I dreamed that my broken mop was borne aloft unto the dustcart of Lambeth environmental services

Clearly, I am going to have to report my broken mop handle to the authorities. It has been sitting outside my house for seven weeks now and the binmen have made clear their intention never to touch it.

I understand there is such a thing as bulky waste. But truly, the mop handle minus its mop head with its business end broken so it cannot be reattached to another mop head refill is not at all bulky. It’s just a broken mop handle.

I put it out with my wheelie bin in the hope that common sense might prevail. Naively, idealistically, I thought the binmen, or whatever they prefer to be called nowadays — refuse disposal technicians, waste and recycling coordinators — might take pity on me.

Hell, I would go so far as to say I had a dream. A dream in which all this madness came to an end. Madness about placing wheelie bins at right angles to the curb, in a position so as not to impede passers-by, and not before 8 p.m. on the night before the appointed day of collection, nor later than 7 a.m. on said appointed day.

Madness about checking what is inside the bin to avoid strict censures precluding emptying if a passing hoodlum has tossed a Coke can in there.

Madness about little brown mini-bins by the side of the big black bins, into which law-abiding citizens have diligently poured the leftover food from their plates all week, so that it has rotted all week, and been strewn about on the street all week, by foxes.

Madness about huge see-through plastic bags, mountains of them, piled up in the streets, ready for collection. And in each huge plastic bag, more plastic bags, and other plastic items.