Ninth Stage

I had always thought that great civilizations went out with a bang or at least with barbarian hordes providing a convenient delineation between civilization and post. While Britain is going down under a horde alright, the horde is not barbarian, at least not in the common sense. And it isn’t a foreign culture that is overwhelming Britain, that’s saved (staged?) for a second wave.

The chronicler of this slide from civilization is the pseudonymous Barry Beelzebub. He documents the petty so called crime-fighting that plagues the nation while the whole mess slides down the rails into barbarism. What he calls the “Turkey Army”, government employees, plaguing the average subject.

The latest crime wave seems to be occurring at the trash bins, not of society but literal trash bins awaiting collection by the trash man.

Step up to the stocks if you will, Desert Rat veteran Lenny Woodward. Now Lenny didn’t stab anyone to death or keep his children in a cellar for 30 years, but in the view of the Powers That Be, his crime is no less serious.

You see Woodward committed the heinous offence of “Putting an Empty Tomato Sauce Bottle in the Wrong Bin”, contrary to the Recycle Or Be Shot Act 2008. There is no excuse: Woodward had been issued with the full complement of blue wheelie bin for cans and cardboard, a green box for glass and a black bin for other waste. Regardless of this, he blithely threw the ketchup bottle into the blue bin when – as eny fule nos – they should have gone into the green box.

Now I don’t want to hear that Woodward is 95 years old and therefore possibly confused, or even that he is almost blind and could hardly read the council’s orders; indeed, if he’d read the “yellow card” the binmen left him and publicly apologised on his knees on the steps of Norwich Town Hall, he wouldn’t have subsequently received the “red card” that denied him any further collections.

And

The 73-year-old [Barry Freezer of Norwich] (and why is it always our older people –war veterans and the like – who seem to be victimised by the town hall numpties?) apparently transgressed a rule which states that food which may have come into contact with meat can’t be mixed with composting waste to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as foot and mouth.

But in Barry’s case, the cabbage stalks hadn’t even been anywhere near the kitchen. They were dug up from his vegetable garden and went straight into the bin without even a nodding acquaintance with half a pound of mince.

The actions of the binmen are interesting here. Upon discovering the illegal cabbage stalks, they attached an immediate ‘red card’ to Barry’s bin, instead of the usual warning system of two yellows (no, I’m not making this up) and refused point blank to empty his bin. It should be pointed out that Barry already pays £35 a year just to have his green bin emptied although, as he says, he could burn the whole lot on a bonfire while shouting “bugger the environment”, but chooses not to.

The law which Barry apparently fell foul of is the Animal By-Products Order, imposed by the Department of Food and Rural Affairs following, in turn, a European Parliament directive which is part of an overall master plan to make all of us pay for every ounce of rubbish that we produce.

And

Not a week passes without another series of aberrations: this week’s horrors included the council in Plymouth forcing families to nominate an adult member of their family who could be fined and given a criminal record in the event of any bin-related malpractice; the stunned pensioners of Skipton being told that they had to lift the heavy internal containers out of their wheelie bins themselves “to spare the binmens’ backs”; and the case of arch criminal single mother Zoe Watmough of Bolton, who was fined £265 for putting her bins out a few hours too early.

. . .

Sixteen-year-old Max Twizell was attending a charity event in Newcastle city centre when the pink, helium-filled balloon he was carrying escaped his grasp and floated away. This prompted a litter warden to pounce and present him with a £50 fine for littering.

. . .

Stephen Savage, director of regulatory services and public protection at the council (and there’s a Turkey Army job if ever I’ve heard one) is predictably pathetic: “To some people this may seem harsh but we believe that to create a cleaner, safer city we must send out a clear message that this will not be tolerated.”

Now you know why the government in Britain has banned virtually all means of self protection - to protect itself from outraged citizens. Still, I think, a few judicious (or extra for that matter) might set the clock back a few years.