The Street Cleaner He is not a lucky man, but he is happy but one day he won on a lottery ticket, not a not a big sum of money but enough to by wheelbarrow got permission from the local council to keep the town's streets clean. Happy, telling himself he was self- employed and could sleep till nine in the morn if he wanted to. A busy bee a busy bee he was till he collided with Mercedes was taken to court and his wheelbarrow was confiscated to pay for the damage. He had a bike and got a local garage to put a two- wheel contraption to fasten to his bike, the town got rid of its trash again until an officious policeman asked him if he had a licence for this he didn't and it was confiscated. Now he had a jute sack slung on his proud shoulders and a walking stick with a nail attached, a weapon a police officer said he was carrying a weapon in public and he was prosecuted. He didn't show up to the hearing and when the law came around, he hung from a rafter sometimes even serious optimists give up and with no cleaner the town sank into misery, plagued by vermin the population fled, a town given into paper napkins pizza boxes and burger wrappers and the poor who had nowhere to go. And if this reflects the life of a typical inner city of our English speaking world it is purely incidental.