Any Scrap Metaaal - A Lament

I was woken up today (and when I say today, I really mean today in my personal time zone, an amorphous mass of time which is liable to change at a moment's notice. Its inhabitants are deranged in commensurate measure) by something quite bizarre. Bizarre when compared with convention, that is, for I never have encountered such a thing before. I knew it existed, but I had not anticipated it taking quite this form.

Asleep at some indeterminate hour, though it was probably mid-afternoon so I have little right to complain, a horrendous noise came hurtling down the street beside my house. 'Scrap metaaaaal, any scrap metaaaaaaaal,' was the pollution which gainsaid my double-glazed windows and kicked me in the face. I very naively assumed I could leave my window ajar without being solicited to engage in some sort of shady metal exchange. This assumption, I was forced to concede, was overly wishful.

I did not bother to open my curtains and examine this passing cacophony, because I was only semi-conscious and, besides, I did not wish to suggest interest. Instead I made another assumption, this time that some sort of van was driving along the streets, and a man with a megaphone was blasting his importunate and frankly unenjoyable pronouncements through every unwitting window he could find. Being so remiss in my duty of inspection, it may well be the case that a colossal snail was tearing its way through the tarmac like a cruise liner ploughing through a landfill site, searching desperately for scrap metal with which it might slake its slimy appetite. If this is the case then I am merely grateful that my possessions were not consumed in the endeavour, but I fear it is the van which supplants the snail in reality. A metaphor for all conservationists to gather round.

The tone of this beseechment was particularly interesting. It took an almost parabolic progression, beginning slowly and stably and tailing off to absolute madness. 'Scrap metaaaal, anyuh scurrap metaaaayayayayl.' It was as if embellishment was necessary in order to attract business, which would not be untrue. I can imagine this stratagem being hugely effective. 'Can you hear that, dear? It sounds to me like an unorthodox speech pattern. Let's flog the toaster.'

The shouting man also decided to occasionally add in: 'Gold, silver, iron, anything,' as if people are sat in their living rooms, scratching at the wallpaper to lick the damp walls, bemoaning their excess scrap gold. 'Whatever shall we do with this gold crisp wrapper?' 'Well, it's scrap, isn't it. Belongs in the bin.' The words scrap metal and gold are as incompatible as fine dining and Little Chef (I was pleased to read that Little Chef has been sold to an overseas buyer. Unfortunately they will not be exporting the restaurants out of the country.) Personally, I have just had to move four scrap ingots of gold to find somewhere to place my laptop. We keep the scrap Fabergé eggs in the loft.

I only wish I had gazed out of my window, onto the beast. Where was this scrap metal being stored? Was it being placed neatly away in an almost librarian fashion? Was it being sniffed by a bespectacled man and placed pruriently beneath the driver's seat? Or was it perhaps being pinioned to the vehicle, in a seeming emulation of the assassin bug? Alas, I ask questions which I cannot answer. My philosophy is too great for my analytic faculties. There is no empirical evidence to pore over, and I can only assume the most likely reality to be true - a giant snail was indeed eating each article in succession.

And so now I come to the serious part of this post. I had intended for this to be perhaps a paragraph or two, but give me an infinitely extending box in which to place text and you will regret your generosity. The serious point is that I think this whole occurrence is reflective of the current desperation of this country. Never before have I been entreated to engage in the sale of metallic bibelots, and this is probably because I have spent most of my life in a country with a prospering economy. Well, no longer is this the case, and this is where the goblin trinket-hoarders enter. The whole experience reminded me of some post-apocalyptic movie, and I now have a fair idea of what the next total war might be like - government vehicles humming through the streets, emitting strange orders such as: 'Place all non-regulation appliances in the hold immediately. Hey, you, we can see that typewriter. Oi, look at that one there, making a run for it with a steel dumpling steamer! Shoot him!' This is the generation in which we can proudly declare that the ice cream van, symbol of prosperity, has been replaced by these steel cages filled with family possessions. Scrap family possessions, the forbidding man might say. All scrap.