:: 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: