More Rubbish

Another attempt to tackle the "what does one do with all the domestic shit" question. Found a little card given me by the council telling me how to separate it all out. Doesn't help much, as doesn't say what you do with kitchen waste, which is the most worrying one as it a) smells to heaven and b) attracts rats, and my views on being overrun by those characters are close to Winston Smith's. Also I discover that bottles and jars have to be washed before you dump them, and that, for instance, aluminium foil must be cleaned. Now, my experience is that, when you wrap a roast up in aluminium foil, the foil a) gets cut to bits when you're carving, and b) sticks to the roasting tray, covered in gunk, and is only prised away with great difficulty. The prospect of cleaning it is a bit on the remote side. How the fuck can they seriously expect you to clean aluminium foil before throwing it away? Only in an environment where no-one dares oppose anybody who sounds "green", however much of a tosser they may be.

Won't be here on Friday when the bin-men come next, and they'll kill me if I put the bins out before Thursday evening, when I won't be here either. So nothing for it but to put it all in the car and then ho! for the dump, or recycling centre as it is of course called. That took a good half hour, as private cars are only allowed into the "household waste" bit, and the relevant bins for half the stuff can only be found in the bit you need a permit to drive into. Bugger all this. I'm thinking of taking up fly-tipping as a hobby, as well as smoking.

My friend The Exile (check link) suggests that the smoking ban is not enforced by the Plod, but only by council enforcers, and that therefore if one worked at electing councillors who refused to employ such enforcers one could render it optional and subject to local democracy, which it ought to be. He is right in principle. Trouble is, in the present climate finding people to stand on a clear platform of defying a PC Act of Parliament is simply unrealistic. If it were possible for public figures to stand up that openly against the political and media establishment and still get elected, we'd never have lost the miners' war of 1984-85.

In WH Smug's yesterday I saw a computer magazine featuring on its front cover an article on solving problems with one's Windows system, under the headline "CRUSH PC GREMLINS!" Oh how I wish we could....