport. That was where I learned that (a) not only was this crucial London meeting now no longer happening but (b) I'd have been better off staying at home in the shires because something just as important was now happening there early the following day.

The only sensible thing to do was to pull a U-turn at the roundabout where the M4 meets London’s North Circular road and retrace my route home, spending another two hours and 94 miles getting home. Nothing else made sense.