Don't go to Exeter.

Well Exeter City council have fined nearly 1,000 smokers £100,000 in the last two years for throwing cigarette butts away. Apparently they spend £1m a year cleaning up after smokers. One can only assume it’s because butts are so hard to find. One man was fined for dropping a £10 note. Now technically is a £10 note litter? I mean if your newly purchased laptop happened to slip from your grasp on your way home would you expect to pay £75 for it hitting the pavement? I don’t think so. Or if your shoe fell off. “Excuse me sir I’m afraid I must give you an on the spot fine for that.” But it just slipped off! “ Yes but technically you left something belonging to you on the pavement and that constitutes a prima facia case of littering. You can take it to court but that will cost you (takes calculator out) a lot more.” You try to put your shoe back on. “Sorry sir that is now evidence, I have to keep it.” You protest that arriving at your imminent interview in one shoe won’t impress, and in an effort to grab it knock the guy over. He, bleeding, contacts the police who arrest you for GBH on an officer of the council with a likely sentence of 2 to 4 years. In court you explain your shoe just fell off but the prosecuting council suggested this must have been a flagrant act of provocation because shoes don’t just fall off, and might it not be that you were deliberately attempting to murder said official because of some mental health issue? After being interviewed by the psychiatric expert witness he confirms that view and you’re banged up in Rampton on attempted murder due to insanity. Just be grateful your trousers didn’t fall down, you’d be prosecuted for littering, indecent exposure and probably paedophilia if there was a kid nearby.