the paper cycle

A recent episode of Wallander (the BBC remake featuring a constantly blubbing star and several dopey sidekicks with frizzy perms, not the excellently dour Swedish version) featured a postman as the murderer..it was signposted early on in the episode by plonking a red post van conspicuously in a scene for Branagh to almost fall over. It's a nice thought, murder. GK Chesterton got there first with his murdering postie carrying his corpse in a mail sack unnoticed: 'the invisible man'. I understand the urge to throttle people.
I spent a good two hours today heaving round straining bundles of 'door to doors'..they're the leaflets and assorted bumph you get discreetly jammed through your door every week. Today they contained rather thick glossy brochures for a certain garden centre. Glossy=mass=heavy. I wouldn't mind so much (we get an extra 2 pence for the heavy stuff) but I posted over 200 of the fuckers to tower blocks with imaginary gardens in the sky...rubbing the poor peoples' faces in it. Hey! Need a conservatory? Decking on your patio? No garden? Then fuck off you pleb. It's direct marketing at it's most feral. Royal Mail bleat on and on about their green credentials but in an industry actively encouraging mushed trees it's a bit much. These door to door contracts were the largest bone of contention in the recent Royal Mail/Union agreement. Nobody likes them except Royal Mail. They're time consuming to prepare (we have to put them all together, up to 700 of the things. Inserting the flimsy pizza tat into the insurance scam brochure neatly wrapped up in a fuck off 'council matters'); extra weight on our crippled shoulders; unwanted and derided by the public; and a major waste of energy and resources..the great paper cycle. From tree to paper to postman to door to recycling box to incinerator...er pulp, to er..tree? However, they're set to become Royal Mail's major money earner. Soon we'll all get a flat rate no matter how many drops we have (some have 1(!) some over 800(!!!)) and the current limit of 3 door to doors per week will be lifted leaving us (and you) well and truly shafted. How many pizza folders does a household need? Goodbye trees, hello plastic spine. So yeah, I'm not particularly keen on these things but they're here to stay and to grow, unlike the trees. They put me in a mood. I harbour naughty thoughts about torturing dogs and their owners. At the bottom of one of these tower blocks I saw a dog owner, forlornly stood by a silver steel cage that held his child chomping hound. This cage was part of the community furniture! It should have held a velociraptor. Next minute a weathered old guy, swigging on a can of Tennants starts to small talk. I just want to get on and fuck off.
'have you anything for 5A?' he asks. (He saw me coming out of the block)
'I've just done there, it'll be posted'
'So nothing then?' is his reply.
My life force is being sucked out of me. He then asks if I'd like a cup of tea. I'd rather suck his armpit so I decline. A part of me wonders what would've happened if I was a yes man? Him leading me up to his flat. The awkward silence in the lift. He offers me a swig from his warm beer. The drunken fumbling for keys. The sour wall of air burning my nostrils as the door swings open...no, I can't go there. I bet he didn't have Nettle and Peppermint anyway.
The next day I'm on a different walk altogether. A dog rushes out of a garden and has a go at me in the street. I have to run INTO a garden to get away from it's tiny brained gnashing. The battery in my dog zapper was flat. No that they do much to dogs. they annoy cats slightly but the dogs I meet are so inately vicious and intent on attack that a tinny bleeping isn't going to put them off (though rapping them over the skull with it can deter). I may have to investigate tasar technology. Gotta love the internet.