:: rubbish!

I went on a litter-picking walk today. I do it occasionally - there's a few of us in the town do it, it's thankless but if we didn't the place would be knee-deep in cider empties and sweetie wrappers. So anyway I was down the bank with my litter-picker (kindly donated by Joyce from CleanFerry) scrabbling after supermarket bags when an old bloke with a spaniel stopped to congratulate me.

"You're doing a great job. But the council should be doing it!" He launched into a truly British rant about how he'd phoned up the head of the cleansing department about getting the path cleaned up, and he'd said it wasn't the council's job, but then next thing they'd cleaned the path!

I didn't tell about about Joyce's sterling work getting CleanFerry going, about the hundreds of bulbs she and her team planted along the Ferry Glen path, about the flower tubs she organised all along the High Street ... because he was into another stream about how he'd pestered the council about a load of empty bottles somewhere. And then he said: "I'm not saying you shouldn't do what you're doing, it's great - but I use the phone." And off he went!

OK he was old - but probably younger than the most energetic litter-picker, a chap who not only clambers down the bank after the cider empties but also recycles everything he can. And it's such a British attitude, to stand around yapping about how someone else should clean up the mess. Pommie whingers. It's made me even more motivated to pick up litter.

Gadget latest: Good news! The new FM transmitter arrived from Canada and worked like a dream, right out of the package. Fantastic! I'm now filling in forms to try and get compensation for the old one from the Royal Mail. I emailed them about it on the very day that they were fined £11.4 million for losing so much mail; I don't know how that will affect my claim.

Bertie says hi:

:: gadget update

I mailed my non-functioning FM transmitter back to the dudes in Dundee, waited a week then emailed them to ask if they got it. They say not. So I've written that off (though of course I will keep hassling them for a refund) and ordered another one - from a firm in Canada this time. It's a bit more expensive but has whizzy features like a curly cord. It also has very good reviews and the blurb promises that "no matter what, you will be able to transmit".

I soooo want this to work!

:: schadenfreude

There's this bit of road on the way home that's particularly annoying, especially to the driver who's had a super-stressful night at work and at 1.30am is looking forward to slumping on the sofa with a hot drink and the remote control. It's right on the outskirts of the city, and after you go over the bridge, out of the built-up area, there's an upward sweep and the road becomes a motorway. Here's the catch, though: the speed limit rises from 40mph to 70mph halfway up the slope. So the temptation is for the tired, stressed-out night worker is to accelerate up the slope, giving her underpowered, girly car the momentum to reach the top without having to change down to avoid slowing.

Imagine my chagrin then, when I succumbed to that temptation a couple of years back and saw flashing blue lights in my rear-view mirror. I didn't get a ticket or anything but had to go through various humiliations, including lying on the passenger seat to grapple with the bonnet catch (the cops were men, I guess they just like to look at engines). Since then I've been fairly scrupulous about not going over 50mph before I get to the open limit sign. This means I'm fairly often passed at speed by other cars - which really gets up my nose, especially at 1.30am after a super-stressful night at work. Why aren't they caught? Why just me? They're going much faster than I was when I was caught (52mph for the record - there's some sort of 10%-plus-4 rule of thumb for safe speeding).

Last night I was doing my scrupulous 48-and-a-bit-mph run-up to the hill when a car whizzed past me, a souped-up lad's car with too many headlights, you know the kind. Grrr, I thought. Then another car whizzed past, and would you believe it, it was a police car! "Faster, you idiot, faster! You'll never catch them!" I yelled as I accelarated recklessly over 50mph. "They're getting away!" I screeched as they went past the turnoff at what looked like a snail's pace. Round the bend though, I saw a wonderful sight: blue flashing lights. Yessss! Take that, boy racers, and stick it up your tailpipe! Ha ha ha!!

Yep, it doesn't take much to cheer me up these days: a clump of snowdrops, sunshine on the first blush of blossom, blue lights flashing for someone else.

The Liberal Democrats have just thrashed Labour in the Dunfermline by-election. There's a turn-up for the books. Everyone thought Labour would win by a slim margin - it had a big majority last time. And it's a definite win, majority of 2,000-odd. Wow.

Back to work....