Published: Thursday, 8th May, 2008 09:30
The mystery of how my plastic friend became a 'has bin'
By Maurice O'Brien
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BET it made Gordon mad.
Scores of sweaty backbenchers threatening shedloads of retribution after seeing their tribal heartlands captured by radical insurgents, and his spinheads had us believing he was sitting there trying to decide whether to appease them by scrapping his proposed rubbish tax.
The idea was floated on Sunday but killed off by Monday, when Gordon could forget the bins and return to issues like our security, police manpower, and all those community support officers you only seem to spot when you’re visiting someone else’s neighbourhood.
But he wasn’t the only one thinking of bins at the weekend.
Friday morning my wheely bin went out as usual. Same spot every week – never less than eight feet from where they dump it once it’s been emptied.
It’s not a wheely bin to which I’d become particularly attached, although we had been an item for many years.
There’s nothing unique about it, other than the house number painted on the front, black with a grey lid, West Berkshire Council regulation issue, small scar on the left lip, but no other distinguishing marks. Certainly no collector’s item.
But when I got home in the evening someone had ‘collected’ it. Not a trace. Not so much as a wheely skidmark. Vanished altogether. The neighbours’ bins were still strewn where the refuseniks had abandoned them. But mine? Nowhere.
I did make a fruitless tour of the immediate area, peering at bins visible from the road, constantly at risk of being fingered as one of Jacqui Smith’s rubberheel squad in search of 42 days’ worth of evidence.
So sadly, just like Clunking First himself, I spent the bank holiday listening but not hearing, pondering endlessly why anyone should care that much about bins. Or should that be has bins?
Who steals a wheely bin? Perhaps the sociopath who, when I leave my bin out overnight, sneaks out and dumps a couple of bags of unmentionables in it.
Had he opted for energy saving?
Is bin plastic suddenly a lucrative commodity, like lead from church roofs?
Maybe there’s a criminal mastermind ringing bins instead of luxury cars?
Perhaps my wheely’s been moulded to bits of a pedal or swing bin; now a totally unrecognisable poubelle being emptied daily by some Parisian concierge.
Another option did emerge when the sympathetic but unruffled lady in the council’s streetcare department admitted my bin might have “fallen into” the back of one of the trucks belonging to their new contractor. This happens often? “Quite a few times,” she admitted.
Plague of the Bin Eaters?
No clear proof either way, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion I should never have mocked that Big Brother idea of fitting bins with spy cameras.
On the other hand, however, Scotland Yard security expert Mick Neville did admit this week that most CCTV footage is a load of rubbish.
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