INSTEAD of just a green laser light in the Civic Centre, the original idea was to have red and amber ones on top to create a giant set of traffic lights. This would have paid tribute to that wonderful invention that controls all our lives and for which Southampton is rightly famous.

The aliens working in the traffic department could then use it as a beacon to attract more of their kind from Planet Gridlock.

Little red, yellow and green men need a carbon monoxide atmosphere to breathe. Before they launch their mass invasion, they need to make the planet more habitable by putting a set of traffic lights every 50 yards or so and have the phase changes controlled by a clockwork mouse.

I know this because they abducted me and offered me a great deal on a secondhand 4x4.

G BELL, Eastleigh.