The hills are alive – with the sound of stupid

Not pictured - dicks is trainers and jeans with lightweight jackets.

Contrary to what some arrogant people seem to think, just because you’re outside doesn’t mean you are free of rules as well as walls.

An abundance of Lycra or some very expensive branded walking gear doesn’t grant you automatic transcendence from the need to use common sense. You obviously think you look like a professional athlete in your figure-hugging kit, or rapidly-wicking microfibre £120 T-shirt – so why not act like one, and stop thinking the rules don’t apply to you because you’re above that sort of thing?

There seems to be a depressing modern attitude of selfishness and a casual disregard for measures put in place to protect you – yes you, you expensive outdoor-gear-wearing clothes-horse – and other people.

It manifests itself in a variety of ways. In the space of a couple of weeks, I’ve seen impatient idiots in expensive 4x4s put two wheels onto pavements to get past a car turning off a road – even though the ‘wait’ would have been no more than a couple of seconds. Thanks for damaging the pavement and turning grassy verges into muddy trenches.

I’ve read – as I do every year – the sad stories of lambs being savaged by dogs, whose shocked owners always come up with some excuse like “He’s never done anything like that before – he’s normally such a good boy! It’s soooo out of character!” How about you don’t wait to see if your slightly-domesticated wild animal is good with a small fleeing creature, and just keep it on a lead in areas where there are sheep and lambs… like you’re meant to.

And an annual shout out to all those ridiculously underprepared berks who decide it might be nice to venture up a mountain in trainers and jeans in the snow. Or not bother to check the weather forecast. Or presume they don’t need a map because they have an iPhone. Mountain Rescue teams love wasting their time fishing you lost muppets off hills at dusk.

Even recent attempts to clear up after storms in the Lakes are being held up by people taking a stroll, pedalling their bikes, or tootling along in their cars – after ignoring signs telling then to keep out, and even moving protective fences.

The works, at Thirlmere reservoir, are to clear hundreds of fallen trees and deal with unstable ground above a road, following the area’s battering by the “Beast from the East” earlier in the year. Every time some more morons blunder into the area, the work has to stop due to the risk of debris and rocks falling onto them.

Maybe it’s time we allowed Natural Selection to take it’s course. Sheep-worrying dogs just get shot. Unprepared mountain-clambering numpties are left to fend for themselves. The folks who choose to ignore signage telling them not to use a route face the consequences.

As for the impatient and arrogant 4x4 owners – the Mountain Rescue teams, farmers, workers and a herd of angry ewes all get to spend quality time at your house… and they’re not taking their muddy gear off first.

This post first appeared as the lead piece in my column/page in The Mail and the News & Star, on the 13th of April 2018. It was re-titled as "The hills are alive - with the sound of outdoor numpties", and was accompanied by a photo of a 4X4 driving down a track.

I wrote this one in the kitchen of a holiday cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. I'd had a drink, and was stressed about my impending house move. I'd watched a 4x4 impatiently drive up a kerb to get around someone who was turning off the road earlier in the day, and witnessed people with dogs not on leads amongst fields full of young lambs whilst out for a walk. I then read about the idiots at Thirlmere and - boom! One large rant emptied itself onto my laptop screen.

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