Whispering Smith Column for publication in Littlehampton Gazette July 23rd 2015

THE idea of our weekly bin collection becoming to a fortnightly collection was a very disturbing possibility indeed and I am glad that such plans were discarded  and the current system is to be retained.. The bins around my street, especially at the South Terrace end of St. Augustine Road are already out and overflowing only a few days after last week’s’ collection. Add to that the fact that much of the rubbish is left out in plastic bags and you have the picture of a litter strewn street which the council have to clean up anyway. The bags will be torn apart by gulls, foxes, cats and badgers – the latter is maybe unlikely but the poor old brock is blamed for just about everything else so he had just as well take a hit for wildlife everywhere. Arun need to waste less on consultants and spend more on waste!

FOLLOWING my comments about hedgehogs in a recent  column a reader told me that a couple of years back he discovered a group of kids kicking a young boar around in a puddle, he sent them packing only to return later that day and find they had sprayed the poor thing with green paint. He took the half grown critter home, cleaned it up as best he could and gave it a bowl of dogfood. The animal recovered, grew into a healthy green horta and came back at regular intervals throughout the summer only to disappear the following winter, that’s what hedgehogs do. I hope it found another favourable billet and lived a good life. Ok, so maybe it did not, maybe, as the hunting and culling brigade would have us fancifully believe, it got eaten by a badger or a fox when one or the other, seeing its unusual colour decided to make a bit of hedgehog greenery part of its ‘five a day’ but I do hope not.

BRIEFLY: LOCA did a fabulous job with their Festival in The Park to launch Littlehampton’s Arts Festival, a trail I will follow with interest. The idea of registering mobility scooters is an excellent one although troubled I am at living in a society where such items are actually stolen. Carnival seemed smaller than usual, I missed the exotic dancers with their smiling faces and, as my young companion remarked when the talented young cheer leaders passed by, ‘why do they look so grumpy?’ I don’t know, Fin, concentrating hard maybe?.