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Welcome, then, to a brief change of scenery and a guest appearance from Brother Hamster, who has bravely seized the nettle and exercised his right to rant. The offer remains open to any of the others of you: have your say in a guest column. It’s good for you.  And now, over to Brother Hamster…

YEARS ago, there used to be a council man dedicated to trimming the hedges. Then the councils moved on from hand paring to machines to get rid of a few men and save some money. Then the machine and the man went and now it’s down to the landowner , whether it be a farmer or somebody with a length of hedge alongside the road or lane.

Once upon a time a machine would come along, with little sweeper brushes, and scoop up all the leaves and twigs and the rest of it and when the rain came it would be able to wash into the drain. Now that machine isn’t coming, so everything washes into the drains, which are then blocked, so the water has loads of time to go where it wants, rip up the road and deepen the potholes.

Now the potholes are absolutely everywhere and little is done about them, apart from patching. As my old gran would say, patches are fine, but patches on patches is niggardly. Patches on patches fix nothing.

But when times were good, everybody was encouraged to spend up to the budget or face losing the same amount of money next year; therefore nothing was saved for a rainy day and now the rainy day has come, metaphorically and literally, nobody has any savings.

The councils have run out of money – the lights have got to be switched off at night, the potholes are not being fixed, the drains are not being cleared. (They’re closing loos, too, but how do they cost so much money to keep open? Why can’t the council roadman passing by just stop and swill the hosepipe around like they do in France? Why do they have to outsource everything? It seems to cost so much more).

What puzzles me is where all the money has gone. Don’t motorists pay enough? Speed cameras and traffic offences raked in £3 million for one camera in London alone, it was reported last week. How many cameras are there? None down here, but nationally, heaps, making more money that should go to improving roads, not be redirected somewhere else.

If the motorist is being taxed left, right and centre, infrastructure is where it should go. Good infrastructure is supposed to lead to a good economy.

When I was 20 we had a Spanish exchange student and in our broken communication he would point to the road tax disc and make a gesture for smooth roads. In Spain, there’s no road tax disc and the roads are up and down. But of course now the road tax doesn’t pay for the roads. There are 40 million vehicles – cars, trucks, buses – and lorries pay a hell of a lot more road tax, but at even just, say, £180 per car per year that’s £7.2bn and that’s an awful lot of money. But it goes to central government and not to local government responsible for fixing your roads.

And finally, if you ring up the council and tell them where the potholes are it covers you if you damage your car – allegedly. I rung them up and told them: “There’s potholes and they’re everywhere.” That’s me covered.

Now, here’s a couple of pictures that sum it all up:

 

That’s an awful lotto

Camelot’s directors awarded themselves some big pay rises and bonuses and, because less people are playing the lottery, decided it’s a good idea to put the tickets up to £2 – all for good causes, namely the bosses’ back pockets.

How are the outgoings so vast to have doubled the price? They’re just printing the same old tickets – and they’re still turning a profit. Perhaps the Camelot directors know they’re on the way out and Mr Branson’s waiting eagerly in the wings to get his hands on it.

Talking Dirty

Here’s Hamster’s Top Tip: everybody should get to the theatre at least once a year. The last time I went was last year to watch Goodbye Mr Tom and I thoroughly enjoyed that; to mark 19 years since I met Ms Hamster we went a fortnight ago to watch Dirty Dancing. A cast of 21, a seven-piece band and singers actually singing, brilliantly. To see the musicians enjoying it as much as we were was wonderful. Brother Bertie has read Patrick Swayze’s autobiography and apparently Swayze didn’t want to say: “Nobody puts baby in the corner.” And yet it’s the most famous line in the film. It’s funny how things you don’t want to do are the things you’re remembered for the most.