Letters - March 17, 2016

I have discovered if you engage with these pests, by whichever method (they contacted you) and pretend you really want solar panels or have been mis-sold PPI etc, you can have an awful lot of fun at their expense.

The trick is, make an appointment for them to call you back at a time that suits you.

Once that prearranged call arrives, pretend you are slightly deaf or do not quite understand what they are offering/selling. After they have repeated themselves three or four times, ask a lot of pointless questions (obviously, never divulge your financial details). Then, simply tell them you’re not interested.

You, for once, will have wasted their time, no commission for the pest. You will be “listed” as a timewaster, but guess what... I bet the nuisance calls will stop.

Try it, and “fight” back!!

Shaun Taylor

Hornsey Avenue

St Annes

COMMUNICATION

Excuse me, I just need to find a pen

I am writing in reply to the letter from Bruce MacLennan regarding nuisance phone calls (Your Say, March 14).

Whenever I get a phone call from someone like that, I ask them to hang on till I get a pen. Then I just leave the phone and carry on with whatever I was doing. They very rarely call back after they have been forced to wait for a long time.

Alun Jones

Argosy Avenue

Blackpool

COMMUNICATION

Nuisance callers are invasion of privacy

In reply to Bruce MacLennan’s letter, we have always been ex-directory, but still these unwanted callers still ring me up.

They are not only a nuisance, but I think an invasion of my privacy. I will be adopting this system of Bruce MacLennan. Everyone will do well adopting this as well.

Raymond Squires-Riley

via email

ENVIRONMENT

We all need to pick up litter on roads

I am writing to you about an issue that I’m sure your aware of.

As I make my way around on my bicycle, my road is lined with an almost constant ribbon of rubbish. Plastic bags, bottles, food containers, drink cans, furniture, mattresses, piles of builders waste, treated wood, tyres, asbestos, toilet paper; basically almost anything you can imagine. It looks disgusting, it threatens our wonderful ecology, and worst of all, if it is not picked up, natural processes will bury it underground, where it will remain for thousands of years.

Sadly despite the efforts of NGO’s, litter picking groups and concerned individuals, this is a battle which is being lost. Collectively they simply cannot counter the outpour, and the response from councils is generally marginal.

I’ve created a petition for the creation of a National Litter Clean-Up Scheme. A simple and cheap solution, it reads as follows:

For the creation of a nationwide, government-run, voluntary Litter Clean-Up Scheme, where publicly funded bodies are made responsible for planning, organising and implementing litter pick-ups. The pick-ups would utilise volunteers and would be organised and controlled by the authority responsible for the area being cleaned.

If you care for what you’ve just read then please take a few minutes to sign the petition, and please spread the word by any possible means; social media, magazines, word of mouth, pigeons... This is the only way it will work.

You’ll find the petition at the following site – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/118853. It only takes a few minutes and there’s no need to register.

If we truly value the beauty of where we live then we must be proactive, get out there and clean up this mess, and in doing so not only set an example to each other, but encourage the consideration that our planet so desperately needs.

Alex Thomson

via email

SPORT

A poem in the spirit of George Formby

Oh Mr. Oyston what shall we do ?

I wanted to go to the Championship

And not Division two.

Belokon will sort it out

and to the fans be true

Oh Mr Oyston we know what you should do.

All together now..

George Holden

Highcroft Ave

POLITICS

Cameron is in for a fearful drubbing

Personally, I fear David Cameron neither has the character nor the calibre to persuade those intent upon leaving the EU to change their minds.

Negative input from overseas won’t help him either, it being already obvious that the UK will leave Europe and Cameron and his crew can do absolutely nothing to stop it.

Times they are a changing and David Cameron appears not to have noticed. Politics is losing its clout, politicians their credibility and we are drifting on a sea of wide-spread indecision and confusion and the longer we drift the longer our enemies profit. So captions such as the following may be expected in the near future: Britain votes to leave the European Union, America locks America in America, Donald Trump poses for Mount Rushmore... sorry, but I fear David Cameron is in for a drubbing.

Joseph G Dawson

via email