We have much to be grateful for, living in an age of efficient, labour-saving technology – as Bellevue residents can well attest.
On Saturday afternoon, a mechanised Council mini-sweeper achieved in minutes what would have taken a keen worker with shovel and handcart hours: the neat, linear distribution on local pavements of mud, sticks, litter and compacted dog turds, with a parallel dribble of water (see below).
The Melgund Terrace resident who witnessed this feat yesterday was convinced that materials were being added to the pavements rather than simply picked up and rearranged.
Now, if only someone would invent a machine to soften and spit out gobbets of chewing gum, we should really be making progress.
In the meantime, we refer readers to this slightly irrelevant but fascinating wikipedia article on 19th-century crossing sweepers.
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