A Bad Day For Britain

We just returned from town after what should have been a relaxing walk in the warm sunshine.

However, as we entered the pedestrian area of the Bishopric, we ended up behind a group of young people, probably in their early teens.  The girls were wearing leggings and shirts and nothing else.  (One of them was also wearing leopard print panties on beneath her leggings, not that this has anything to do with what happened, but since she went through the trouble to show them off to the world I thought I would help her out.)

What this young lady did was unwrap a lollypop and blithely drop the paper on the pavement.  My wife picked it up and deposited it in a nearby receptacle with the appropriate tisk-tisking and we continued on.  Shortly after, one of the young boys did the same thing.  This time, my wife picked up the paper and gave it back to him (they were young enough that, if they pulled knives, we might have been able to hold our own—we would never have been so foolish with someone 16 or 17).  She asked him to put it in the bin as littering was giving them a bad reputation.  No shouting, no chastising, just cause, effect and a request to do the right thing.

This is the area they were walking in, so they
were not the only one's being assholes.

So we all set off, with them looking back every few seconds to see if we were following.  We were.  So the boy went out of his way to walk past two bins where he made a point of not putting the trash in them, then veered into a gaming shop where, no doubt, he dropped it on the floor.

The little bastard.

I have written about this before, but it is one of the saddest things about living among the British: they live in an astoundingly beautiful country, yet the treat it as their own, personal rubbish pit.  The cities in America and, especially, Canada, are not filled with litter the way they are here.  Don’t the British have any sense of pride in their country?  And if they do, why don’t they teach it to their kids?

Typical condition of the Bishopric

It really annoys me, almost as much as what happened to my friend, NFAH, who was sent out of her own meeting to make photocopies for some guy just because she was the only woman in the room.  Now, I’m not saying this wouldn’t happen in America—sadly, it would—but at least there you are not required to address the offending dipstick as “Sir” just because he was knighted.

So I am afraid that, on this glorious “first day of spring”/”last day of winter” (depending on your calendar), I am not feeling particularly charitable toward my adopted country.

Please, please, please people, this is a lovely place, and there are plenty of appropriate places for your garbage, and cluttering up my view is not one of them.

And teach your kids some better manners.