There are more of them every day - unless I'm living in some trippy fantasy - sometimes three long but shallow holes in a single street.  Usually they have the standard white and red railings round them, precarious and often moved aside by passers by who want to - well, pass by.

Are the holes for gas, road improvement, telecoms, electric, drains?  There are no signs to say, no one to ask - for there are never workmen around, just a lot of machinery.

Being England nobody asks whats going on.  Buses detour, traffic jams, tourists get lost.  But no one, least of all the evening paper makes a fuss or even notices.  There were holes being dug all the time where I last lived, but most of them seemed to being dug for a purpose.

I suppose I should phone the Council.  They are bound to have a Hole Inspector, surely?  Or could I just go and dig my own hole, anywhere, undisturbed?

My theory, though, is that is a post Damien Hirstian sculpture. (nb the Turner prize looks a bit dull this year)  An Artist (probably employing slave labour as an artistic swipe against political correctness) is digging the Brighton holes for no reason at all, except to contaminate the ground with cocaine nuclear waste and pigswill, then sell the land have  back to the Council at a fashonable exorbitant price.

Of course I may be wrong.  For all I know, all the Artist may only want a double decker bus named after her or him.