MY FIRST CAR

Here it is, my first car and I really loved that car, this was what set me off on a lifetime path as a petrol head about 70 years ago. If you look closely you will see my little dog in there with me. I wonder how many cars I have had and how many miles I have driven in that time. I must have put many tons of carbon into the atmosphere, sorry about that but at least my carbon footprint will end when I pop my clogs. I have a self-charging hybrid now, range anxiety prevents me from going all electric; but my car does anywhere between 50 and 75 to the gallon depending on how you drive it, mostly fairly sedately now. I must confess to owning some fire breathing gas guzzlers in the past including a rally prepared Mini Cooper S that did less than 20 to the gallon and more recently a rotary engined Mazda RX8 similar consumption. When I go to the great racetrack in the sky I can be glad I lived through probably the greatest period in history.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE LITTLE PIGGIES?

So, another enquiry (Stephen Lawrence) and the Met police are criticised yet again. They are incompetent and institutionally racist to boot. One wonders just what they are there for. They only clear up 2% of all crime and as for deterrence? criminals know that they are almost certain to get away with what they do. If those criminals are big companies not even 2% will get what is coming to them. The police are massively biased in their favour as I have found from personal experience.
Thames Water are the latest and what they have done amounts to fraud; they borrow billions and use the money to pay the senior management obscene salaries and the shareholders obscene dividends. Their performance is poor to put it mildly as all sewage pumped into our rivers and the sea testifies. Much of this is down to the government and regulators however and the government are another bunch of self-serving incompetents. We are surrounded and even governed by piggies, these include senior management of big companies, especially our privatised essential services, Courts, government local and national, regulators, planners etc. All aided and abetted by an ignorant complacent general public.
To get back to the police, why does anyone join? it is about the only way for someone without qualifications to get into a position of power where they can push people about. My own history with them goes right back to my school days, when I was unfortunate enough to be subjected to the fascist regime of a minor public school. One of the aspects of that regime was that prefects were allowed to beat anyone who infringed, or they thought had infringed, any of the of the many petty rules, or they just had it in for you. So, the regime was not only fascist it was Kafkaesque also. These “punishments” were carried out in a ritualised way in the cricket pavilion where all the prefects would file in and sit around the benches to witness one of them beating a small boy senseless. One of my fellow subversives complained to the headmaster that he had been beaten for something he hadn’t done, the headmaster said how dare you complain about one of my prefects boy and beat him again. The point I am getting to is that some of the worst bullies, who were often thick as well would join the police, there was a big headquarters near the school, when they failed their “A levels”.
As a long-haired hippy type I was constantly persecuted by them and this included being stopped in my car, stopped and searched on foot, they actually had them on the street in those days and I knew for a fact that they planted evidence although not on me. It was also a fact that they had a nice little earner selling confiscated drugs that were supposed to have been destroyed. My dealer who used to buy several pounds of hash at a time once found fingerprint powder on the packets. One of my friends was in Kensington market and felt something being slipped into his pocket he immediately threw it away and seconds later was stopped by plain clothed officers who went straight to that pocket and were quite surprised to find no dope. The undercover drug squad were a joke, they dressed like hippies but always wore their shiny black FBI shoes as we used to call them. We would take the piss by humming the Z cars theme tune or grunting like a pig. It was much easier and safer for them to persecute people for smoking flowers than to tackle real crime and criminals.
I was once arrested for dissing an officer when on a demo; I knocked his helmet off and legged it into the crowd which closed behind me. I was nearly arrested for streaking, one of my friends was I pushed them out of the way and ran into the house expecting them to follow but they didn’t. Some of us went to the local nick to support him or bail him out. One of the coppers who arrested him came up to my brother and from six inches said you were very lucky to get away with it. At the time I had long hair and was clean shaven my brother had shortish dark hair and a beard. So, not even very observant but they would have automatically been believed and afforded more credibility as a witness than a menber of the public, especially a hippie type. Somone else I knew, not a hippie type, was driving and had had a few, he was going round a roundabout and missed his turning. Instead of going round again he reversed right into another car, a police car was on the scene very shortly after and told him to sit in his vehicle while they spoke to the other driver. He sat waiting to be breathalysed but the officer came up and said you might as well go home mate this guy is so pissed he is trying to say you reversed into him.
