by Enormous on March 31, 2008
‘Have you seen all the bloody cameras springing up all over the village?’ I was asked this morning. ‘Big Brother is watching you,’ he said.
It was Reg, the fellow who is always telling me old jokes – jokes not heard since the days of valve radio. He wasn’t joking this morning, though; he seemed genuinely concerned that his human rights were being, if not abused, then at least compromised in some way.
‘I shall have a look the next time I’m down by the shops,’ I told him.
He wasn’t wrong, either. Nearly every shop in the market place has, or is in the process of being fitted with, some kind of surveillance equipment.
As I walked towards the Co-op, I counted a dozen different business premises, all twelve with CCTV cameras proudly protecting their shop fronts. This would not be unexpected in a major city or busy urban environment but this is a quiet ex-mining village on the outskirts of the Peak District.
Pennine Bakers, the cosy little cake shop on the market place has an enormous white camera pointing at its door and another inside the entrance, most likely in case some old lady eats too many custard slices and has a fit during which she hurls herself over the counter at Mrs McPhail the assistant manageress and tries to rob the antique cash register of its twenty pound note. Either that or it has been fitted to record the angry faces of the East European immigrants who may turn nasty again when the shop runs out of Polish poppy seed cake.
I noticed too that the florist shop had a state-of-the-art camera that followed me as I passed by. This has probably been installed to protect against the marauding Friday-lunchtime drunkards who have been known to riot occasionally when buying Carnations for their ugly wives or when hiring a Giant Elvis for their weekend barbecues.
Tagged as:
Anti-Social Behaviour,
Big Brother,
Civil Liberties,
Crime,
English Village Life,
Human Rights,
Migrant Workers,
Politics,
Reg
by Enormous on March 30, 2008
Everybody spits around here; the streets and pavements are covered in luminous green globs of frothy phlegm. At times, the village resembles some kind of Wild West frontier town.
It is a local tradition that every member of the family – even the cats and dogs – devote at least one hour a day to the practice of liberal expectoration.
I am embarrassed to say that Audrey and I are not very good at spitting, a fact that marks us out as pariahs within the community.
I do practice whenever we are out walking but my skills still remain woefully inadequate. I just can’t make it go very far. On returning to the house, my coat is always covered in sticky rivulets of watery spittle.
I should perhaps devote more time to it; I feel I’m letting the side down slightly.
Tagged as:
Anti-Social Behaviour,
English Village Life,
Everyday Things I Wish I Was Better At Doing
by Enormous on February 17, 2008
Thank goodness for vandals.
If it wasn’t for the group of teenage hooligans who had set fire to some old car batteries on the rec’ yesterday, Audrey and I would not have been pleasantly warmed on our frosty evening stroll by the impressive bonfire they had so thoughtfully created.
I do so love those naughty boys.
I had to thank them for frightening my little dog out of her wits when one of the batteries exploded in a spectacular display of sparks and flying shrapnel.
And I couldn’t help showing my appreciation when a globule of red-hot battery acid landed on the sleeve of my favourite Fred Perry jacket. Such little rascals!
Bless their cotton socks.
Tagged as:
Annoyances,
Anti-Social Behaviour,
Audrey,
English Village Life,
Idiots,
Vandalism
by Enormous on January 3, 2008
One thing that amazed me about the New Year celebrations here in the village was that although the bars and pubs were deserted on New Year’s Eve, it looked as if an invading army had rampaged through the normally tidy streets on New Year’s Day morning.
Whilst out on our first walk of the year, Audrey and I had to step over thousands of filthy and disgusting items of household waste that had evidently been strewn around on the roads and pavements during the night by the local N.E.D.s (Non-Educated Delinquents).
Hundreds of full-to-the-brim dustbins waiting for collection had been overturned and their rancid contents gleefully kicked around. There were even a couple of bales of hay outside the Glebe Infants School (which I fancy had been used in the previous week’s nativity play) that had been taken apart and liberally distributed around the pedestrian area of the Market Square, as had the contents of the bottle banks outside the Co-op.
The scene had the contrived look of a Hollywood film set: it resembled some small-budget, post-apocalyptic atomic disaster movie which I found rather skilfully done but quite disturbing none the less. The unsettling panorama held no alliance, however, with the optimism that I felt on that first morning of 2008 for the coming twelve months and for the future in general.
