Nostalgia's so not what it was.
Where have all the tangerines gone? Shops used to be full of them. Now all you seem to be able to buy are those satsuma things that look like baggy oranges in need of botox. And they taste of nothing much. Tangerines tasted like concentrated essence of orange velvet dipped in sunshine. I always had one at the bottom of my Christmas stocking. Along with a half crown. Which reminds me - whatever happened to half crowns ... no, not going there, that way madness lies.
They say that in this life you are either a: 'glass half-full' or a 'glass half-empty' type of person, but increasingly I'm turning into a: 'this is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was much bigger and it had a pink cocktail umbrella and a small plastic shark' type of person as I sit in the writing garret contemplating the demise of western civilization.
Before that happens, followers of the Village Green campaign might like to know that I have now sent off the final submission. Piecing together the story of Westfield Common (as it was) has been like researching the plot of a detective novel. Sudden illuminating shafts of light, and a lot of hard slog. In the end, like all good detective plots, it all boils down to one tiny unnoticed clue: in this case, a comma in the 1925 Law of Property Act. 'The comma that did not bark in the night'. Actually, I think the whole past two years would make a fascinating TV series in a small scale ''Miss Marple meets Borgen'' sort of way. They could even dub it into Danish - a language that always sounds to my ear remarkably like English minus the vowels. Not sure who'd play me. Helen Mirren comes to mind...
Meanwhile, while we are waiting for the Inspector to deliver his final verdict, we have put in a Freedom of Information request to find out exactly how much tax-payers' money has been shelled out by our elected officials to pay for Chummy to fight their own electorate. FOI's really annoy councils. Legally, they have to respond within a set period, whatever else is going on. We have put in a lot of FOI's over the years. The trick is to get five or six people to put in different FOI's at exactly the same time. That way the council officers who deal with them are so busy rushing around digging stuff out of files they don't have time to work out how to deny giving you everything you've asked for.
Mind you, even allowing for the fact that you never get back 100% of what you request, we've still discovered some very interesting stuff, because although the council redacts copiously, they don't know what exactly we're trying to find out, so there's always something they leave un-redacted that reveals stuff they don't know we want to know. Am I going to write a novel about this? Possibly.
It has certainly been shocking to discover the extent of cronyism, corruption and collusion that has been taking place behind the scenes here. And that's just at local level. Magnify it up to what probably goes on behind the scenes at national level and I am tempted to say we are all going to Hell in a handcart, except that I don't think handcarts exist any more. I certainly haven't seen one for ages. Gone the same way as tangerines and half crowns, I guess.
Next Week the PINK SOFA is dusted down and with a couple of lovely new sale cushions, welcomes its first guest of the year.
They say that in this life you are either a: 'glass half-full' or a 'glass half-empty' type of person, but increasingly I'm turning into a: 'this is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was much bigger and it had a pink cocktail umbrella and a small plastic shark' type of person as I sit in the writing garret contemplating the demise of western civilization.
Before that happens, followers of the Village Green campaign might like to know that I have now sent off the final submission. Piecing together the story of Westfield Common (as it was) has been like researching the plot of a detective novel. Sudden illuminating shafts of light, and a lot of hard slog. In the end, like all good detective plots, it all boils down to one tiny unnoticed clue: in this case, a comma in the 1925 Law of Property Act. 'The comma that did not bark in the night'. Actually, I think the whole past two years would make a fascinating TV series in a small scale ''Miss Marple meets Borgen'' sort of way. They could even dub it into Danish - a language that always sounds to my ear remarkably like English minus the vowels. Not sure who'd play me. Helen Mirren comes to mind...
Meanwhile, while we are waiting for the Inspector to deliver his final verdict, we have put in a Freedom of Information request to find out exactly how much tax-payers' money has been shelled out by our elected officials to pay for Chummy to fight their own electorate. FOI's really annoy councils. Legally, they have to respond within a set period, whatever else is going on. We have put in a lot of FOI's over the years. The trick is to get five or six people to put in different FOI's at exactly the same time. That way the council officers who deal with them are so busy rushing around digging stuff out of files they don't have time to work out how to deny giving you everything you've asked for.
Mind you, even allowing for the fact that you never get back 100% of what you request, we've still discovered some very interesting stuff, because although the council redacts copiously, they don't know what exactly we're trying to find out, so there's always something they leave un-redacted that reveals stuff they don't know we want to know. Am I going to write a novel about this? Possibly.
It has certainly been shocking to discover the extent of cronyism, corruption and collusion that has been taking place behind the scenes here. And that's just at local level. Magnify it up to what probably goes on behind the scenes at national level and I am tempted to say we are all going to Hell in a handcart, except that I don't think handcarts exist any more. I certainly haven't seen one for ages. Gone the same way as tangerines and half crowns, I guess.
Next Week the PINK SOFA is dusted down and with a couple of lovely new sale cushions, welcomes its first guest of the year.
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