Mad inventor John Ward has an ever-fertile mind. He designed the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards and is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail’s letters column.
A few weeks ago, he mentioned to them that he had invented a tunnel.
The Daily Mail has always had a keen eye for the bizarre…
“I was getting fed up,” he told them, “with constantly hearing the hackneyed expression: ‘There is light at the end of the tunnel’. So I made my own tunnel with a switch to put the light on and off as required.
“It could be an executive stress device for those who want total control or like to think they have.
“I have updated it because, due to Brexit, the light is now central. Before it was adjustable from right to left, depending on what country it might be used in and what side of the road they drove on.
“Never let it be said we are kept in the dark. Being British, we are streets ahead of the game. Work is progressing on a solar-powered model.”
John tells me: “Some hours later, after the Daily Mail hit the newsstands, a researcher for BBC Three Counties Radio got in touch to see if I could do an interview over the phone and describe how my tunnel works.
“I told him: ’It’s purely visual. It’s something to be seen. The light is very quiet.”
And the line went very quiet.
The next day, a lady contacted John about the cost of making one for her husband’s birthday.
“I quoted,” John told me, “depending on size, between £150 and £250 as being I hadn’t made it and it would be individual to them but would come with a certificate of authenticity. She said she would be getting back to me as she and her daughter were going to buy it if her daughter agreed…”
That was ten days ago. Now John has had another brainstorm.
No stranger to the media, he has his own weekly column in the increasingly prestigious Spalding Guardian newspaper – and he has come up with a new cracker of an idea which has now been featured in a lengthy piece on their esteemed sister website Spalding Today.
He has created a board game based on the number of potholes in the roads of South Holland in Lincolnshire.
The game has been designed for two players – who throw dice from an upside-down miniature traffic cone.
How did he get the inspiration for this?
Players throw dice from an upside-down miniature traffic cone
“I was driving down the A17 road last Easter time,” he explains, “when I ‘hit’ two such holes, both within a few yards of each other, then felt the car really jar but the more I thought about it this is a right old game – three such jarrings and your left front wheel falls off crossed my mind.
“From a personal viewpoint,” continues John W, never short of words, “Lincolnshire is blighted with potholes from major roads to side streets and they are a constant talking point, with forever debate about when or if they will be repaired. Although once repaired there is a very good chance the situation will return almost as soon as it’s been ‘repaired’ as the repair possibly was not as it should have been or rather it appears that way to the common layman.”
Players have the option of picking a sports car, pick-up truck or a tractor as a marker.
Realistic detail: “a fly-tipped pile of rubbish left on the grass”
“Realism,” explains John, “comes in the form of a fly-tipped pile of rubbish left on the grass.
“Each player starts with a set of ‘hole fillers’ or plugs, each colour-coded, to use to fill a pot hole when landing on one. Although it is not that straightforward – much like reporting a pothole and expecting it to be attended to.
“If you land on a square with a coloured star on it, you then pick a card from a pile with that co-ordinating star to find out if you can progress through to the next square or miss a go, forfeit a go to your opponent and so on.
“I am in the process of registering the design and copyrighting it at the moment. However, as these real life pot holes affect many millions of motorists, the possible potential for this game could – I stress ‘could’ – be very interesting.”
Last year, the Lincolnshire Free Press reported: “A woman from Lincolnshire is spray-painting potholes around the county in a protest surrounding the state of the roads. Karen Holland, 55, is decorating the roads with different bugs – and even the occasional cheeky genitalia – to warn other motorists about the potholes and show just how many there are around Lincolnshire.”
This story, I think, has more mileage in it.
The art of Lincolnshire potholes in 2020 – as decorated and photographed by Karen Holland
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 