I just watched a short video on the Beeb regarding a product development firm who had been commissioned by the Home Office to invent shatter-proof pint glasses for pubs. The video included a brief demonstration of how they work and sounded like a genuine effort to improve safety when glasses are inadvertently dropped.
Then the 'related videos' menu started rolling, and I saw a quick glimpse into just how many news reports had been done recently about people getting attacked with broken glass in pub fights. Dozens.
It just goes to remind me. Brits may not have guns, but they're just as freaking violent as anyone else, they just don't have access to clean, purpose-built weapons. They stab, maul, batter, and smash their foes and victims with whatever they have on hand--glass, kitchen gadgets, paving slabs, the occasional car--which means they may have lower rates of specific "gun crime" and "knife crime" but just as much "violent crime" as anyone anywhere else.
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I'm trying to make an effective sign to put on my letterbox (hole in the door, not mailbox) that will actually cause leafleters, menu distributors, charity bag shovers, "charity" bag shovers, and all the other garbage pushers actually stop, notice, and not put crap through my door that I slip on and hurt myself when I come home. "Royal Mail Only, all others use side door" (we don't have a side door) seems insulting enough that I might actually get even more junk on the floor. "NO" is a bit too blunt and may put off the postman. "If It Doesn't Have My Name On It, It Doesn't Go Here" is too wordy, and I'm sure leafleters are in too much of a hurry, are too illiterate, or are too arrogant to heed it. I've tripped slipped, and skidded on junk mail so much I'm getting the pelvis of a 90 year old woman.
That's the thing--if it was a mailbox I probably wouldn't care so much. But they don't do that here. The "letterbox" is a 1"x6" window into your house. Every time someone rattles the gate and shoves his "People are Starving in Africa--won't you give us your old clothes?" packet through the flap I feel a little more violated.
The problem is, menu-stuffing kids aside (who are utterly heedless of people's requests), most people who cram unsolicited crap through the door seem to think they're doing a good deed. Raising awareness, and all that rot. This stuff doesn't come in the postman's bundle--people go around distributing garbage one at a time. I've come home to ten or twelve items of spam on my floor per day.
I feel they all need to be addressed separately, so as to ensure that everyone knows, pointedly, that their solicitation is not "the good kind."
"This newsletter from the Labour party will keep you informed as to what we're doing to improve your area." (Sign: Foreigner Lives Here. Cannot Vote. Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Did you know that 1/3 of all deaths are from cardiovascular related diseases? Your small donation will help us save the world!" (Sign: Student Lives Here. Broke. And "Old Age" Is Considered a Cardiovascular Disease. Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Your street's home prices are on the rise! Have you been thinking of selling? Our real estate agency would love to appraise your property!" (Sign: Renters. Owners Live Overseas. And Do the Words "Fixer-Upper" Mean Anything to You? Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Jesus Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus JEEEEEESUS (money) JESUS!" (Sign: We actually use Hellfire to power our boiler, and we stock it with this sort of pamphlet. You're just encouraging Satan's influence on this street. Have you no morals?)
"Please put your unwanted items in this bag and we'll ensure that they're collected and sold, at whatever price we deem valid, to whoever will buy, whether or not we're a registered charity." (Sign: I Have No More or Less Unwanted Stuff than Last Time I Tripped on One of These. Do You Think I Buy Shoes and Tire Of Them Weekly? You're A Moron And This Is Either a Profiteering Scheme or a Plain Scam. Fuck Off, Tripping Hazard Shover. If You Think You're Doing A Good Deed Working For This Company, Perhaps You Should Read Your Mission Statement.)
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2 comments:
It's not like glass stabbings never happen in the states.
I can't find any clear statistics for violent crime in a more general sense, American statistics on violent crime only record Agravated Assault and up (which appears to be roughly analguous to the charge of Assault with a Deadly Weapon in the UK) while the British statistics record all crime that involves violence, which oddly, includes verbal abuse.
The murder rate in London (2 per 100,000) is less than a third of New York's (6.3 per 100,000).
It's probably best not to think about Baltimore (35 per 100,000).
To avoid the slippage, you could adhere a basket or box to the inside of your door. I've seen this used effectively as a way to catch all the mail shoved through the hole in the door, and you can basically build anything. So do it! Catch it all in a bucket!
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