Thoughts on a Warm Summer Morning.

Lovely waking up to sunshine.
Good. The first line of a poem is buzzing around in my head.
Mustn’t waste such a beautiful day.
Take mug of tea, paper, and pen into garden, sit on bench and write poem.
Vague outline of second poem in head as well!
This sun is lovely.
On a day like this Jilly Cooper’s female writers sit outside, bare breasted, with a jug of Pimms and a handsome youth to hand as it were.
Don’t think about it. Act your age.
Better go indoors and put the poem on the computer for easier editing.
Shame to go indoors.
The grass needs cutting.
Do it later.
It needs cutting badly.
Go - indoors - and - write - the - poem.
Chilly inside. Could have stayed out a little longer.
Look at that dirty skirting board.
Push the side table in front of it.
Must bring bookcase in from garage.
Wish I was Jilly Cooper.
Hang on. Jilly Cooper thought will make good intro for article.
Mustn’t forget the poem.
That wall needs painting.
Why did I think I could write an article?
Why do I think I can write at all?
Better check the washing.
Come on, come on. Spit it out.
Have a cigarette.
Ok: forget the article, stick to the poem.
What poem?

OPINION: I Want to go Green.

I’d quite like a wind turbine in the garden, although it would have to be the shape of the one we pass when we’re driving down the M4 towards Reading. I love it. It’s one of the most elegant designs I’ve ever seen for something that is so useful.
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but many people don’t like them, or say they’re fine as long as they don’t have to actually look at them. I wonder how quickly they’d change their minds if they were reduced to using oil lamps or candles and cooking on an open fire.

With a home turbine, windy winter days would suddenly become acceptable: welcome even. Instead of worrying about how you’re going to afford the rising cost of keeping warm and donning another layer of woollies rather than turning the thermostat up a notch, you’d cheer when the weather man predicted blizzards.
If it blew hard enough for long enough, there might even be enough electricity left over to contribute to the national grid; in which case the electricity company would be paying you. Fancy that!
Even watching the leaves from a neighbour’s tree billowing en masse over the fence and settling in your garden wouldn’t be half so irritating. You could think, sucks to the electricity company and look forward to a nice fat cheque, as you pulled the curtains, switched on another bar of the electric fire and settled down to toast your toes in front of its artificial flames.

The biggest problem encountered so far with home turbines, is when they are fixed to the roof, chimney stack, or walls of a house. The vibrations caused by cross winds which is common in built up areas, can cause structural damage. Experts are quick to reassure us new designs are overcoming that particular problem and the height of a regular house isn’t optimum for catching every little gust anyway.
High, stand alone turbines are the best option, especially in a chimney free town like Bracknell, with many of its houses half clad in wood.
Fast moving technology will quickly weed out minor problems as they crop up and as more of us rebel against paying through the nose for utilities that are set to become increasingly erratic.

If the energy crisis continues and our utility companies carry on sticking their heads in the sand to the extent they are at present, a bizarre vision of suburban front gardens looking more like bijou prairie homesteads with dust devils and sage brush blowing aimlessly along blistered tarmac roads and up our front paths, will become all too real.
Imagine if you can a blazing hot Sunday afternoon with just a soupcon of breeze. When the only sound to be heard, apart from the irritating buzz of helmet -less youngsters dune surfing on mini bikes, is the monotonous creak of countless wind turbines producing electricity to cook the Sunday lunch, and pumping water from personal wells hundreds of feet below the parched earth so that we can do the washing up afterwards.

I quite fancy my own eggs as well…Does anyone know if you need planning permission for a chicken coop?

OPINION: Don't you just love them.

I’m convinced Councillors and the people that work for local government are a special breed. Born that way, their particular brand of stupidity and thick skinned arrogance is inherited, and traits like common sense and finer feelings disappeared from their genetic make up way back in the mists of time.

I’m on record for objecting about being ignored even at election time by the Councillors in our neck of the woods, and was unhappy about tax payers money being used to give them unlimited, fast speed internet access in their homes to ‘keep them in the loop’. It makes me grind my teeth that they won’t even acknowledge receiving the email when you contact them via their individual mail slot on the council’s award winning web site.

I’ve also made my voice heard when wondering which numpty decides on the location of litter bins, and am hated by a couple of Council departments for my outspoken views on bad working practices for their blue collar workers. And haven't we all all gritted our teeth when they've increased their own allowances while essential services are cut to the bone.

There are days I wonder why I bother, but then every month I see a large chunk of my money disappearing from my bank account and going into the Council’s coffers.
To be fair, local services aren’t totally bad given the pace of life today. I’m sensible enough to realise that to have my bins emptied, schools, police and fire brigade kept up, parks tidy and a myriad of other local services on tap, costs money.

No, it’s the faceless twits who come up with brainless, money wasting ideas and, in the case of my Council, keep the fat cat ‘I’m all right Jack’ mentality alive and kicking, that I object to.
You will imagine my delight then, when on Friday I bought the local paper for a nearby town and found the front page gleefully catching its local council with their pants well and truly lowered.

It was about a Leave Your Car at Home Day organised by the Council. The town has a good local transport system via trains and buses along with park and ride facilities. It was to be a day where – hopefully - if locals used buses and trains they might like it enough to ease some of the congestion on the towns badly clogged roads for the other 364 days of the year. Not forgetting how it would help the environment at the same time of course.

Naturally the local paper had enthusiastically taken up the banner with editorial staff relating their adventures on the way to work by unfamiliar routes.
It was all good clean fun, but unknown to the council the paper took a photo of one of their car parks a day or so before the special day, and then sneaked back and took a comparison photo of the same car park on the Leave Your Car at Home Day.

You don’t need to read any further to know what happened, but for those who are suckers for a punch line, the council’s car park was just as full.
Of course there were hurried denials that, that particular parking area was used by members of social services and the like and they needed to be mobile at a moments notice etc., etc. Oh my!
Bowled for a duck I’d say.