I won’t bore you any further with my tales about those days, I made quite a pile of money became respectable, in appearance anyway, and moved back up North where I had much less contact with “the filth”. That was to change when I got on the wrong side of Electricity Northwest. I objected to them putting an unlawful mast 60cm from the wall of the house I was building, and they weren’t going to stand for that. These companies are unethical, unprofessional and completely ruthless. Fortunately, they are also incompetent.
During the process of building the mast I broke into their compound several times, they couldn’t prove it was me, so they put up a surveillance camera to catch me. I responded by putting up my own camera to watch them. The cops were round the next day and told me it was illegal to put up a camera in a public place. I said if they can do it so can I, theirs is a security camera, so is mine. They said if it’s still there tomorrow you will be prosecuted. I knew my argument although logical wouldn’t cut any ice with the judge, given that there is an automatic bias in favour of “the man”, so I moved it. Subsequently, I told one of ENW’s men to piss off. They reported me for threatening and abusive behaviour and the next day the coppers were up again, just one this time. It was so pathetic, but he had obviously been ordered to interview me, I almost felt sorry for him. The guy who I told to piss off felt threatened, o diddums. It’s nice to think that as one old guy I can still make 4 strapping building workers feel threatened. Obviously, it was so pathetic it would have been laughed out of Court if ever it had got that far. I was hoping he would ask if I would accept a caution, but he didn’t, and I wouldn’t have in any case. Let it go to Court and we can all have a good laugh. If it had gone to Court, then the local press would have had to report on it and then the whole story could have been published. I had already after several attempts got them to run the story, but they were biased as well probably not wanting to lose advertising revenue from Electricity Northwest. They did a complete hatchet job on me more or less saying that I was a property developer bleating about losing a few grand because of an unsightly development and it was my fault for building near to a substation. The press complaints council were also not inclined to take any action and I have a letter from them saying that a quote does not have to be anything I actually said, What?? So, a big company can persecute an old man for standing up to them and use their more or less unlimited financial resources to bring about a miscarriage of justice. The stress of which killed my wife and damaged my health is that not a good story?
Then and this was before they made their claim against me in the High Court, they trespassed on my land and caused criminal damage by putting up a rudimentary fence. I trashed it of course and put my scaffolding tower on the land to stop them coming on again. Next day two big police vans one with dogs came up, what no armed response unit? They said I could be prosecuted for damaging ENW’s fence, again What?? and am I not allowed to put up a scaffolding tower on my own land? You are the one who is being awkward Mr Marrow these guys are just trying to do their job. It is hardly the job of the police to take sides and tell me to remove a structure on my own land so that ENW can trespass on my land and cause criminal damage. I argued with them for well over an hour, one of them actually said he was very important and had better things to do. Well why don’t you fuck off and do it then? I was careful not to swear but I was very tempted. They said we were very close to the cuffs going on and a trip to the station, I held out my hands and said go on arrest me then, But they didn’t and I didn’t remove the tower.
Now we come to the bigger piggies in their starched white shirts aka the Courts and the justice system which is a contradiction in terms if ever there was one. ENW started a claim against me in the High Court which of course I was going to defend. They very quickly ran up legal costs of £50,000 which I would have been liable to pay by default even if I dropped my defence. They falsely claimed that my new build encroached on their land. They had no case, and I had a very strong case with strong evidence to support it but I would have had to risk £130,000 costs and the destruction of my house wall to have it heard. I eventually had to make a pragmatic decision to buy my own land for £1 and accept a thirteen page “agreement”, it was a settlement not agreement as far as I was concerned and purely to remove the threat of losing all that money. I certainly had no confidence that I would have had a fair hearing. There is supposed to be an Overriding Objective that is supposed to put both parties on an equal footing and the costs should be commensurate with the value of the claim. I mentioned this to the judge in a pre-case telephone hearing but was ignored. All cases where the amount of the claim is less than £100,000 should be heard using the small claims procedure where the maximum costs are limited to £1500. So, the Courts and judges are the biggest piggies of all.
I had to settle out of Court and buy my own land for £1. There is a 13 page “agreement” which is all bollox. The position on the ground is exactly the same as it was before they started the claim except, I now have a formal agreement to access the back of my property which I didn’t have before. It cost them well over £100,000 and they have brought about a miscarriage of justice, they have won but it is a pyrrhic victory.
Sorry to have been so long winded but there may be people reading this who aren’t aware of what has gone on before. I have gone off piste as usual but this is a prelude to naming and shaming ENW for the sake of my health I had decided not to do that. I have changed my mind again, why should all these piggies be allowed to get away with it?