A sticky subject (From Borehamwood Times)

A sticky subject

12:38pm Tuesday 18th March 2008

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I made a rare trip into London at the weekend. My wife suggested we go by train and discouraged me from driving in by car. I met her half way and we drove to a tube station and travelled in on the Underground. We visited the National Gallery. It’s quite extraordinary that we live so close to such magnificent buildings and exhibitions - just 13 miles from here - and yet I visit places in other countries when I’m on holiday but rarely go and visit the great stuff we have in our capital city. It was a mild day, before this cold spell returned, and walking round the pedestrianised Trafalgar Square was a pleasure – or would have been if we hadn’t got caught up in a protest that was being held there. I’m all for freedom of expression but it would have been lovely to be able to walk to the National without feeling heckled and dodging placards as we made our way to the front entrance. (And no it wasn’t the St Patrick’s Day parade – I’m no killjoy – that was the next day!)

It’s only when you get to look at paintings from hundred of years ago that one can really piece together how things must have looked and felt in those days. We take it all for granted when we watch films or television programmes about the past and somehow in our mind’s eye “reconstructions” of past events now seem to be how our memory thinks of them as actually being, but of course there were no cameras - still image or moving pictures - and we do really only get a snap shot of life before advanced technology by looking at paintings.

Afterwards we walked around the West End for a few hours.

I have a tendency to look at pavements when I visit anywhere now. I get increasingly aggravated by the state of pavements specifically the scarring by used chewing gum. It’s particularly bad on certain thoroughfares in Hertsmere, including the high street in Borehamwood, and I remember the facts often presented that it now costs 3 pence to make a stick of gum and 10 pence to remove it. And that’s just from pavements. Anyone who has trod on some or sat on some will know just how bad that can be and expensive and inconvenient to remove too. We talk about removing graffiti to make our streets look cleaner and the council is moving ahead with plans for cracking down on this type of anti-social behaviour. But shouldn’t we be looking at the same type of action with gum. I’m not saying ban gum or ban people who chew it, from our streets. Just crack down on those people who don’t consider others by spitting it out on to the roads. The Council is looking at environmental crime in general and I’d be interested to hear views.

We know from “art” how the streets of London looked hundreds of years ago and let’s not imagine that the streets were "paved with gold". Before proper drainage and sewerage systems gold was probably the last thng they were paved in. But it would be nice not to have our streets paved with gum, nor to be remembered for this mess when artists portray our landscapes in their works now and in the years ahead.

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