The world from my window

Oh my. Dorset is going to be bathed in swathes of light. The spotlight is literally turning on Hardy's Dorset, rural Dorset, that bucolic bubble of beauty, my enchanted village and villages everywhere. Those nice people at Dorset County Council are going to improve our street lighting. Rural Dorset, embrace your inner urban child. The street lights roadshow is coming to town...and villages and hamlets to a street, lane or cul-de-sac near you. Here's a leaflet about it: Is that Canary Wharf I see in the distance? Or is it Hong Kong? It isn't Lush Places, that's for sure. Our dear Lush Places, with its village pump, the green, the red phone box and historic buildings all around. But it could be soon, believe me it. It could be lots of lovely places all over this hidden gem of a county. Those quiet, secret corners of Dorset suddenly exposed for all to see. Because the county council has entered into a private finance initiative (PFI) pact - not with the de...

Colour prejudice isn't something we usually tolerate in The Enchanted Village. The occasional odd remark in Compost Corner might sometimes go unchallenged in the pub. But more often than not the speaker will get the cold shoulder or be left out of the next round of drinks. We’re used to seeing all sorts of people in the square, after Ding Dong Daddy, a purveyor of world music, moved here. In the shop, waiting at the bus stop or going for a walk up Bluebell Hill. Men in turbans and women in saris, children with dreadlocks. It’s all part and parcel of our global village. But The Enchanted Village is beginning to see red. And it’s all to do with the traffic calming scheme, still unfinished after two years. The road has been narrowed and the speed bumps are in, with street lights more like the aliens in War of the Worlds than the lamp posts marking the entrance to Narnia. When the county council threw the light switch, it was as if Dr Frankenstein had breathed life into his monster. Th...