THE electoral form for completion came round again, and with it some lengthy instructions regarding 'registers'. I read this through twice, and then thought that when I filled my form in I'd just read it again and decide what it was all about. I don't think I'm any 'thicker' than anyone else in understanding instructions, but for some reason, I was not the only one who had several goes at it before arriving at a decision. I had the feeling that all those words could have been condensed into a few straightforward instructions occupying a third of the space. The Plain English Campaign crossed my mind. On scanning the back of the document I found that it already was 'plain English' and approved by that society. Ah well. Seems to me there's plain English and plain English.

The foxhunting saga remains with us at the time I write this, which caused me to look at some practices which still continue in this 'enlightened' world, which have nothing to do with foxhunting I might add.

In Santa Catarina, a Brazilian state, Holy Week is a time for violence and torture which involves chasing an ox through the streets and tormenting it, sometimes for days, before finally slaughtering it. It was legally banned in 1977, the Catarina government has not fully complied with the ruling, claiming that it is a cultural tradition.

In Texas and Oklahoma, they carry out snake torturing, when snakes are left unfed and watered for months until festivities begin. These include dismembering live snakes, dowsing them with petrol and lighting them, suturing their jaws and being photographed with them as scarves, and the finale, in which the children join in, is seeing who can behead most in a given time, after which the still-living heads are set up and teased.

The ritual slaughter of animals for food is also a barbaric practice in our midst. A slaughter-man tells he has seen animals still trying to get up, a minute after their throat was cut. The slaughterers often have blunt knives and have to saw at the animal's throat, and a sheep, placed on a cradle, would be available for family members, including children, to cut at its throat. These are religious practices which take place in this country, I understand, and it makes me wonder how people as they are eating its flesh can dismiss the kind of death an animal goes through.

Local reporter Liz Todd told me some weeks ago that she was going to Launceston (Cornwall) and would take a look at the cliff lift which Scarborough council donated to that town some years ago. Just a pile of girders, etc, she told me. But it is understood that a scheme costing almost £2m, which will include the re-erection of this cliff lift, is getting under way and so the lift, which some of you, as children, most likely had your two-pennoth from the sea front up to town, will eventually have a new lease of life.

Another lovely bike ride along Ryton Lane this week - my favourite ride nowadays, with the necessity to avoid hills. It's a triangular route from which you can turn round at any time, or go right round via Habton and is just so handy by being 'on the doorstep' so to speak. The fields are changing colour from gold to brown earth again, and I often think I like the autumn, and its colours, better than spring. Needless to say, spring will soon be looked forward to once again.

That was the good bit, for as I said last week, on each of the last three rides, one of us collected a puncture, due to thorns left on the road. This week was no exception, and a rear wheel flat put a damper on a nice day. I understand that these high-speed hedge cutters can be fitted with blowers to direct the cuttings straight down to earth, and this should be mandatory now. One man's profit should not be at the expense of someone else. Which includes the mess the streets are in, with straw. High-speed, uncovered bales go flashing by, leaving a trail of straw behind them, blocking up road gullies, and covering folk's gardens and lawns, which they then have to clean up. Sheeting down would be an answer and, like the thorns, we're back once again to consideration for other folk. Or lack of it!

Some good letters in the Gazette & Herald this week. One on the subject of broadband (whatever that might be) caught my eye - all in the language of today. As a nation, we seem to be losing the use of limbs and taking to a chair, gazing at a screen and pressing buttons. How sport changes, and so must the people with it!

Portuguese proverb: "Visits always give pleasure - if not the arrival, the departure".

Updated: 10:17 Wednesday, September 25, 2002