Tagged as:
Anti-Social Behaviour,
English Village Life,
Idiots,
Vandalism
by Enormous on November 22, 2007
There is an eccentric old woman that Audrey and I sometimes see when we are walking in the village. She is always pushing a grubby baby-carrier around with her. It isn’t a human infant inside her grimy perambulator, however: it’s a doll.
She is an odd and lonely figure and to catch sight of her is vaguely disturbing. She is constantly chatting to her tiny plastic companion as if it was a real child and often stops to tuck it into its scruffy blankets or to adjust the pink bonnet on its head. ‘There, there, my little poppet,’ I heard her say to it one cold morning as she fussed with its little clothes, busily trying to protect it from the frosty air. She wiped its lobster-coloured cheeks with her handkerchief and gazed lovingly into its big, unblinking glass eyes.
The woman is dirty and untidy and wears an ill-fitting black wig. One cannot help but feel sorry for her. She wears a long grey coat that reaches the ground. The hem of this filthy over-sized garment is very soiled and frayed, probably due to all the tramping around she does.
She never appears to be going anywhere specific – I have never seen her stop to enter a shop, for example – she just wanders around. Her progress never appears to be aimless, though. She always seems to be rushing to get somewhere as if she is late for an appointment or has to catch a train.
We encountered her one day in the summer. Sharing the pushchair with her doll was a large bag of fruit that one of the stall-holders on the market had donated to her. A group of teenagers was teasing her without mercy. ‘Giz an apple, Granma!’ one of the youths shouted at her.
What happened next was astounding. Quick as a flash, she turned and kicked her young tormentor between the legs. ‘Ouch! Straight in the orchestra pit. You f***ing witch,’ he said as he staggered back to his cohorts.
‘What a sight!’ I said to Audrey. ‘There’s a lesson to be learned there, you know.’
Tagged as:
Anti-Social Behaviour,
Audrey,
English Village Life,
Loneliness
by Enormous on October 31, 2007
Pranksters removed my front gate from its hinges last night. When I left the house this morning it was lying by the side of the road about three doors down. There was also a large pile of what looked suspiciously like human faeces outside my front door, though I suppose it could just as easily have come from the bowels of one of the local stray dogs or even Satan himself.
Apparently, in some parts of the UK, the night before Halloween is called Mischief Night. My neighbour Susan was telling me that it is an occasion for underprivileged children to turn feral and to roam the streets in packs. They go from house to house causing havoc by smashing windows, painting obscene slogans on cars, stealing garden gnomes, shitting in people’s yards and separating gates from their hinges.
It was my naive understanding that children – who I think should be banned in this country – only indulged in these kinds of disagreeable activities tonight, on All Hallows Eve. But what do I know?
I fully expect the house to receive a comprehensive egging this evening. I wouldn’t mind so much – youngsters do need to let off steam somehow – but the congealed albumen and yolk is so tricky to remove the next day. I do so enjoy this time of year.
On the Fantastic hi-fi today:
Squeeze – East Side Story
Tagged as:
Annoyances,
Anti-Social Behaviour,
Halloween,
Teenagers
by Enormous on October 23, 2007
All fireworks should be banned in this country – the free use of them, anyway. They are annoying at best and dangerous and often lethal at worst.
Audrey is scared stiff of them. Local morons began letting them off on the rec’ behind our house last week, and I expect this evil practice to continue through Halloween and Bonfire Night and on to Christmas and New Year. So that’s it: I shall have a very frightened little dog from 5pm onwards every day for the next three months. I am so happy.
They never will be banned, of course – there is just too much money to be made from their manufacture and sale. It puzzles me how teenagers can afford them, actually. The rockets that explode around the village these days sound like heavy artillery going off: aerial bombs designed to terrify and panic; and that kind of fire-power does not come cheap. You would think that youngsters would rather spend the £15 it costs for such a substantial firework on a week’s supply of white cider instead of something that is spectacular and dramatic, yes, but that lasts mere seconds. One does have to bear in mind, I suppose, that their powers of reasoning are not all that evolved, and this is more than likely the main contributing factor in the dubious purchasing decisions that are being made.
I, meanwhile, have spent £20 and bought for Audrey a small bottle of Dog Appeasing Pheromone. I spray it in her dark sanctuary underneath the settee every evening and it seems to have a slight calming effect on her. Not to worry, eh, Audrey? We only have to wait till bloody Febuary until you can come out again.
I wrote a prose poem on this subject last year.
Tagged as:
Annoyances,
Anti-Social Behaviour,
Audrey,
Idiots