Knock knock

Almost two years ago the local newspaper ran a story about how they were going to clean up graffiti in the town. To illustrate the problem, there was a photograph of a policeman standing in a rear-access alleyway, outside a garage door that was covered in the stuff. Not the art of vandal-cum-artist Banksy, but the pointless scrawling of what I believe are called "tags".

Yes, you guessed it, the garage door in question was mine.

After a year had passed I considered writing a letter to the same paper, asking why my garage door was still the same mess it had always been, but never got around to it.

Come to think of it, some time before that article was published, I actually had a visit from a couple of officers who said they had caught one of the aerosol-armed yobs who had defaced my garage door and needed me to sign to the effect that I had not allowed him to do this. I had presumed - naively - that he would be made to clear up his mess, but as we all know crime has no punishment these days and his scrawl remained.

However, last night the doorbell rang whilst we were bathing Joe. I went downstairs and opened the door to discover one of those pretend policeman standing there. You know, those Community Support Officers that can't actually save drowning children because they haven't been trained, so rather just stand and watch them die. Anyway, this officer (quite a pleasant chap, in fairness) said that they needed me to sign a permission form for them (well, the council) to clean the graffiti off of my garage door. And what's more, it'll be done every year, should it need doing (We'll see if that holds true).

Amazing. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, but turn they do.

The more fun game will be counting how many days it is before somebody spots the blank canvas and decides they have the right to vandalise my property again.