I was in the middle of cleaning my Grotspot...
U-bend gleaming; understairs cupboard whence no traveller returns, ship-shape; front garden hedge de-littered.
Ah, litter...That leaf-buster has come in very handy for sucking up the assorted crud that gets caught up in our hedge. A marvellous 60th birthday present.
Birthday presents are, of course, a problem the older you get.
Mainly because you don't actually need anything in particular.
And the things you really need like like tooth implants, and hip-replacements seem a little too grabby as gift suggestions when the giver merely had a box of Milk Tray in mind.
We are approaching at least one of her Royal Highness' 90th birthdays. As she already sports a perfect set of gnashers, a pair of swinging hips, (and who needs a leaf-buster when you own the crown jewels?) it makes it hard to think of a truly original present.
The Keep Britain Tidy campaign, Clean for the Queen, has caused an awful lot of hoo-haa this week. Frankly, the use of the word Queen is not to ennoble the filthy job of litter-clearing but just to give it a jaunty catchiness. It's not about her at all. Let's face it she has a totally sanitised view of life anyway, with people painting the corridors she walks down, ten minutes ahead of arrival. She must think the world smells of Dulux. She's certainly never going to trip over a beer bottle or a MacDonald's carton. She probably thinks that Clean for the Queen is yet another bloody useless present.
However, it's brought out the joy-dodgers in spates. This is patronising. How? That Her Majesty expects her commoners to pick up their trail of trash? Tosh.
This is outrageous. Why? Because Tory cuts have meant that street-cleaning has been reduced, so it is part of a fiendish plot to get the job done for free.
What utter tripe.
Here we have a dedicated weekend, and just a weekend, where people are invited to do their bit to clean up their own local corner of Britain. Their own personal Grotspot.
What is outrageous is how we allow litter to accumulate; we just step over it or turn a blind eye until it pokes us in the eye. We do not train our children properly from a young age. This was obvious to me when I worked in a secondary school which employed men to collect the litter dropped by the students after every break time. A dereliction of duty on the school's part? Or health and safety taken to ridiculous lengths? Both.
I hope that the activity this weekend gets things in motion long-term, and that it starts a discussion that expresses itself in positive action in the future.
If we really take the issue of litter seriously then maybe like the writer David Sedaris we too can have a garbage truck named after us. He and his partner Hugh have become Litter Warriors in West Sussex. If you don't know his work, you have a treat in store.
By way of an introduction go to www.newyorker.com/contributors/ david-sedaris and read A Modest proposal.
Even if you don't pick up any litter at all this week end, read this and see what joy you could be missing.
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