The most
common conversation in the country? It’s probably about the weather. However
this month in Cornwall, the conversation hasn’t consisted of sunny skies and
horizontal rain; but of garbage, recycling, and dog shit.
At the
start of this month, a new contractor
was employed by Cornwall Council to be responsible for collecting refuse and
recycling and the like from every household in the county. Ordinary people
expected no change in their service, only for poorly paid people who might as
well live on the fringes of nowhere to come around before they got up and wiped
down their range rover to come around and pick up all their unwanted shit as
quickly and quietly as possible.
However what
they failed to understand was that the old contractor wasn’t going to go
quietly, and had failed to pass over all the
relevant information to the new company in order for them to put in place a
seamless service. This has made many residents angry. Their demands and
outbursts have at times been frightening . “I demand for my waste to be collected
or else”; “The animals have ripped about my waste which hasn’t been collected
for weeks and this may spread disease to the local children”; “I have so much
recycling I can’t leave the house”; “ I hallucinated earlier because I thought
my collection had been made”; “Why am I
paying my council tax, I demand a refund” and so on.
This has
left many residents such as me perplexed. They can’t get away from the most boring
painful conversation currently doing the rounds. A quick nip to the shop to buy
some milk and eggs has turned into a one way shitstorm of tedious bullshit coming
from any bellend with half a brain cell to work a TV remote or 2 or 3 to read
the local rag. I sometimes struggle to understand just how much this kind of
complaining bastards love when things don’t go right. It’s like they have a set
mode button on their back that displays a smug look on their faces whilst
yelping as loud as possible so any poor bugger can hear; “I told you so”.
Despite
the pain in the arse that this has caused (that’s all it really is), it seems
that their concerns could be answered in a few short sentences so they could go
on to complain about something less boring
such as next-door knob head and his shiny new fucking surf rack.
Stop buying so much shit!
Seriously
I thought people were skint, keep your money in your pocket and your bastard children
quiet for a week and see how your empty bin soon resembles your empty life.
Don’t pay your council tax!
Don’t
pay it. See what happens. I’m sure if enough people cobbled together and said “no
I’m not paying it this month, they can fuck off”; we’d see what would happen. I’m sure there isn’t
enough time in the world to send enough red letters. That’s another thing, why
do they keep sending in letters if you don’t pay usually coded by colour?
Yellow, yeah it’s alright loads of time. Blue-better pay it soon, red-oh no I can
see the bailiffs in balaclavas outside, SHIT! If enough people relented and
didn’t pay, the council wouldn’t have the capacity to sort t out, they can’t
even collect a few bins on time for Christ sake.
Why are you recycling?
Not to
steal from Doug Stanhope, but I wonder why people in Cornwall get so arsey
about their recycling being collected. This place must be the biggest crèche on
fucking earth. Every corner there’s kids playing, kids in stomachs, and down every
little dirty corner, and two ugly people making ‘em. Completely pointless. Doesn’t
matter how many tins you put in the red bag, if you’ve got em coming out like a
machine gun in a Vietnam film, it really won’t make much difference.
The
local press have had a field day with the issues that have been part of daily
life this month here in Cornwall. I understand their logic, as I have found
there is enough idiots here just like the rest of the country to suck it up. Give
idiots an inch, and they’ll take you a country mile, talking at you all the way
along.
