WIND turbines are not the answer to the problem of how to create green, pollution-free power in a world which is increasingly electricity hungry.

They are not the answer because of technical problems or because the wind doesn’t blow, but because wherever the wind generating companies want to put them, except Barrow-in-Furness, nobody wants them. As soon as a proposal is put forward everyone, literally, has a view. I have views myself on lots of things and I also once had a proper view from my house but that has long gone.

Sheep used to graze in the field at the bottom of our garden but now there is a garden at the bottom of our garden and the uninterrupted vista of Penrith Beacon has been replaced by a panorama of houses all looking just the same. Even the compulsory extensions (above existing garage to form extra living accommodation and bathroom) and all the conservatories are the same. But it was not “my” view. I had it for a while but I didn’t own it and so when other people wanted or needed to have what I had, a nice house and gardens to call their own, how could I justifiably object?

Wind turbine objectors are doing what they think is right and in countryside like ours they have the added argument that their objections are not just to protect their own aesthetic interests or the value of their properties but are for the preservation of our heritage and landscape. It is difficult, if not impossible, to disagree with them. But what do we do about rapidly dwindling stocks of fossil fuels and about the massive damage we are doing to our planet by continuing to burn that which we can still find?

The fact is that someone somewhere has to create power for the rest of us, but quite frankly my dear we don’t give a damn who and we don’t care where. While wind turbine objectors tap away at their keyboards writing letters, researching arguments and formulating petitions, the “midnight oil” they are burning had to be generated somewhere.

While we sit looking out over the best landscape in Christendom or, in my case, the best conservatories in Christendom, some other poor, pale skinned souls in South Yorkshire or the Midlands never see the sun because they live under the permanent clouds from the massive cooling towers which are their only view.

In other places, mothers worry about whether the power cables which hang above their garden are giving their children cancer. In our own county deadly waste created by nuclear power generation will still be about and active long after humanity has polluted itself into extinction.

It isn’t right or acceptable to stick giant windmills on the landscape just because it happens to be hilly or windy even when those two things do tend to go together. We must explore new ways of generating power because it seems that newly-emergent economic powers such as China and India won’t. Their argument seems to be that we in the West did terrible things to the environment with our industrial revolution so we shouldn’t complain now that it is their turn to do the same. Very strange point of view.

The unfortunate reality for us all is that if they continue to pollute the atmosphere at their currently accelerating rate then any insignificant reductions Britain can make by using things like wind power become fairly meaningless in the global context.

Using wind turbines might set some sort of example to these new economies but, to meet their huge demand, the Chinese would need so many windmills turning at one time that the whole planet would be in danger of taking off.

So, wind turbine objectors do have a view and, perhaps, they tend to be just like all other fair minded, middle-class home owners in that they are, generally, usually, often, almost always in fact, totally in favour of conservation and recycling and saving the planet — just so long as it doesn’t block their view!

EVEN if summer does make an appearance this year, summer fruits might not. Well, actually they will but maybe not in the shops. Apparently there won’t be enough pickers prepared to bend their backs in the noonday sun to pick our strawberries for us.

Even eastern Europeans, modern mainstay of the seasonal labour market and the pick of the pickers as far as the soft fruit industry is concerned, don’t want the job. Presumably they’ve moved on to bigger and better paid things.

This could prove to be a disaster for the fruit growers and a bit of a nuisance for those who don’t grow or at least don’t go and pick their own. Who’s going to fill the punnets which fill the shelves of the supermarkets and which are bought by those who live in cities and might be the only indicator for some of those poor souls deprived of greenery and fresh air that summer has actually arrived?

The answer is obvious. The dudes who wander about all day and every day (from about half past eleven in the morning when they roll out of their pits anyway) in tracksuits and white baseball caps (official government issue, benefit skivers for the use of) seemingly with nothing to do and not a care in the world could do it. It might do those idle young men a bit of good to earn their benefits for a change with a bit of hard graft over the summer months.

It wouldn’t do the rest of us any harm either during the present economic downturn to have our tax and national insurance burdens lightened a little.

The Government might even win back a teensy-weensy bit of our respect if it vacuumed up these perennial freeloaders (juvenile branch), whom it continually and laughably assures us can’t stay on the dole for more than a few months without losing their benefits, and put them to work.

Here is the ideal opportunity. Fruit farmers have the work, the economy has a desperate need to reduce the number of people who think they can live off the rest of us while contributing nothing and we have thousands of young men who have never struck a bat in their lives who need to learn that manual labour is not a Spanish footballer.

LONG story — reduced to 126 words. Thanks to Thomson Holidays selling me a holiday booking that didn’t exist I had to try to cancel or change flights with low cost airline (Ha, ha, ha) Jet2.

That airline doesn’t give refunds and if the flight you change to costs less (£120 in my case) it doesn’t matter. It still charges £100, plus costs, plus rebooking seats, plus card fees. Jet2 also fouled up the transaction so badly that my credit card company immediately cancelled the card because it looked like it was being used fraudulently.

The problem was that the business was done over the phone to the Jet2 call centre in India where, as it assures customers on its website, “English” is spoken. It is — but not like how I speak it.