No hiding place for fly tippers

[Peter Tomlinson]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article 
> <ce7ab5e50801290611m2e16f8b9j9feaf5d9fd1204ae@mail.gmail.com>, Mark 
> Lomas <tmalomas@gmail.com> writes
>> If your phone is switched on, even though you are not using it, the 
>> phone company knows its approximate location.  If yours was the only 
>> phone that stopped at a particular lay-by in the middle of the night 
>> you may be asked to explain the discarded mattress there
>
> Who is asking you to explain, when local authorities can't access that 
> data? Which night - I'm sure they (whoever "they" are) don't check 
> every lay-by every dawn. And with 93% of flytipping taking place in 
> urban areas, and as organised activities by cowboy builders and 
> others, rather than individuals doing a random dump, a mattress at a 
> deserted lay-by is a low-frequency event anyway.
The time: 1957. The scene: new housing development in the south east 
corner of Manchester, built [1] on clay in an area that had been a 
series of small ponds. The need: to make the garden grow, without much 
money to spend but a rural upbringing. Part of the solution: people kept 
dumping flock mattresses [2] in the area not yet built on, so several of 
those were rescued and their stuffing dug into the garden. The result: 
success. As Ralph McTell sang: I'll show you something to make you 
change your mind [3].

Peter

[1] Some would say floated, because they are built on concrete rafts.

[2] Flock mattress: a mattress stuffed with wool

[3] Or if you live there (No 11, on the corner - I have not been back 
for some 20 years) let me know and you can be the guide