Meldrew is alive and well

Uh oh.

Bert's got a new campaign. He's going to eradicate parking on pavements (I think just in our road, but who knows...?).

He is rubbing his hands together with anticipation and has that evangelical glint that I recognise from the wheelie bin days (I'll come back to wheelie bins another time). He has spoken to a community police officer already and his next step is to tackle the council.

  Me: "For god's sake leave it - life is too short."
  Bert: "Life is never too short." (!)

Bert loves having something to rant about, and I think he's a little bored with other recent topics:

• legislation/rules that are "a license for people to print money" (like 'Part P')


• councils leaving rubbish at beauty spots (specifically dead badgers: 4 phone calls and a letter so far)


• online banking systems who take months to open an account due to their crappy websites


• "w*nky drivers" who run cyclists off the road


• even w*nkier drivers who chase abusive cyclists and threaten to tear their knackers off


• the extortionate cost of birthday cards

In the end I just said "don't do anything that makes it obvious where we live" - he was threatening to walk up and down photographing cars, and to keep a load of bags of rubble on the road to stop them parking on the pavement outside our house.

He is, and always has been, a complete Victor Meldrew. Once a friend (of mine) commented, "If he's like this now, what the hell is he going to be like when he's old and retired?"

He's just said "Don't make me sound like a f*cking Tory."