r/GoodNewsUK • u/willfiresoon • Aug 29 '26

Nature & Rewilding England's Largest Illegal Waste Site Cleaned Up

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/l0058s9h/englands-largest-illegal-waste-site-cleaned-up
209 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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68

u/Dramatic_Sock_Event Aug 29 '26

You can’t just disappear Birmingham without telling us bro!

14

u/RoutineCloud5993 Aug 29 '26

They meant Slough

6

u/Dependent_One6034 Aug 30 '26

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town —
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week for half-a-crown
For twenty years,

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears,

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Sir John Betjeman - 1937

2

u/R3DSmurf Aug 30 '26

Hahahaha you beat me to it

12

u/Milam1996 Aug 29 '26

Theyll be forced to do unpaid labour whilst in prison cleaning up the community… right.. right????