A PRIVATE company has caused widespread bewilderment by installing a dozen phone kiosks in the town centre.

According to the company, there is still a need for public payphones, notably members of minority groups who use them to contact relatives overseas.

Well, you learn something new every day. There was me thinking they’d use their own phones. A landline, perhaps, or a mobile with one of the dozens of apps offering free or very cheap international calls.

Just like any other person, in other words.

Still, I suppose the company’s done its research.

In any case, even though just about everybody has a mobile phone now, I’m glad in a way that the boxes are coming back.

I’m probably a sentimental old fool, but I feel a pang of nostalgia every time an old call box is ripped out and taken away because nobody uses it and BT therefore deems it utterly economically unviable.

Gone is the smashed glass, gone is the scored Perspex, gone is the receiver that’s partially melted because somebody’s had a go at it with a fag lighter, gone is the dried-up spit, gone is the graffiti and gone are the little cards advertising the services of all manner of local professionals.

Gone, in other words, are the things which made public phone boxes such a picturesque part of British life for so long, leaving only a forlorn square of discoloured, partially dissolved concrete where generations of drunks have answered calls of nature.

A little spot of DIY might do the trick

DID you read out story the other day about a theft victim who was told to go and investigate the crime herself?

The young woman called the police to report her moped having been nicked from the Outlet centre customer car park, only to be advised to gather CCTV and other evidence.

She duly did, as well as talking to witnesses, and even spotted the moped being ridden by the people who stole it, but to no avail.

It was later found dumped and wrecked.

Some people have responded to the story with horror and anger, pointing out that if the duty of investigating crimes is being hived off to the victims, the police resources crisis has surely reached the point of disaster.

Other members of the public have now reserved the right to laugh in the face of the next authority figure who dares to lecture us on the evils of taking the law into our own hands.

They reason that if we aren’t allowed to have the law in our hands, and it’s clearly no longer in the hands of the forces of law and order, that can only mean the criminals are in charge and have been for some time.

I’m adopting a more pragmatic approach. If crime victims being obliged to investigate crimes is tolerated by our leaders and senior officials, that can only mean they think it’s a Good Thing in principle.

And if it’s a Good Thing, then maybe we should expand the principle into other areas of life.

Taxation might be a start. We should make the people who live high on the hog through our taxes go and collect their salaries directly from the people who pay them – assuming we judge them worthy of payment. Instead of making us pay straight from our wages or in council tax, a new system should be adopted for any VIP pocketing more than, say, 50 grand of our cash per year.

Each official’s salary should be divided up between all the taxpayers; it will probably amount to no more than a few pence per VIP per household. The VIPs, instead of being paid their salaries, expenses and what not as normal, should then be obliged to go from door to door and collect their incomes themselves by requesting payment.

Each household should then have the option either to cough up or refuse, based on whether they think the VIP is pulling their weight.

There might be some bad news for some of the VIPs, of course.

Some might be told, for example: “I see you were elected/appointed to protect us from villainy. You will note that the gutters in this street run with blood and Class A drugs, so no money for you from me this time around, matey.”

Others might be advised: “As the responsibilities for which you have hitherto been paid a hefty six-figure sum include providing decent healthcare, and as my Aunty Nelly had to wait nine years to have her bunions done, I am afraid I must inform you that I shall not be paying you. However, here is a handful of buttons.”

On the downside, many VIPs would be left out of pocket.

On the upside, this might encourage them to sling their hooks and make way for people who are actually good.

Watch out!

I WAS delighted to hear that water voles, sometimes known as water rats, are returning to the River Ray at Rivermead Community Nature Reserve.

That the rare creatures are thriving on what was once a polluted stream is a tribute to the dedicated work put in by volunteers over many years.

I was a bit alarmed when I heard that the reserve isn’t too far from the bus station, though.

The water rats will be no problem and neither will any moles which appear; it’s another creature that worries me.

According to at least one noted work of literature, toads which associate with water rats and moles cannot resist the lure of driving motor vehicles.

Security must be stepped up at the bus station.

I suggest employing a badger.