Remember the slogan “Keep Britain Tidy”? What a quaint, old-fashioned little catchline that seems now! The actual charity behind it is still going strong, but they need help; a lot of help.
There were calls this week for a new, zero tolerance policy on litter-dropping, much as New York once tackled its own crime epidemic by refusing to permit even the tiniest of misdemeanours to go unpenalised (and it worked… spectacularly).
So we’re back to the timeless debate about crime and punishment. This week Baroness Warsi, former Tory party chairman was pushing for litter-louts to be given penalty points on their driving licences.
I think it’s a brilliant idea. So much litter is thrown out of car windows, or delivered in cars and vans. You can rest assured that the filthy, stained mattress that materialised overnight on our road just after Christmas wasn’t carried there on someone’s back.
Judging by the twisted angle it was lying across the kerb, half on the pavement and half into the road itself, you can be pretty sure it had been tossed out of the back of a speeding van.
Warsi says anyone caught chucking rubbish from their vehicles should get at least three penalty points on their licence, plus a heavy fine. She also wants councils to be given number plate recognition technology so that they can go after offenders.
A recent Keep Britain Tidy survey showed that fewer than 10% of public sites in the UK are now litter-free. Packaging and cigarette-ends were most frequently dropped, followed by sweet wrappers, drinks bottles and cans and fast-food litter.
As far as the latter goes, McDonald’s already prints customers’ number plates onto its food packaging. “So if it’s found on the ground miles from where you bought it, it comes back to you,” Warsi says.
All well and good, but on our road we’re plagued by empty plastic drinks bottles. I just cannot understand the mentality of the people who drop them, whether they’re on foot or they hurl them from a car. Why can’t they take them home and bin them? Well I’ve had enough. I’m with you, Warsi. Zero tolerance.
Fines and points. Let’s get cracking. Enough.
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Would you miss the 1p and 2p coins if they were to be taken out of circulation, as was suggested this week? Donald Trump has said that the American cent will soon be no more. Each coin costs between twice and three times its face value to make, so he’s going to “rip it out” of the US system.
I’m not sure that Britain’s copper coins hold a place in the heart quite like the loose change we lost during decimalisation back in 1971: the old penny, Britannia sitting proudly on the reverse; the old halfpenny, Golden Hind sailing across its face.
Today’s 1p and 2p coins don’t have quite the same style, do they? I’ve just looked at the ones that sit in our kitchen penny jar and they’re an odd lot of designs: shoes, dormice, portcullises, a plume of ostrich feathers, what looks like a bit of the royal shield… it’s all rather random.
I think we’ve just got enough to buy a bag of chips tonight. Seems like a good swap to me.
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There are a few reasons to enjoy BBC1’s new sitcom, Amandaland. One, it’s actually funny. Two – and I would never have even had to think about writing this even a few years ago – YOU CAN HEAR IT! Yes folks, finally a programme shot on location that YOU CAN ACTUALLY HEAR. No need for the subtitles or the volume turned to 11.
All the cast speak distinctly and there’s no all-obscuring music backing track. Three, speaking of the cast, they all act their socks off, including Joanna Lumley as Amanda’s mother. And Amanda herself, actress Lucy Punch. Never has a Bafta for comedy been so richly deserved.