Real life
Melissa Kite
The travellers were blamed for fly-tipping
when all that was left on the common after
they went back up north were some neat piles
of mulched bark and branches.
Of course, they should not have left any-
thing, ideally. But I’m not convinced they
didn’t cut back the overgrowth to get their
caravans parked, improving a meadow which
was hideously unkempt after years of neglect
by the local authorities.
All travellers are not the same, any more
than all ‘insert racial group’ are all the same.
You wouldn’t get away with labelling any
other community as all bad, therefore when
travelling people behave well it should be cel-
ebrated. Instead, the authorities did their best
to paint them as antisocial. The notice cancel-
ling the fête was left up for weeks. It is still
there as I write. Yes, yes, we get the message.
Smaller laminated signs went up every-
where telling residents that a clear-up oper-
ation was under way because ‘this area has
suffered a large amount of litter and fly tip-
ping’. Suffered. You get the feel. ‘We are
working to resolve the situation.’ We. The
good people. You get that, right?
What’s more, residents were advised to
‘keep to footpaths and keep dogs on leads’.
Think about why that might be, eh?
The day after they left, the builder boy-
friend and I ignored the hysterical cordon of
plastic tape — ‘I declare this path open!’ he
cried — and walked round the meadow and
woods, finding not a scrap of litter, just half
a dozen piles of chipped bark and branches.
I’m fairly sure lefties would consider these a
good wildlife habitat. Lord knows, the council
like encouraging ragwort for moths to live in.
The only plastic we saw were the myriad signs
taped to trees warning people about rubbish.
Not three miles up the road, in the neigh-
bouring village where I keep my horses, lay
two fly-tipped piles of building rubble in the
lane. They have been there for up to a year
now. They are outside the home of someone
who appears to regard himself as an upstand-
ing member of the community. However, dur-
ing a lengthy renovation, his rubble has been
tipped into the street for so many months the
locals have lost track.
One pile is right outside his house. Fur-
ther along, a hedgerow has been fly-tipped
with a pile of old drains. This piece of land
has nothing to do with him as it has a high-
ways chevron on it warning people about the
bend. As cars, cyclists and horses come down
a hill, traffic comes round this bend. Two wid-
enings of the road or pulling-in places have
been obscured with rubble and building firm
advertising signs, just where every inch of the
carriageway is most needed.
When he finished his paving some weeks
ago, the rubble didn’t go. So I began ringing
it in to the borough council, the highways
department of the county council and the
police, all of whom said that they visited and
told him to move it. But it didn’t move.
I emailed and phoned. I sent videos of lor-
ries and vans nearly meeting head on as they
swerved round the obstructions. A borough
council spokesperson said: ‘An environmen-
tal enforcement officer visited the property,
but was unable to speak to the owner. They
assessed the material and considered it to be
related to building work in progress, rather
than fly-tipping waste, so no further action
was taken.’
I tried the highways department again
and the next morning they attended again.
I asked for an update and they told me this:
‘The debris has been removed and today the
signs have joined the pile. We are in discus-
sions with the contractor in regards to getting
the debris removed.’
In other words, the highways people did
not tell the owner to put the debris on his
huge driveway until it is taken away, they told
him to chuck it in the hedgerow in the lane
outside with the broken drains.
I am beyond reasoning with them. Has
any one of us ever known a council to let us
chuck our rubbish on to a public verge, even
if we tell them the contractor left it? Has this
man superhuman powers of persuasion?
Or has the law changed without the rest of
us noticing?
Instead of householders being banned
from tipping one ounce of rubble into
the street, is it now the case that any of us
doing renovations, even those lasting a year,
can, instead of hiring skips and disposal
firms, tip the by-products into the nearest
public layby?
I asked this of the highways department,
the borough council and the police, to no avail.
I also rang the contractor to ask how he had
managed to dump rubbish in the street for so
long. ‘Oh yeah, we’re moving that Monday,’
he said, sounding wonderfully breezy.N
W E
SBridge^
Susanna Gross
‘Table presence’ is a funny old expression.
It sounds as though it refers to a player’s
magnetic appeal or domineering personal-
ity. But no, it’s more like an extraordinary
presence of mind. And it’s about the high-
est compliment you can pay someone. The
Official Encyclopaedia of Bridge has made
a valiant attempt to define the term, stating
it denotes: ‘instinct’, ‘the drawing of correct
inferences from any departure of rhythm
by the opponents’, ‘the ability to coax maxi-
mum performance from partner’, a ‘poised
demeanour that does not give clues’, ‘disci-
pline in the bidding’ and ‘the ability to make
the opponents feel they are facing a player
of a higher order’. Bring it on!
Some legendary players have been famed
for their table presence. One such was the
late great John Collings. Here he is in action:West North East South
2NT
Pass 6NT All Passz A Q 5
y K Q 8 4
X K J 2
w A J 4z 6 4 3 2
y 5 3 2
X 8 3
w 10 8 7 5z K 8 7
y A 7 6
X Q 7 6 5
w K Q 3
z J 10 9
y J 10 9
X A 10 9 4
w 9 6 2Dealer South NS vulnerableWest led the zJ. Collings won in dummy
and played a diamond to the XK and West’s
XA. West continued spades. Collings won,
then cashed his third spade, three clubs, and
the yK and yA. On these, West played the
y9 and yJ. Next Collings cashed the XJ and
XQ, East discarding the 13th spade.
Collings was now in dummy, with X 7 y 7
opposite yQ8. He had a choice of going with
the ‘principle of restricted choice’, which
indicated finessing, or playing for hearts to
be 3-3. He confidently played a heart to the
yQ, and the slam rolled home. Why did he
not finesse? Because, he explained, West
had paused slightly before his opening lead.
If he had held zJ109 and yJ9 he would have
led the zJ like a shot; the reason he hesi-
tated must be that he held J109 in two suits!