Category: Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor, Unexpected consequences of the waste disposal changes ripple on in my household. For instance, who would have thought it might make me contribute to unemployment in the newspaper industry? I got my living from it.

Under the old system I tipped my ?recycling? into a bag bought from the town hall and put it out for Grundons to pick up once a week. Now I keep it for two weeks. I have been forced to look at, perhaps weigh, the newsprint wordage that is thrown out.

Colour supplements: unread (beachwear and fashion ?not me?); travel features (not unless it?s Sidmouth and not recently); food ?al fresco? (prefer to be comfortable, indoors); doing up old houses in Little Puddlecombe or Notting Hill (hate DIY and can?t afford it anyway); keep fit and diets (my conscience needs no more disturbance than it already gets); the doings of popular singers and film stars (mainly I?ve not heard of them). What is left? There?s a bit in the money pages about how savings aren?t growing at all; and some news and some sport, though the cricket scores could be printed in larger type and you can forget about 20/20 and its pyjama gear as far as I?m concerned.

I felt guilty about throwing away so much wordage, so totally unread. So I cancelled my newspaper order, me, a journalist by trade!

Norman Brand
Fanshawe Road

Dear Editor, Can I suggest a couple more ideas for emptying containers: a little milk in the salad cream jar when its getting low will, if mixed in, enable one to virtually empty the jar very easily – no need to stand the jar upside down to drain it.
Also the same addition to the “empty” tomato soup tin can result in the same outcome. By those means any “rinsing” still needed is very minimal

Peter Jeffery
Haddenham
24/06/09

A SPLENDID idea re Marmite glass jars. Marmite makes a splendid hot drink. Fine with the glass jars but would the plastic of a squeezable Marmite container, to which boiling water is added, taint the brew? I find squeezable Marmite jars jolly handy and economical.

I am sad about this because when the the plastic variety first appeared I was inclined to start a campaign for Real Marmite jars.

To change the subject, a dash of vinegar in a near-empty bottle of salad cream helps to rinse out the cointainer. It also dilutes the flavour though. My wife gets very fed up when, in order to be a good citizien, I rinse out tomato soup containers. The sink goes orange. Then she cleans it. Which has priority: domestic harmony or South Oxon DC?

NB
Fanshawe Road
23/06/09

Dear Editor, I am writing to you regarding the new refuge collection service and state what a poor service we are getting.
Firstly for the last 3-4- weeks have emailed s.o.d.c. regarding the waste food bags we have not received nor as anyone else in the maisonettes at Parliament Road and still not had a reply from them and secondly have been ringing the special number given cannot get through for the last 3 weeks. As I cant get through anyway to s.o.d.c. I decide to contact Thame Council which they told me that they have had loads of complaints from residents in Parliament Road regarding the non delivery of waste food bags but guess what STILL NO BAGS, but I was told to use newspaper until they come, so hence this is what I done to find out the bin still has food in it and very mouldy and smelly this is really nice for people who pay there council tax on time I think they should reduce our council tax until they actually do a service for what we are paying .
for. Not that we have to put up with the eyesore of these bins and causing havoc in the hallways special as I have an elderly gentleman living below me which walks with a frame we have to put up with bins not being emptied properly. I look forward to hearing coments regarding this matter.
Yours sincerley

Mrs C Williams
Parliament Road
Thame
(full address supplied)
23/06/09

Dear Editor, The view from the bottom of my road across to the Chiltern Hills is lovely. The view from the proposed site for housing in Thame, close to Cuttle Brook, is also highly valued. Everybody’s house is built on what was someone’s view. That’s the problem.

As disinterestedly as I can, however – and I would not wish anyone’s view to be impeded – I fear that if the current boundary in the east, i.e. the bypass, were to be breached, there could be a danger in years to come of an urban sprawl, stretching, who knows, across the county boundary to and from Princes Risborough and taking in villages round about.

