Sunday 21 October 2012

Not the 2012 Coventry Half Marathon again??

Dear Blog,
             I don’t often get it wrong Blog … well, I don’t think I have ever got it wrong Blog. OK. An item in my last letter to you maybe. So unlike that nice Mr Cameroon’s friend, Mr Bike Michael, I’ll say sorry. Sorry to the Warwick University. I told you last week about all these black plastic fences that the ground staff of the University has put up here there and everywhere and I thought it was a part of the University’s Discrimination Policy against the Canada Geese for their habit of leaving piles of droppings and a muddy mess around the Campus. Well I was WRONG, WRONG with a capital ‘R’. The truth is that the black plastic fencing that the University of Warwick have erected here, there and everywhere is the result of the Uni getting a grant from that nice Mr Cameroon to set aside some of the Uni land to introduce a selection of protected species of wild life to new areas … so along with bugs, various creepie crawlies, there is about to be an influx of Greater Crested Grebes!! I wonder how they feel about being sent to Coventry? What about the Lesser??? Seems to be something of a case of discrimination me’thinks??? What’s sauce for the Canada Goose is sauce the Greater and Lesser Grebes surely????
A couple of days back, the day after the Half Marathon race, I went for an early morning trudge around the ‘top’ part of the Coventry Half Marathon course which passes the bottom of my estate driveway …. Well Blog. What a mess the joggers left. Bottles here, bottles there, bottles everywhere. I checked to see if anyone had left a message inside one of them, but not a single word! Recovery drink this, recovery drink that, isotonic here, Tauk, Tauk there. Used, half used, hardly used strips of jels. I hope the organisers are going to clean up all the litter. It is not a Council responsibility. It is the organisers who ‘should leave the course in the state they found it’ as part of getting their licence to organise the race!!! I told you  last week that the Coventry Council had gone around the course spraying the holes in the road with red spray marking, in preparation for in filling all pot holes with tar macadam as part of Health and Safety measures prior to the race so there would be no accident from which a mega insurance claim against the Council could be made. Well. Because the rain did rain for a couple of weeks before the Coventry Half Marathon, the weather was unsuitable to do the tarmacking. And guess what?? When, I went for an early morning trudge around the ‘top’ part of the Coventry Half Marathon course which passes the bottom of my estate driveway in the morning after the race, a tarmac gang were out in filling with tar macadam all the pot holes which were marked with red spray paint. Nice little bonus payment for early morning work?? The tarmacking machine must have been generating a couple of thousand degrees centigrade to bond the roadway patch; I fail to see how the council workmen could do the work in the drizzle the day after the race and the council workmen could not do the work in the showers in the days before the race. Two thousand degrees centigrade means that there aint not much water about. I wonder if someone tripped up in the race??? A road patch up pre emptive job??? I must say the workmen looked cool. One workman sat on a stool watching the mini tarmac machine doing its job. One workman leaning on his brush, checking on the workman sat on the stool watching the mini tarmac machine doing its job. And the other one you ask Blog. He was doing a REALLY good job, sweeping and cleaning out the truck they were using! I wonder if they have a vacancy on their gang? I am not doing too much between trudges!!
Tomorrow I shall go for an early morning trudge around the ‘top’ part of the Coventry Half Marathon course which passes the bottom of my estate driveway to see if all the race droppings have been uplifted. If not I shall go for an early afternoon walk around the ‘top’ part of the Coventry Half Marathon course which passes the bottom of my estate driveway with a plastic sack and collect all the race droppings that have not been up lifted.
An observation:- if the council refuse department could clear all the rubbish from the field gateways (plastic pond here, kids toys everywhere, smashed kitchen units there) which had been dumped in the three days before the Coventry Half Marathon Race, why couldn’t they be bothered to clean up all the plastic bags full of rubbish that had been dumped in the ditches around the ‘top’ part of the Coventry Half Marathon course which passes the bottom of the estate driveway? Presumably the rubbish in the gateways would have been seen clearly by the international visitors jogging in the race, whereas the ditch rubbish was less visible to the international joggers? Perhaps the Race Organisers are going to clear all those plastic bags in the ditches away at the same time as they clear all the rubbish that had been left by the half marathon joggers???????????????
                                                   Colin

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