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Mike Power sparked my interest yesterday with a piece titled Spitting Image in which he recounted a confrontation with a young black man who was walking along in front of him and periodically spitting on the pavement. The piece went on to explain why spitting was actually against the law at one time in the UK – and perhaps why it still should be.
It took my interest because it is one of my own personal hates. I live beside a city that has a large Indian population and, as is noted here:
Spitting in India is a universal phenomenon. In virtually every locality, at almost every corner, someone is spitting at any given time. There are very few public places, where evidence of spittle, especially red “paan-juice” is absent. It would therefore be safe enough to say that this one act of volition, which the majority of Indians participate in most of the time, has elevated spitting to the level of a national sport or past-time.
The problem, of course, is that Peterborough is not Bombay and spitting – with the possible exception of the brief era of Punk – is not a part of our culture. There are pavements in the city where you have to tread warily, covered as they are, in spit virtually all the time.
But almost as bad, and most definitely not a product of our immigrant population, is the chewing gum. I’m obviously naive as I honestly thought for a long time that all the white dots on the paving slabs were intended to be bizarrely decorative in some misguided way. But of course, the truth is that the pavements in the city are spotted – every square foot – with discarded chewing gum.
I’m not sure which is the most anti-social and selfish act – but at least the spit eventually gets washed away in the rain.
And, of course, spit doesn’t end up sticking to the bottom of your Doc Martins or your Clarks…eh?
This is true and at least that’s something. But to quote from Mikes item again:
I avoided mentioning any cultural factors although you are right to point them out. For some reason spitting has taken hold amongst young ‘indigenous’ men and is pretty widespread. Then again so is urinating, getting your t**s out and showing your ar**. As for chewing gum, why not just swallow it? Today I saw a practice even more revolting. Closing one nostril with a finger while blowing out the contents of the other onto the ground. This was in Union Street (the main drag) and the guy was a middle aged Scot! Yuck! I lived in Peterborough for several years and most of Sandra’s family still live there. I haven’t been back for years but Sandra gets there about twice a year. Is ‘The Still’ still going strong? Thanks for the link, BTW.
I assume your Scotsman with the nasal trick was wearing woad?
‘The Still’ remains but as far as I recall it’s had a name change, lost its garden (I believe) and is no longer worth a visit. Glad to see you escaped Peterborough. If you ever come back let me know and I’ll stand you a pint.
I’m not sure if you have the tv show “Dirty Jobs” where you are but they did an episode on the people who remove chewing gum for a living. I don’t remember how long it takes to degrade on it’s own but it’s a super long time, and there is only one specific solution which can remove it efficiently (although efficiently in this case means like 10 minutes per piece of gum).
There are times when I can get quite reactionary. I would very much like to see ‘gum litterers’ be penalised by having to do this cleanup – say 100 square yards or meters for evey offence. The problem, as with all of these sorts of offences, is catching them in the first place…