by Henry VIII faces the borough recycling rules and finds Rome was more reasonable
Rome once excommunicated me for defying the Pope. My council has achieved something more severe. It has left my bin, untouched, for the third week running.
The Wrong Bin
I placed a pizza box in the blue bin, believing cardboard to be cardboard, a principle that has held since the invention of the box. A card was left on my step informing me the box was contaminated with grease and had therefore rendered the entire bin unfit for collection. One box. I dissolved an entire religious order over less contamination than one pizza box, and even I offered the monks a chance to appeal first.
The Calendar
The collection calendar, I am told, alternates fortnightly between general waste and recycling, except on bank holidays, when it shifts by one day, except in December, when a separate calendar applies, which nobody in the household has seen, and which apparently exists only as a leaflet posted through the door in March and immediately lost. I once organised the entire liturgical calendar of the Church of England single handedly. This bin schedule has defeated four separate households on my street.
The Neighbour Dispute
A neighbour, a retired schoolteacher named Pamela, informed me that my bin was placed six inches over the boundary of my own property and this was, in her words, simply not on. I have started wars over less significant boundary disputes than six inches, several of them with France. Pamela did not back down. Pamela, I have concluded, would have made an excellent Chancellor, and I say that as the highest compliment I currently have available.
The Missed Collection Form
I filled out an online form reporting the missed collection, which required me to select a category from a dropdown menu that did not include the category I required, forcing me to select other and explain myself in a box limited to two hundred characters. I once explained an entire annulment to the Pope in fewer words than that box permits, admittedly the Pope did not accept it either, so perhaps the council and Rome have more in common than I first assumed.
The Fine
Three days later a letter arrived warning that persistent contamination of recycling could result in a fine. A fine. From a council that has not collected my bin in three weeks. I would like it noted for the historical record that I once fined an entire county for supporting the wrong side in a rebellion, and even I sent the men to collect the money in person, rather than leaving a strongly worded card on their step and calling it enforcement. The bin remains outside. It has begun, I believe, to develop its own weather system. I have faced worse in Ireland, but not by much.
Readers familiar with my temper will understand exactly how close this came to an actual proclamation. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: Burnham’s own plan to nationalise bricks before Britain has reinvented one, the borough’s wider talent for charging you just for existing, the full eyewitness account of how I came back in the first place.
