Little litter lout.


I don’t think you’ve truly witnessed evil until you’ve stood behind someone who takes litter from their pocket, throws it in the floor and then carries on walking as if nothing has happened.

This happened today, when a man in front of me pulled a bag of loose tobacco out of his jacket pocket, realised it was empty and just threw it onto the pavement.

I’m not saying he was Robert Mugabe (maybe he was; I didn’t get in front of him to get a good look at his face) – but I'm struggling to comprehend the arrogance of a person who thinks it's someone else's job to dispose of it properly.

I’m aware that people litter, I’ve just never seen it done so blatantly. There was no hesitation: 'This is just what happens', he thought. 'I throw my detritus on the floor and someone else will sort it out for me.'

Actually, that's giving him too much credit: a man who litters willfully isn’t well-educated enough to be familiar with the word ‘detritus’.

If anything, it takes more effort to be that lazy. Surely he wouldn’t do this in his own house -  but when he's outdoors (in essentially everyone else’s house), he'll discard something on-the-go and not give it another thought.

“Screw it. It’s just planet Earth: we’ve only got one of them - but that’s NOT MY PROBLEM: I’m just too busy.”

I was so stunned that it took me a couple of seconds to act. I picked up the plastic packet THAT PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE BIODEGRADED IN HIS OR MY LIFETIME and shouted behind him: “Don’t worry, I’ll just throw away your rubbish for you.”

He flinched and then carried on walking. If he hadn’t been crossing the road by a busy roundabout I would have confronted him properly.

I don't mind, though; I have a bit of plan on how to tackle this. Hopefully I’ll bump into him on a night out. I’ll befriend him – and ply him with drink after drink. Slowly but surely I’ll gain his trust – until, a few year’s down the line, he invites me back to his house for dinner.

It’ll be when he heads for the kitchen that I’ll strike: I’ll do a massive poo on his front room carpet and leave him to deal with it.

I like to play the long game.


Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane
Read more