Litter is a First World problem but I live in the First World and I don’t like litter, unless it’s a litter of beagle puppies.
I was quite a good litter-picker until I morphed into a beagle poo-picker. I do pick up litter on the street close to home and the council does a good job picking up the stuff my neighbours ignore. Judging by house prices and cars (BMWs, Teslas, Range Rovers) we live in a relatively affluent part of London. The Thames Path along the towpath from Hammersmith to Richmond is regularly scoured by volunteers with bin liners; a Sisyphean task as the banks often flood at high tide and a fresh crop of detritus is deposited.
Attitudes to litter vary over time and place. I remember my grandfather complaining about a worker on the farm at Barmeath who threw his empty cigarette packets on the ground. Neither of us thought leaving our plastic and brass cartridge shells was as bad or worse. Picking up litter does not slow down climate change, it doesn’t save lives, it doesn’t improve our standard of living but it does make our surroundings more pleasant – not a word I like. A charity agrees with my sentiments.
CleanupUK is a charity that helps people to combat the litter problem where they live. It is an activity that brings communities closer together, enables neighbours to meet each other and creates a greater sense of pride in local areas. (CleanupUK website)
Last week I had lunch in Wiltshire with old friends; the score was five out of seven. Champagne was served in abundance in what I call bosom glasses. They were a feature of my childhood. Some people think the design was inspired by Marie Antionette’s breasts – if so her embonpoint wasn’t colossal and my glass needed replenishing more than once. Lunch ended with another feminine, physical allusion: nanny’s bottom, although you may call it summer pudding. A lunch that scores ten out of ten but only five out of seven of us had been at Durham. One of the two outliers is a champion litter-picker. He works at CleanupUK. I’m persuaded I should pick up more litter and pick my nose less.
Oh joy, Beethoven is Composer of the Week on Radio 3.
I’m intrigued by your reference to summer pudding – my unwavering choice as last mouthful at my last meal (no savoury, therefore, but following the cheese, obvs) – as nanny’s bottom. Many years after I first read it, might this explain the memorable mention by Nicandra, heroine of Molly Keane’s last novel Loving and Giving, of a nursery chair as smelling of nanny’s bottom? I hope so.
Much enjoyed this blog and the previous one on cars. It is quite extraordinary how much litter you see about when you start looking for it.
You do write well. Glad the lunch scored 10 out of 10. I have always adored Loving and Giving, see above, but mercifully managed to miss the allusion to Nanny’s bottom. Flip