Wednesday 3 April 2013
The Dark Ages
It's 12:28am. And very dark.
Dark....outside.
It would be a touch lighter, but 3 days ago, the local council, in a fit of austerity-inspired madness, decided that the town no longer needed street lights after midnight.
This project has cost (to date) £1.5 million pounds, and is estimated to save the council £500,000 a year.
So we, and we're all in this together, unless we aren't, will need to wait 3 years until this breaks even.
This has now resulted in some sort of unofficial curfew. You can see all of the late-night dog walkers desperately trying to cram in one last walk before you're pitched into a blackness that's akin to the Silent Hill games.
I know, because I'm one of them. Walking the dog around the block by torchlight is one thing, but picking up his mess, while holding the poop bag in one hand, torch in the other, with his extend-a-lead firmly grasped between my thighs, is not something that I enjoy. Especially as every few seconds, I have to wave the torch around, looking all around me, fearing that another dog walker will be coming out of the darkness.
Their are quite a few dog walkers in my neighbourhood that like to walk their dogs off the lead, or "out of control" as I like to call it.
One of my new pet fears is bumping into one of these canine surprises while I'm out with Billy, in the dark. The first rule of Bite Club is you do NOT talk about Bite Club. But I promise you that IF it happens, the whole street will hear it.
And I will side with my dog, whether he starts it or not. I'm not above biting a dog.
Anyway, back to the darkness. When did taking light away ever make anything safer? I mean, there's ONE albino that I know of in town, and I know for a fact that he goes out at night, so I'm sure he'll be loving it. But as for the rest of us, if you have to go outside for anything, you'll need a torch or you're buggered.
I have no idea what happens if a crime is committed or if there's an accident? The police don't have a magic button to turn these lights back on, so they can investigate something, look for clues, plant evidence, or whatever it is they do these days.
I've read the opinion of two locals so far on this subject. One said that it was spooky, but a good idea. While the other thought it was good for cutting light pollution and we made it through the Dark Ages, so what's the problem.
Why yes. We all made it through the 14th century. What on earth were street lights invented for in the first place? I mean, what madness! Why do we have cars, or penicillin? I mean, we made it through the Dark Ages without them. What's the problem!
By the way, what does the word "akin" mean?
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