Fly Tipping (and NHS)

We (and by that I mean mostly Mary) have been cleaning out a lot of junk that has accumulated here over the years. I'm told every incoming director does this, and that by the next year, more junk has accumulated for the next person to get rid of. In any case, we had a very old, beat-up chest of drawers in the office that was in very bad shape and mostly just taking up space in a small room. So we did what we would have done in the U.S. and carried it out to the curb.

The neighbors came to our door a few hours later -- somewhat upset and embarrassed to have to say something, but after all, we're Americans and need to understand these things. It seems that we may have been guilty of "fly tipping." This was a totally unfamiliar Britishism. It apparently comes from the idea of tipping something off of one's truck while flying down the highway, thus having it land in the ditch for someone else to dispose of.

Fly tipping is frowned upon in the UK (to put it mildly). The fine can be as high as £50,000 (roughly $85,000)! The City Council (one always refers to the city/county government as "the council") will come pick it up next week (for free). Meanwhile, it stays in the back, well away from the curb. We wouldn't want to be guilty of fly tipping.

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[WARNING: Political Rant Alert!] We had our first encounter yesterday with the National Healthcare System (NHS) in Britain. Nothing to worry about, we're OK! Mary cut her hand and needed a few stitches is all. But those who rail on about the evils of "Obamacare" really ought to come try this. The hospital ER was very much like in the U.S., except faster and more efficient. The biggest difference in the system is that doctors and other providers receive a salary for doing their job, which gives them incentive to keep people well (thus less work for the doctor) as opposed to sick (which means more revenue, in the American system). The other difference is that the army of people we pay to process (or challenge) insurance claims has been eliminated, so the savings there are huge. We got good care quickly by friendly people who were more interested in caring for their patients than in filling out forms. I'm sure this system isn't perfect, but neither is it the horror show some in the U.S. make it out to be. It's what "Obamacare" should have been, if the politicians weren't in the pockets of the insurance companies. [End of Political Rant.]