So Bill Bryson has become the head of the Council for Protection for Rural England, and his first target is people who litter the countryside.
Let's hope he has more luck shaming these losers than he did when he wrote about Liverpool enjoying a 'festival of litter' in his Notes From a Small Island.
Because that public pillorying - and the subsequent G-litter festival - failed to stop the fag butt droppers, gum chewers, fast food fatties and the rest dumping their detritus all over the city.
I know I keep banging on about it, but it is so depressing.
My street is a case in point. I spend most days picking up bits of paper, crisp bags, plastic bottles and the like which end up clumped against my front step.
And it is ten times worse on the main road.
I have no idea what the answer is because front up to these litter droppers on the street and you get an earful of abuse, or worse. Fine them and they whinge, martyr-like, about human rights. Clean up after them and you let them think it's perfectly all right to foul our city's streets.
Bill Bryson's answer is 'kill them'.
But before you pop round to your friendly neighbourhood 'gangster' to borrow a gun, bear in mind - BILL WAS JOKING.
Anyway, if anyone has a definitive solution to the problem, please let me know.
