Somebody needs to tell the good Burghers of Kent and Sussex that the Invasion emergency has passed, so they can now take down all the illegible 1930s road signs pointing in the wrong direction, and cut all the foliage back acting as camouflage. We may well be due for yet another period of unpleasantness with the Hun, but I very much doubt it will involve ground troops. Further I’d be surprised if the next punch-up required tanks, so the A26/A21 joinage roundabouts can be removed, if only to give the lone remaining Panzer division a rest after 70 years of pointlessly circling reconnaissance.

Last week I drove from Kypriassia in Southern Greece via Italy to France, and then up to Dover via the border with Switzerland to get back here. I think I was probably confused as to direction up to but not including once. Since arriving in these two fine counties, I’ve had to stop and consult the map about sixty times.

I do like this part of the world, and Kent pubs are hard to beat; but the signage remains patchy, hard to spot, and generally placed on the basis that it is only necessary for people who know where they’re going. Further, I’d love to say it’s nice to be back in the UK, but frankly it isn’t. Throughout the hours of daylight in the 21^st Century South East, you are only ever two crossed fingers away from a line of traffic. And a lot of cross words when stuck in the traffic. This morning, it took me 1.75 hours to get from Uckfield to Matfield….a distance of some 24 miles. Is that any quicker than the 17th century hayrick took?

And as for London….well, it becomes a more insane City with every year. I can say this with a degree of authority, because it’s almost exactly a year since I was there, and it’s gone from mad to curse. It is impossible to buy a Tube ticket from a machine unless you use an Oyster Card or coins. Credit and Debit cards are banned. The queues at the ticket windows are like stretched anacondas full of bewildered tourists, which you’d think might give Boris a hint as to the problem: but subtlety has never been the Mayor’s strong suit. Eddie Mair with a mallet is roughly the weight of blunt attack required to get through to the Blond Turk.

Dr Johnson famously wrote that, “A man who is tired of London is tired of life”. The time has come to revise this, along the lines of “A man who is tired of having a life should head for London”.

Curiously, after Greece and France, the UK feels miles behind: free wifi is a given in those countries, but impossible to find in retail food and drink emporia here beyond Mcdonalds. Wifi when you get some is slow and intermittent, while the bandwidth is almost universally poor. One can’t help feeling that a two-speed internet is already operating here, but nobody’s noticed yet.

Anyway, my car passed its MOT, which suggests that standards have fallen, as there is clearly something wrong with the windscreen wipers. Perhaps the roadworthiness test has also been adjusted such that having the right number plates on the vehicle gets an A*. Still, it was one less thing to worry about, given other minor matters such as Will changing, NHS negotiating, Plod-corruption researching, and injustice visiting.

The last of these was the reason for being in London, albeit only for three hours. I suppose I could sum up the session by simply offering this piece of advice: whatever David Cameron tells you about going to the police, don’t. And especially not the Metropolitan Police. These days, they remind me of those South African tree monkeys who steal your food: not very bright, and devoid of remorse.

In order to get into this sh*thole that used to be Great Britain, I was charged the outrageous sum of €238 on the Chunnel…one bloody way. This was because I had committed the heinous crime of turning up without a reservation. In earlier less deranged times, the last-minute Charlie got the cheap ticket. Not any more: it is merely another denial of Newtonian reality and Einstein’s relativity.

Today would suffice as a good example of the sheer cost of being English in England. Diesel tank refill:  £91; Lunch of sausage and mash with one glass of indifferent wine: £18; parking and train ticket off peak to London: £19; sushi and glass of wine on the way back £9. A hundred and thirty quid. There is no way that – even with my far better than average pension and investment income – I could exist in Southern England and enjoy life to even the half-full.

As I keep on saying to people, “I will return to England to live when England returns to its senses”.