GIVE ME LAND, LOTS OF LAND, UNDER STARRY SKIES ABOVE - DON'T FENCE ME IN...

Where I live, I used to be able to stand at the top of the hill along a bit from my house and see for miles.  The view remained practically unchanged from when I first moved here (1972) until around 1993/'94, when some two-storey amenity housing was built on a nearby bit of 'spare' ground.  Then, around a  year or so back, some flats (and houses) were built behind them on the site where a single-storey school for handicapped kids once stood, which was demolished a couple or so years back.  This has resulted in the almost complete obscuration of the distant horizon that for many years had once been so familiar to me from the days of my youth.  The same thing happened just recently in the street where I'd lived from 1965 to '72; what was once an expansive view has disappeared behind a sea of new roofs on houses that were erected around two or three years ago.  (The photo above is how the street looked in 1988, the bottom photo is how it looks nowadays.) 

Now, I know that people need to live somewhere, but this narrowing of horizons due to constant building affects everybody.  For example, there are now more kids living in those new houses, but as the houses are built on former playing fields, there are fewer places for that greater number of kids to play, which is hardly an ideal situation.  What were once bright, open and spacious areas where one could see distant hills and skies above and beyond them are now dark, closed and narrow housing schemes behind which the wider world is hidden from view.  I don't think it's a good thing for people to feel closed in and cut off by their own claustrophobic environs; the sight of fields, forests or clouds in the distance can be an uplifting experience which makes the spirits soar and improves the quality of life for everyone.

With more houses also comes more traffic as every household seems to have at least two cars these days.  Pedestrians can hardly walk on the pavements because of vehicles parked on them, leaving little space to manoeuvre, and none at all to anyone pushing a pram or confined to a wheelchair or mobility scooter.  Round my way, drivers regularly park up on the pavements, despite there being plenty of road room for other cars to pass them without collision.  One neighbour recently parked on the entire pavement in front of steps leading to some houses, meaning that any pensioners with poor eyesight and unsteady of foot could well have had an accident attempting to negotiate the obstacle.  Personally, in older areas which were built when car ownership was less common, I'd have a limit of one car per household - take a bus or taxi if that doesn't work for you and leave the pavements to pedestrians.

I could nip your ear for hours with a long list of why I think the world is shrinking and closing in on us, but I'll spare you that ordeal.  Suffice to say, there are just far too many humans on the planet nowadays and if there's one species that needs culled, it's ours.  In our feckless society, where marriage and commitment are on the decline, people move from one failed relationship to another, having children with multiple partners and putting a severe strain on resources like housing and the NHS.  Far too many parents these days have got several kids by three or four different partners, and all these children are going to need houses when they grow up.  Personally, I'd put something in the water supply to prevent people being able to have kids in the willy-nilly (no pun intended) way they do nowadays.  Then, if you wanted to start a family, you'd have to sit a test to determine your suitability, before being given the antidote to what's in the water.

Okay, maybe I'm stretching things too far, but what would your solution be to crammed housing schemes and the gradual (but quickening) loss of green areas within and without town and cities, which will invariably lead to even more congested and depressing living conditions for future generations?  Do tell.

Click to enlarge.  Can you honestly say it's an improvement?

BABE Of The DAY - RAQUEL WELCH...

Here's ravishing RAQUEL WELCH,

looking ultra-sultry in the skimpiest of bear

skins.  (Sure must've been a small bear.)

PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW...

Here's a strange story for you, one that I suddenly just remembered while looking at the photo in the previous post.  I'll say why in a moment, but the tale I'm thinking of dates back to 1964 or '65, when I was going home for my dinner at noon one day, and saw a 'rag and bone' man parked outside the primary school gates.  No horse and cart like STEPTOE & SON, but a blue or grey van with the back doors swung open to display his wares.  I enquired how long he was going to be there and he replied that he'd be 'on site' for the whole dinner hour.  So I ran home, had my grub, and asked my mother whether she had anything she didn't want that I could give to the rag and bone man.  Usually, all you got was a balloon on a stick, so they were actually not so much rag and bone men as 'con the kids out of stuff that's worth money' men, but my mother gave me one of her old coats to swap for a balloon.

It was a blue coat if I recall rightly, and off I set to school with it, but a funny thing happened on the way to the cruel place of confinement that tortures children with enforced learning that they neither want or need.  (Am I showing a prejudice here?)  I started to feel sorry for the coat, and shame at my cold and callous attitude in being prepared to part with it.  I'd once felt like this before when a toy metal bus I owned suddenly separated in two because of a loose rivet.  I flung the bus on the grass and walked away, but was then overcome with a sudden remorse and rushed back and reclaimed it.  I felt like a parent abandoning a child, and the feeling was too much to bear.  It was the same with this coat - I simply couldn't give away a 'member of the family' to a stranger, so it sat under my desk until 3 o'clock and then I took it back home with me.

So cut to a few years later and another house or two down the line.  I heard a rag and bone man blowing his horn and rushed to ask if my mother had anything she didn't want.  I think it was another coat (maybe even the same one), so I ran out of the house just in time to see the van driving away.  I followed it on foot as best as I could - for quite a length in fact, but it got away from me.  If you look at the photo in the previous post, you'll see a bus stop in the distance, and it was around there or just past it that I gave up the chase.  (Bear in mind that the photo was taken from my bedroom window and you'll realise just how far it was I trekked.)  As I trudged back along the road, I felt a sudden sense of relief, as I realised that, once again, I wouldn't have been able to part with the item of clothing my mother had given me anyway, so I wasn't too downhearted.

Even today, I find it extremely difficult to part with things because it feels almost like I'm rejecting them, and that's not something I want to be responsible for inflicting even on inanimate objects.  Who knows what deep-rooted psychological reasons are responsible for me being this way.  Maybe the time my dad took me for a run in the car miles out of town, gave me money and asked me to go buy a newspaper, and then drove off as I entered the shop - well, maybe that has something to do with it, who knows?  (Pick your jaw up off the floor, you gullible ninnies - I'm only kidding of course.)  Being a collector, I sometimes replace comics with better-condition ones, but it's extremely difficult passing on (or selling) the lesser-condition items to someone else, and I can only do it (and even then reluctantly) if I haven't had it too long.

So readers - do you have any strange peccadilloes that you don't quite understand, but feel yourself in thrall to and are unable to resist?  If you'd care to share, you know where the comments section is.