Resorting to crime
Sir: I am a recent convert to your magazine. So complete has been my conversion that I obstruct railways to obtain a copy.
Few outlets stock The Spectator in Not- tingham. The nearest one to me is W.H. Smith in the station. On 14 July, I dropped in to pick one up.
Unfortunately, 14 July was a rail strike day, and W.H. Smith hadn't got any. More unfor- tunately, in the half minute it took me to dis- cover this, I had unwittingly left my car where it should never have been. And unfor- tunately again, the only person in the station, besides myself and a lonely-looking taxi driv- er, worked for British Transport Police.
I received my summons for leaving my car 'upon the railway in such a manner as to cause obstruction to other persons using the railway, contrary to Bye-Law Number 25(1)(a) of the British Railways Board Bye- Laws 1965' last week. Instantaneously, I was turned from someone who considered the police to be a group of people who, for the most part, did a difficult job fairly satis- factorily to someone who wouldn't co-oper- ate with the smug little bastards if I could possibly help it.
Come 30 October, I will have my first criminal conviction. Is this the most some- one has paid for a copy of The Spectator they didn't obtain? I now pay my newsagent to deliver it.
Nick Armstrong
Terrace House, Park Ravine, The Park, Nottingham
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