OPEN GARDENS CLOSED MINDS

Well, at least they had a nice day for it.

A short while ago, simple little posters started appearing around our local villages. They advertised what might be thought of as a quintessentially English, rural, summertime pleasure: the opportunity to visit and explore some of the more adorable gardens in the area last Sunday.

Only if you looked VERY closely at these rather old-fashioned posters might you have noticed that all proceeds from this event were to go to the anti-windfarm protest group, Vale Villagers Against Scottish Power (VVASP).

As stated in one of the earlier postings on this blog, VVASP need to raise money. A lot of money. Good barristers don't come cheap, and if the anti-windfarm numpties are to hold up the planning process until - what, the cows come home? Someone discovers free energy? - they're going to need oodles of cash just to waste a large amount of time.

So events like the charmingly quaint 'Open Gardens' day are really just there to take money from people and put it towards a nonsensical and foolish delaying tactic.

I wonder how many people who went for a wander round somebody or other's garden realised that they had been lured into a political fundraiser.

Sadly, where the village of Church Lench is concerned, pretty well EVERYTHING has been taken over by the dull supporters of VVASP. It started, more or less, with the parish council. The shrieking plebs of VVASP caused so much trouble that the original parish council resigned en masse, allowing the bloody-minded nimbies to commandeer the parish council (they tried to do the same thing in Norton & Lenchwick, but even physical violence wouldn't work there).

Since then, barely any committee in Church Lench hasn't been the victim of a VVASP takeover. So now, any event in the village - fun runs, entertainments, annual occasions - is, in effect, a VVASP political rally. It's an (unofficial) fundraiser for a cause supported by braindead climate change deniers and self-centred 'I don't want a turbine where I might catch a glimpse of it' morons.

No wonder that some of the more sober residents of the relevant villages are sick of the VVASP and its despicable tactics. Nor that thoughtful individuals are beginning to think seriously about moving away. It's not the windfarm they're against - it's what they've discovered about their arrogant, aggressive, intolerant neighbours which has made them so unhappy about staying.

Not so long ago, these villages were genuinely friendly communities with a rich social life. Now, they're hate-filled, single-minded and obsessed with the phantoms they themselves have created. They've lied so much about the impact of wind turbines that they've started believing their own lies. The unscrupulous ring-leaders of the VVASP bullshit-machine have taken over pretty well every aspect of communal life in the villages.

Showing a total lack of persective, the VVASP has banged on and on about the proposed windfarm affecting the residents' quality of life and killing the Vale countryside. Both claims are ludicrous and intentionally misleading. It is the VVASP which is ruining the quality of life of the more balanced and intelligent villagers. And it is VVASP which is 'killing' the countryside, both by misrepresenting what the countryside actually is and in driving out anyone with a brain cell and an awareness of global issues.

Village life as we used to know it has finished. It's dead, killed by crazies who can't figure out a few basic facts, by liars who put their own narrow interests ahead of everything else, and by the kind of person who will invite you to have a look at their garden and then sting you for a contribution to an immoral and unjustifiable political campaign.

Bring on the turbines! They can't do anywhere near as much damage to the local area as VVASP have already done.