Sunday 2 April 2017

Not in my backyard


I thought of a great April Fools Day joke this morning which I could have played on H.I., but I have left it 24 hours too late and it wouldn't work next year.

What I should have done is buy a packet of caffeine-free coffee and hide all the real stuff we have in store, then wait for H.I. to come down to the kitchen that morning. I would then pronounce that I have thrown away all the coffee and we are now going to drink the caffeine-free to go along with the vapes we are using in place of real tobacco.

She would have gone absolutely ape-shit! I told her daughter my too-late idea by text this morning, and the image of her mother's reaction made her laugh - a lot.

Remember that I recently commented on the self-destructively beautiful village of Bibury in the Cotswolds? About how it must be hell to live in a village so beautiful that even on a Winter's day it fills up with coach-loads of tourists who wander around looking through the windows as if you and your family are waxworks in a museum?

Well Bibury hit the national news yesterday. It turns out that an elderly man who lives there owns an ugly, bright yellow car which he parks on the road where he lives, and has received both official and unofficial complaints demanding that he either buys a better-looking vehicle which would be in keeping with the unspeakably stunning surroundings in which he parks it, or remove it altogether. Some nasty individual even scratched 'REMOVE' into the paintwork.

His travails with his unreasonable and hostile neighbours made the news again and yesterday hundreds of yellow cars came from all over the country and poured into Bibury to show support - see photo above.

About 40 years ago, a woman living in the World Heritage, Grade 1 listed showpiece of The Royal Crescent here in Bath decided to paint the front door of her house in a similar canary yellow, and she was issued with a demand by the council to paint it white, like the rest of the Crescent. She refused so they took her to court. She won. To celebrate, she put up bright yellow blinds in all the windows too and left them closed for years, just to make a point and spoil all those tourist's photographs.

There are aspects of the true English spirit which I deeply admire and am deeply proud of. Some people really do believe in freedom of the indidual and will defend our right to show as much bad taste as we wish.


These are the addresses I have reported so far. Bear in mind that each one comes with about 100 unwanted posts...

33 comments:

  1. Aha; you're back. Did you solve your problem, or are you just living with it?

    I'm afraid my yesterday's Facebook joke was very poor; in fact so poor that I won't even mention that I made one.

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    1. I am living with it, which is why I do not understand what you are on about with your Facebook comment stuff. I get arounf 200 posts from spammers in my reading list at the momentt, and the adrresses change whenever Google tries to stop them. Jesus fucking Christ. I need a bit of a break.

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  2. I remember once, back in the 1960's that we convinced a guy that we were high on some tablets we'd been taking (we hadn't) and he demanded some to get in on the act. So we gave him a couple and before long he was dreamily wandering about doing all the "peace man" stuff - the tablets were only Bob Martins dog tablets.

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  3. It did make me smile to see all those yellow cars, it is truly lovely when people do something like that, very heartwarming...and two fingers up to the snobs that wanted the old guy out.

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  4. I'll have to write a blog post about a recently deceased character in our community. She was an ancient old lady named Ruby that had been a "madam" way, way back in the day. She had boatloads of money and owned a ton of property right in the middle of our busy downtown area. The older she got, the more eccentric she got, and she had goats, chickens, and rabbits wondering around a massive collector antique cars, farm equipment, sprawling grapvines, and all manner of crazy junk at a busy intersection. The city tries for YEARS to get her to sell, or clean up the area, but she refused. She didn't give two shits what anybody thought about her lifestyle. It was a hoot to be stopped in traffic and to have a goat and a rooster strutting down the sidewalk beside your car! And her past as a whorehouse madam was legendary. She lived to be 90 something. Sadly, her children sold all the property to the city for development as soon as she died. No more lunatic fun house block downtown these days. Sigh.

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    1. There is always at least one in any 100 square mile area like that, but they are not always as entertaining as your one, sadly.

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  5. I remember reading about the man with the yellow car a couple of years ago ..... how brilliant that they had a flotilla of yellow cars for him .... how pathetic that the other villagers complained about his car. Some of these villages are so up themselves. I'm all for conservation but it can go too far.
    Glad you & your blog weren't away for too long
    Tom. XXXX

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    1. I was just trying to see if a temporary diconnection would throw them off. Sadly not. I get around 300 a day right now.

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    1. If it is I'll have to post pictures of the rum fueled backyard get together with my friend that's about to happen. It's beautiful out today. :)

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    2. My post early this morning also had back yard in the title.

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    3. I cannot find most people's posts under the pile of shite at the moment, as I thought you knew.

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    4. Sorry, it was only an observation. I had no idea that was the only way you have to access other people's blogs.

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    5. I cannot be arsed with manually typing every fucker in before I can read their latest offering, and I am amazed that you can and do. I have found out that my affliction is - in fact - based on advertising, so I don't give it too long before my afflictor goes away.

      Having said that, I still get calls from desperate Indians who think I am old enough to believe that they work for my ISP and have a problem with my computer...

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    6. I don't. There are many ways of accessing blogs one follows regularly with one click.

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    7. Well give us the benefit of your wisdom by sharing it, why don't you?

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  7. Replies
    1. Thanks Yael - I was only gone for a few hours!

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  8. April Fools is my birthday and upon it I drank much caffeine to hep counteract the very late night I had from doing a late gig and partying afterwards, then having to teach all day, then having another gig that night, and if my dearly beloved withheld my caffeine, I would have gone Librarian Poo as well!!

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    1. You must describe Librarian Poo for me. Photos appreciated.

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  9. I was thinking of reporting you missing, but now you are back!!! Are those the spammers????
    About that yellow car, we had an incident with an elderly man, artist of some kind, that painted his house in a forbidden yellow shade, it was on national news and the case of the forbidden yellow house was on the table of the local political board....several times. I am glad if the Brexit will hold a good sense of british spirit, I loved that car parade!!!!! Victory!!!

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    1. Reporting me as inappropriate would be more accurate.

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    2. Well, perhaps after that JFC comment above...still, I do like to have a wide and colourful bunch of people around!

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  10. Good for him & good for the elderly lady & her bright, yellow door.

    I like the idea of a swarm of yellow cars descending upon the town. Ha.

    Maybe the well-heeled on the curvy bit of Lombard St. in SF should follow suit and paint their doors bright yellow in protest of the throngs of tourists milling about their houses? -wouldn't probably work. Folk would just love to photograph the doors because they were yellow.

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    1. I don't know of that area, but it may just encourage the tourists!

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  11. After being a negligent blog visitor for a while, it's a pleasure to start making my catch up visits and find that your blog is as witty as ever.

    Best wishes.

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  12. When I saw the yellow car report I thought it a April 1st report but it would appear that it might well have been 'true'. I bet they would not have been so sniffy if the car were a Lamborghini.

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    1. Do you know, I never thought that it might be a spoof... Maybe I am an idiot after all?

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    2. I checked. It's not a fake news story.

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