Ever Decreasing Circles

Pity the poor residents of Ashtead, Surrey, who will now have to suffer the presence of wounded service personnel and their families as a result of a unanimous decision by the planning sub-committee of Mole Valley District Council.

Unbelievably, 86 residents of the area objected to an application to convert a house into accommodation for the families of wounded servicemen (and women) receiving treatment at Headley Court rehabilitation centre. This report is disturbingly similar to accounts from the First World War (another pointless slaughter of men with qualities far superior to those of the pen pushers and desk warriors who sent them to die) of letters to the papers complaining that the sight of so many mutilated servicemen disturbed the wives, children and servants of respectable gentlemen.

How frightfully infra dignitatem.

Gruff can never read or hear the words 'Mole Valley' without thinking of the anally retentive Martin Bryce, the character played (and evidently thoroughly researched) by Richard Briers in the television comedy series Ever Decreasing Circles. Hopefully the circles in which the good people of Ashtead move will decrease to the extent that they disappear up their own backsides. It's unlikely, however. The spiteful, petty-minded meanness of such characters deserves ridicule but reminds us that, like the poor, the unbelievably selfish and stupid will always be with us. When contrasted with this tale of Whacky Br*tain it's hard not to suspect that someone, somewhere, is having a bloody good laugh.