In the past, an ordinary person had no way of communicating with the rest of the world, unless he or she was famous or infamous, or had some reason for attracting public attention. But now, thanks to the internet, I can write this blog. Nobody need read it, but anybody in any nation anywhere in the planet can read it, if they wish.
Most blogs seem to be about matters of public interest, or what bloggers think is publicly interesting. My blogs have tended to be random thoughts and accounts of my everyday life, or reminiscences of my past life. The truth is I seem to have run out of that sort of stuff to blog about. So I feel it is time I commented on what is happening to society and the great wide world. So, here goes.
I have to walk a few miles every day of my life. It exercises the heart muscles and thereby keeps me alive. On my walk this morning along the footpath to Tottenham Marsh and the River Lea, I noticed something new. The path is bounded on both sides by continuous banks of blackberry bushes. When they are ripe, since very few people use the footpaths of East London, you can gather baskets of luscious blackberries, but not of course in February.
Anyway, the council has recently occupied some of its workers to dig out 28 clearings in the blackberry hedge, to plant 28 trees along the length of the footpath. I am sure these trees will look nice enough when they mature. But do the citizens of Walthamstow need them? Are there not other things we need more? Why on earth did they not leave the lovely blackberries to ripen and flourish, unhampered by trees?
A small diversion. This morning there were about 20 twitchers gathered on the banks of the reservoir, all armed with their massive cameras and telephoto lenses mounted on tripods. I thought 20 was a lot, since most mornings I have the walk to myself, but as I walked on, more and more of them appeared, droves and droves of them walking along the bank with tripods over their shoulders. Obviously there has been a report of some rare bird, rare enough to bring the twitchers from all over Britain, hundreds of them. How did they gain access to the reservoir? I am not allowed to walk there. Property of Thames Water. Keep out!
But back to my theme. Why are we spending public money on planting trees when there are perfectly good blackberry hedges to keep us happy? Apart from the cost of the trees, it must have taken several men considerable time and effort. Planting those 28 trees cost money we can ill afford when we are warned that the council will be forced to cut financial support from services to the sick, the disabled, the young and the elderly. I am elderly. What support have I lost to a tree I wonder?
All the political parties are warning us they may have to cut funding to social services, health and education. These are all vague, ill defined areas of national expenditure, with never any detail. But as I walk about the borough day by day, I see the detail. I see constant evidence that money is being spent unnecessarily. For example I saw a gang of men with a mini excavator and a lorry. They were digging up sturdy granite kerbstones which had probably been there for a hundred years and would easily last another fifty, and replacing them with precast concrete ones which might survive for ten years, or less. They did not need replacing. And in the middle of the road there were potholes left by the freeze, which were not being repaired.
And why were they not being repaired? Because we are nearing the end of the financial year. Money in this year's budget which has not been spent by March 31st will not be carried over. The new budget from April 1st cancels out all the plans from the previous year. Someone noticed that the budget for tree planting and kerbstone replacement had not been spent. Quick, let's spend it before March 31st. There is no money left for road repairs, or home helps, or schools, but there is for kerbstones.
Apparently there is money left for No Entry signs and those blue arrows that tell you traffic is One Way only. There is a block of five streets leading off Blackhorse Lane, which are all one way streets in one direction or the other. Every single one of them now has two brand new No Entry or One Way signs placed one foot in front of the signs that were there already. They stand there one in front of the other, or you could say each one obscuring its predecessor. Presumably the old ones are left standing because although there is money in the budget for new signs, they made no provision for removing the old ones. Surely they could make a District Nurse or a Health Visitor redundant and get the old signs removed? Some of the old signs were a bit bent. There was no budget for straightening them, though there was, apparently, for replacing them with brand new ones.
Social Services are denied resources. Every social worker has an impossible case load. Children are neglected and abused and sometimes killed. Meanwhile, further up Blackhorse Lane, they are digging up more granite kerbstones. But this time they are not replacing them. Some they are putting back a bit further into the road than they had been previously, widening the footpath, narrowing the road. Others are being put back in exactly the same place, but a few centimetres higher than they were before. There is still money in the budget for footpath widening and kerbstone re-aligning.
The above is probably the most miserable blog I have written so far. I try to avoid making my blogs about pubs, in case you think I go to the pub every day of my life. Heaven forbid! But I feel my readers may need cheering up.
So there I was having a quiet drink in a pub called The Bear, in Blue Boar Street in Oxford. They have at least fifty thousand snipped off ends of ties in glass cases. Regimental ties, old school ties, all with little faded handwritten notes pinned to them. One near where I was sitting said "Enugu Sports Club Nigeria, Snooker section 1954." There are so many that some of the glass cases have had to be fixed to the ceiling, no space left on the walls. That day, not a single man in the pub was wearing a tie. The collection is from forty years ago and before, when even students wore ties. So did bus drivers and train drivers.
A young man walked in wearing a suit and tie, American. I knew he was American because it was a bow tie, and because of the way he said "Hi!" to a girl sitting at the table only two feet away from me. Evidently she was waiting for him. She had several carrier bags around her. One looked large enough to contain a pillow. "Hello Honey," said the girl, evidently also American. She opened the large carrier bag and out came an enormous balloon which expanded when released and displayed the message HAPPY 24th BIRTHDAY. She handed him the string. He looked embarrassed and said "Hmm.. I don't think I can take this up to the bar without it causing comment."
"Darling, don't worry about that," said she. "You cannot buy your own drink on your birthday. Let me get it. You just sit there and hold your balloon. What would you like?"
"Some kind of English ale." He hadn't been here for long then. So off she went and came back with what looked like a pint of Guinness. There had evidently been some transatlantic misunderstanding at the bar about what constituted English ale. I was in a pub in York once when an American tourist asked for a pint of York Ale. That was OK though. They gave him a pint of Tetleys. I know they make tea as well as beer, but Guinness, English?
Anyway, you could tell by the way he curled his lip slightly, glancing furtively at the pint glass full of opaque black liquid, then at the enormous embarrassing balloon, that the guy was not enjoying his birthday. She sipped her Coca Cola happily then said, "Oh I nearly forgot!" She rummaged in another of her carrier bags and brought out two tiny pointed paper hats, with elastic. She leaned across the table and put one on his head and one on hers. He watched in horror as she adjusted the elastic under her chin. Reluctantly he did the same. And there they sat in this very quiet and sedate English pub with everybody staring at them fascinated, him looking at his Guinness in disbelief. Was this what Falstaff drank?
I was only two feet away from them. Any minute she might speak to me, ask me something about quaint old England. I drank up and left. I did not stay to see whether he managed to drink his pint of Guinness, nor to wait for what she might produce from the remaining five carrier bags around her feet.
