Stuck out in the Sticks

I recently spent sometime in the countryside, in the Lincolnshire, Scambulsby to be exact (at least I think that’s what it was called, Google seems to be no help whatsoever on the matter of producing me with the village’s name, it’s near Louth anyway, and that’s probably no help to you either). This village has one pub; The Green Man, quite an apt name as any non-local probably gets alienated when entering. I didn’t take that risk. But I got to thinking that if a local was to be barred from that public house, they’re pretty much fucked. No where else to go in the town, sorry; village. They could always catch a taxi somewhere else I suppose, yet that’d cost at least £10 there and back, leaving them with little money for drinks. And forget drink driving, those country roads rack up more deaths than Israeli military.

Upon entering the sticks, what first hit me was the silence. Now, I’m don’t live in a majorly busy City like London, Birmingham or Manchester, so I have no idea of that life, but I do live Derby, which to me is not a real city, it’s like a big town, which is one of the reasons I like it, but I don’t class myself a city-type of person. But compared to Scambulsby Derby’s like New York (for busyness, not culture, entertainment or iconic status in the World). Living in a city (or town for that matter), you become accustomed to the constant noise surrounding you without realising; cars, sirens, people, civilisation … there’s always something. In the country silence is like a wall that just crashes into you, much like being hit by a bus. It leaves you disorientated. I thought I was deaf several points across the weekend. It reminds me of the tag line for the film Alien … “In the countryside, no-one can hear you scream” … quite terrifying really.

Another aspect of the country I noticed was a large amount of county folk have signs outside their homes selling things. I saw endless amounts of them, offering a wide range of material things; eggs, lettuce plants, ferrets and I’m quite sure I saw a sign offering a plough for sale. Is this entirely legal? Surely these people should be taxed on what they sell. I’m no expert in the field of taxation or in any other field to be precise, but this doesn’t seem right to me, especially with the Tories in power. Surely these people should be paying something on what they make.

Because the roads are such a death trap in the country there are endless amounts of warning signs dotted along the county roads. I saw one with the warning drivers to be alert of motorbikes, with the tag line; ‘Think Bike’, although some little rascal had took a marker pen to it and altered it. The guilty party had crossed out ‘Think’ and written “F*uk”. That is not misspelled on my part that is actually how someone spelled ‘fuck’. Of course one of the things when vandalising a sign is you can put whatever you want, you’re a little rebel with a marker pen or some spray paint, if you censor yourself with an asterisk the whole point of vandalism is void. Polite vandalism is oxymoronic. We all know what the word is, it’s not like people are driving passed thinking “Fick Bikes, yeah, those bikes are think!” Speaking of moronic, spelling a four letter word wrong is stupidity at it’s finest. Especially ‘fuck’, come on, it’s such a simple word. Although this does remind me of taking exams at school, we had to sit on single desk that only got broke out at exam time. The desks were old a ‘f*uk’ and filled with scribbles from years passed, so I decided to add mine. So I’d inscribe my tag (my name written in a certain type of way, still present on every book/scrap of paper I own) and also I’d write; “I can’t speel”, which at the time I thought was hilarious and in fact I still find the irony funny today. Yet this ‘F*uk Bike’ sign was not ironic, people don’t get irony in the country, much like phone signals. I took my BlackBerry and found it almost impossible to get a signal or update either Facebook/Twitter, the only use it could of possessed was to throw as a weapon to fend off some horny farmer, luckily that didn’t happen.

So, out in the sticks, it’s interesting, it’s fun. But I’ll stick with the city life; noise, pollution, a wide range of places to get pissed, low pollen counts, homeless people, diversity, culture, the possibility of getting stabbed for no reason … all these things make life more exciting.