Wall of red lights on road to hell

As I inched into the exhaust fume-filled maw of the Limehouse Link tunnel, a solid wall of red lights stretching off into the gloom,

I realised this was the gridlock from Hell. There was no going back and it was quite clear we were going to be there for some time. It had already taken more than half-an-hour to crawl the few yards from the Canary Wharf car park to the mouth of the tunnel that runs west from Docklands in east London towards the City.

Fortunately, having been to the supermarket after leaving my office, I had bread and water. I might need them. I could be here for hours. Strange thoughts entered my mind. What were the toilet facilities? More seriously, would the extractors cope with the fumes? They ought to; this was, after all, the most expensive bit of road in the capital.

In the event, it was not so bad. It took 30 minutes to clear the tunnel; another hour's crawl to get home to north London, a journey that normally takes about a quarter of that time. And that was heading away from the Blackwall Tunnel. My sanity was saved by the stand-up comedy tape I found. But it was not the only reason why fellow motorists might have seen me laughing hysterically....