A Load Of Rubbish

Just over a week ago I had the misfortune of being called out in the early hours of Sunday morning to attend a fire alarm activation at my place of work. I didn’t get away again until 7 am.

Seeing the windy streets of Leamington Spa at this time in the morning as I wended my way home was something of a revelation.

Or rather like something out of Revelations.

I don’t think I have ever seen so much rubbish and stomach lining spread over so much surface area of one town before.

It looked like someone had disemboweled a rubbish cart at 15,000ft and let the contents fall to earth in a 10 mile radius.

It was horrendous. Chip paper. Newspaper. Polystyrene burger cartons. Styrofoam cups. Half chewed chips and chicken nuggets. Shredded lettuce. The ubiquitous McDonalds paper bag. The entire gherkin crop of Bulgaria. All of it knee-deep.

I swear I saw pigeons re-enacting the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.

Worst of all though was the vomit.

We are talking vast, half congealed porridgy oceans of the stuff.

And it was multicoloured.

My worst encounter was under the seat of the bus shelter right outside the Parish Church. It was pink with red bits in it, flecked with the odd strangulated shard of green. Someone had either thrown up a chicken tikka or had crawled home minus their entire stomach and the taste of their lower intestines dissolving on their tongue like a rubbery alka seltzer.

If this is the morning after the night before I’m glad I no longer frequent pubs or go out drinking as a social pastime.

What disgusting selfish creatures we are.

All this waste. All this mess. And it probably happens every Thursday / Friday / Saturday night of every week of every year in most towns across the Western world.

Here are major contributions towards global warming for you. Here are carbon footprints that smell as bad as they look.

As I picked my way home through the detritus the litter pickers and street cleaners were already hard at work picking, sifting, lifting and hoovering up the evidence of a single night’s pleasure seeking.

I felt sorry for them. Sorry that such thankless work is plainly necessary.

Oh I know it gives them a job. A friend of mine once threw litter quite deliberately onto the street and justified it by saying "it gave someone a job and allowed them to earn a living”.

Well, as I said at the time, such a stupid argument could also be used to justify rape, child abuse and murder but I’m sure the police and the support workers and the attendant counsellors would all rather be doing something else if they could ever express a choice about it.

Forget dubious employment opportunities, what this billowing carnage said to me was the majority of our species just don’t have any true thought or respect for their own environment or the people they share it with. That maybe too many of us justify appalling behaviour and antisocial activity under the guise of “just having a laugh” and “just having a drink after a hard week at work”.

That maybe going out and getting yourself absolutely twatted on a Saturday night is not so much an innocent way to let off steam and de-stress but a way of proclaiming to the world that you really just don’t give a toss about anyone or anything that exists outside your own little sphere of beer-goggled selfishness.

What a load of utter garbage.

Our street cleaners are unsung heroes.

We’d all be dead or dying of cholera, typhoid and bubonic plague by now if not for their sterling efforts.

Gentleman and ladies of the broom, I salute you.

Gis A Job, Garn, Gis It...

I’ve finally found the job for me.

A job that I not only want to do but am pretty sure that I could do.

The only fly in the ointment is that the post is already taken. By Oz Clarke and James May.

I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the last two series of their “Big Wine Adventure”. Series one saw them clodhopping their way across Europe, supping wine from every vineyard north of the Equator – and even dipping an inebriated toe into the wines of California. Series two they concentrated more on Great Britain and beer. Plainly more of the budget went on intoxicants than on air miles in series two but you can hardly knock the lads for wanting to reduce their carbon footprint.

They are an oddball pairing but one which seems to work. Oz yearns to educate the palate and mind of all around him while James' sole purpose in life is to pull the rug out from every wine-tasting oik that he encounters. The friction between the two is in the nature of friendly fire and is bizarrely entertaining.

Man banter I believe it’s called. And it works because the mentally adroit Oz Clarke is a secret lad at heart and the charmingly boorish James May is a secret Brainiac. They kind of fulfil both the best and the worst of each other in a boozy bezzy-mate man-on-man type marriage thing – only thankfully without any of the hanky-panky and sweaty-hairy stuff. Phew. I really don’t think their beer guts would allow such shenanigans anyway.

Basically the show is like a lad’s night out compressed into a half hour slot, with the bad language sanitized, the peeing over your own shoes glossed over and the embarrassing chat-up lines deleted... with the extra advantage that our heroes sup the poisonous brews on our behalf and suffer our hangovers by proxy.

Quite frankly it’s the best night out I’ve had in a long while and it didn’t cost me a penny. They even threw in a curry one week and you can’t say fairer than that.

Best of all each week I was home on time and wasn’t sick over the carpet / wife / cat / lava lamp.

But I digress.

Mr Clarke and Mr May were no doubt paid vast sums of licence payer’s money to “live the dream” for a couple of months while a temperate and Methodist film crew doggedly filmed their every move and ne’er touched a drop between them for the duration.

And let’s face it, the crew didn’t need to. May and Clarke must have consumed enough quaffables to completely submerge a south sea archipelago or three.

And I bet the BBC paid for all that booze. And the curry. And the petrol and the caravan they supposedly lived in. I bet May and Clarke didn’t have to dip into their own pockets for anything. Not even to spend a penny.

I mean bloody hell, how the hell do you get a gig like that? What qualifications do you need (aside from being already famous)?

I mean, I can drink beer. I can drink wine. And as for eating curry, well, I can do that with my eyes closed and my mouth open. Easy peasy lemon Brinjal.

And I bet I could sleep in a caravan with either James May or Oz Clarke without compromising my lad-hood to boot. I’m as qualified as the next man.

But I bet I’m a darn sight cheaper.

Come on, BBC. Give me a chance! I’ll even wear a ridiculously flowery shirt if you pay me nicely.