There are many questions that need answers. Some bigger than others. So big that it is easier not to spend time trying to pick your way through the brain strain of processing them. Questions like whether the universe is finite or infinite. Either option perplexes even Stephen Hawking, so what chance do I have?

There are also questions that we all know the answer to, but cannot persuade those who have the power to join us on our journey of logic.

Examples? Well, HS2 for starters. If they really want to give employment to the thousands of folk involved in compelling businessmen to spend 20 minutes less on their computers between London and Birmingham, we all can think of a thousand potholes that need filling in, a hundred railway lines that are already there and need modernising, innumerable schools and hospitals that need upgrading, supplying and staffing. All these urgent activities would similarly boost the economy by getting more people to work on something constructive rather than destructive.

Here’s another one. Do we really need parish councils, town councils, district councils and county councils? Both Wycombe District Council and Bucks County Council have been charged with mammoth swingeing budget cuts. Leaving aside the fact that somehow they will do it, begging the question why it wasn’t done before, a simple way of effecting the required saving would be to merge those councils and add in a smaller Wycombe Town Council to sit alongside the parish councils.

At the moment finding out who is responsible for a particular civic responsibility can take eons as the respective authorities pass the buck at a funereal pace.

And then there are the smaller imponderable questions. Why do all clothing stores put the big sizes on the bottom shelf and the smaller on the top shelf. The customer with the 32” waist is more likely to reach the bottom or top shelves with more ease than the guy with the 46” waist. But who do they get to bend down? Why?

And how about my wife’s experience this week when she went to Waitrose in Marlow. She parked in Dean Street Car Park opposite the Chapel Street entrance. But having completed her shopping could not exit by the same door, necessitating a few hundred yards walk in the pouring rain from the rear of the store in Liston Street. Why? Answers on a Möbius strip please.