Norman Brand
Fanshawe Road
Thame
23/06/09

Dear Editor,
I half fill my Marmite jars with boiling water from the kettle, replace the lid (tightly) and shake the jar vigorously before opening (take care to open slowly and carefully) and drinking the contents (may need to dilute with more water) for a tasty alternative to tea or coffee. Or you can use the liquid to flavour stews, casseroles and soup. After this treatment the jar barely needs any further washing out.
Christina

(Full name and address supplied)

Dear Editor, Week two of the new recycle system and I admit that it went smoothly at my address. Most of the backlog of paper, cans etc. fitted in to the green bin. It is fair to say that I remain sad for Grundon?s, whose superb service has disappeared, apparently unsung.

There remain problems which maybe only the initiates of the new green theology can answer. Take Marmite. As someone once said to me: ?There always a bit more you can get out of a Marmite jar.? A Marmite container is very difficult indeed to clean. Soak it in tap water and washing up liquid and that takes a small environmental toll. You may even have to use more washing up liquid and more water to clean the now Marmited sink.

Throw the jar unwashed into the recycling and someone, somwhere, will have to deal with the eventually pulverised Marmited mess. Put the jar in the food recycling and the content is fine but not the glass or plastic. Oh dear. And then there are tomato sauce containers. Such are the problems of the dutiful citizenry.

Norman Brand
Fanshawe Road
Thame

Ed. The answer I find is to soak the marmite jar in hot, soapy water and then use a washing up brush to get the residual marmite out from under the lip of the jar. Works a treat!

Dear Editor
Unlike Norman (Farewell to a friendly service), I did see the lorry that came around to collect the rubbish yesterday, and yes, it was only one lorry.

The waste food boxes were emptied into the black rubbish bins and then they were emptied into the lorry. I was under the impression that the waste food was going to compost, and the black bins to land fill?

So what I would like to know is, why are we doing all of this recycling if it is all going to go into the one lorry to land fill?

Name supplied. 09/06/09

Dear Editor

I did not see the lorry which emptied my three-parts empty black bin this morning, while my already full recycling bin must wait another week to be dealt with. I am not sure who was given the contract but, in my experience, Grundon?s service has been superb.

If we are no longer to receive their swift, courteous, flexible and totally reliable attentions that is a matter of very great sadness. Their staff, jogging, sometimes sprinting behind the vehicles, gathered up everything they could reasonably be asked to deal with, bed-sized cardboard flatpacks for example, or maybe the odd broken broom or pram wheel.

It seems from national publicity that this is all about saving the planet and doing what we are told by the European Union. Well beware the former. Pocket Hitlers love good causes, as has been seen elsewhere in the country, when the the might of the state has descended on the disposer of a harmless apple core by the roadside, for example ? and many other instances.

As for the planet, I read somewhere recently a serious assessment that the world is getting cooler. And on national politics, I wonder whether the Labour Party?s troubles at the moment result from an instinctive revulsion against interfering social controls, enforced by the faithful followers of the busybody State.

Not yet, not yet, maybe, but how long before I get a visit from a ?counsellor? if too many cake boxes are spotted in my recycling?

Norman Brand 08/06/09

Dear Editor

Just before 6pm one evening last week, there was a ring at the door. Through the glass I could see a man’s shape. I opened the door. Behind him, on the path there stood another man. The man who rang the bell was studying a clipboard. Both were festooned in official regalia, some kind of uniform with orange, high visibility slashes. The effect was intimidating. They weren’t police but there was something of the State about their image. They checked my name. Something incomprehensible followed but the leader of the two was making some kind of enquiry about power supplies to my house. I’ve had the same suppliers for years. I’m quite happy with them. I said as much. The caller began to develop his comments. He was very close to the front door. Not threatening but too close for my comfort. I recalled a similar visit from another individual some years ago – something about gas that time, I think. I told that caller too that I was happy with my energy supplier. Tonight I cut the exchanges short, politely I hope, but if I had been even older than I am and if I had been on my own, the sight of two near paramilitary figures on my doorstep, questioning me, conveying an undefined impression that there might be something wrong – for that was the impression – would have frightened me a lot. I always have some sympathy for cold callers, however they come, for they are only trying to earn a living. But whoever prescribed this particular procedure should think seriously of the effect on the person visited. I won’t name the firm. It does exist, I discovered. I don’t want to get into any arguments with it. But they will know who they are.

Yours sincerely

Norman Brand