Dumped on

The annual litter-pick in our village.  And the annual musing of why some people think it's OK to use verges as linear refuse tips.

What exactly goes through someone's mind when they hurl rubbish into the countryside?  Maybe that's a stupid question, as surely if they were thinking at all  they wouldn't do it.   Or maybe I'm naive...

We collected several bags' full of rubbish on just a small stretch of road out of the village.  

Some of the things we recovered:-

    Two bottles of banana-flavoured milk, but unopened.  

    A pair of pants (black, size large).

    A single shoe, almost new.

We also picked up over two dozen empty Gordon's gin and tonic mixer cans, all crushed in the same way and thrown randomly on a long stretch of verge.

Clearly someone has been regularly using the road while necking the contents and then tossing the can out of the window. 

Let's hope it was a passenger and not the driver.

Call it what it is

BBC Radio 4 news at noon, and a report on the death of two men after a police chase.

It was said that the Audi was driven away from police at speed; jumped a red light; hit a van and then smashed into a bridge.

The reporter described it as an "accident".

I have lost count of the times that totally preventable fatalities on the road are described on the news as accidents.  

This description never seems to be applied to planes and trains, as they have crashes.  

I'm not holding my breath, but it would be great if reporters would start describing these incidents for what they are - preventable crashes -  and not dilute drivers' responsibilities on the road by euphemism.    

Road kill

It was a heart-stopping moment when the barn owl appeared. 

I was driving early morning across the moors when it rose from the field and swooped along the hedgerow fringing the road.   Quite a rare sight, even in Somerset, and one that brought me an inexplicable surge of pleasure.

It’s been an unusually harsh winter, but the owl and, hopefully, its mate had survived.

Two hours later, I drove back and saw a mass of whitish-brown feathers flattened on the road.

The bird had coped with snow, below-zero temperatures and weeks of cold winds.  But not a speeding car.          

No soaps, just opera

About twice a year, we treat ourselves to the opera, and find ourselves in the comforting company of other middle-aged (I'm being generous) people.  Sometimes, there might be a few under 40s in the  audience, but always heavily outnumbered by the grey and balding.

So it was a bit of a surprise to reach the auditorium of the glorious Marinsky Theatre in St Petersburg (my 60th birthday treat) and find ourselves surrounded by younger people. 

It had nothing to do with it being a modern opera, as it was tried-and-tested Verdi -  Un Ballo in Maschera.   Enjoying the experience were a large number of well-dressed young Russian men and women, out for an evening of cultural indulgence.

The couple front of us, who looked to be in their early 20s, seemed to have great difficulty keeping their hands off each other. But even they disengaged and gave rapt attention once the curtain went up.

Clearly, operas in St Petersburg attract a much younger crowd that in the UK.  But why?  Are Russian young people more culturally sophisticated? (There’s a value-judgment.)  Or is there a deep seated fear of doing things differently from previous generations (I’m thinking of the appalling treatment of  Pussy Riot)? 

Whatever it is, the future of classical music seems a bit healthier than the UK.