CCTV Fever / March 31 2008
‘Have you seen all the bloody cameras springing up all over the village?’ I was asked this morning. ‘Big Brother is watching you,’ he said.
It was Reg, the fellow who is always telling me old jokes – jokes not heard since the days of valve radio. He wasn’t joking this morning, though; he seemed genuinely [...]
Unexpected Polish Inquisition / February 20 2008
It is no wonder I sometimes feel paranoid.
Walking past the market place at about 8am this morning, I heard a gruff male voice call out, ‘Hey, Steve! You dog bloody bugger!’
It was one of the small congregation of Polish immigrants who assemble every day outside the cake shop awaiting the minibus that ferries them to [...]
A Village Defined / September 19 2007
Following on from yesterday’s post, I have been thinking a lot about where Audrey and I live and work.
I quite liked this unassuming, little, ex-mining village when we first moved here. It made a change from the tourist hustle and bustle of Newark where we used to live. It made me very sad when I [...]
Stars and Garters / April 16 2007
The young migrant workers who have been living in the house opposite are to leave next week, and I for one will be sorry to see them go.
They have been excellent neighbours, very quiet and courteous. I believe they are moving eastwards, to Lincolnshire, to toil in the fens and fields in their new capacity [...]
Gangmaster Flash / March 21 2007
The new people who have moved into Bernard’s old flat across the road from Audrey and me are from Belarus; six young workers in a one-bedroom apartment with hardly any furniture (there is no room for any!) and no curtains, in a village in Derbyshire.
I was talking to one of them, a bluff and amenable [...]
Neighbours / March 13 2007
This morning, Audrey and I are spying, through our net curtains, on the new tenants who are moving into Bernard’s old flat. (Bernard was the idiosyncratic old man who we used to occasionally meet in the street and who died recently - unexpectedly and completely alone.)
Unfortunately, they have a boom-box playing loudly in the uncarpeted [...]
