I WASN’T lonely as a cloud – the dog was with me – but I did have a William Wordsworth moment as I was wandering through the park on Monday.

For “all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils”.

Trouble was, they’d been decapitated.

Some moron had trashed the whole clump of them and appeared to have taken some care in doing so, not trampling them down willy-nilly but picking the heads off the stalks and leaving them lying on the grass. What a sad sight.

And how easy it is for one individual to destroy something that could give pleasure to so many.

We moved on towards The Close, where some people have been so preoccupied with text messaging that they haven’t even noticed Sophie Ryder’s massive sculpture The Kiss until they’ve clonked their heads on it.

Hope it knocked some sense in.

There are foreign cities where ‘text walking lanes’ have been installed on pavements in acknowledgement of the risks inherent in a head-down, scroll-as-you-stroll approach to life.

A recent US study found that “distracted walking injuries,” as they’re rather wonderfully termed, are rising fast, especially among the young.

Perhaps, rather than moving this stunning (in both senses!) work of art, which was designed so people would walk through and interact with it, the Close authorities should have left it alone to deliver a sharp lesson to the zombies who can’t raise their eyes for long enough to see when there’s something really inspiring right in front of them.

But the march towards a world where everything’s viewed through a screen seems relentless.

Next, we’re to have newspaperless libraries.

Ceasing to stock printed versions of our local and national press is expected to save the impoverished Wiltshire Council £10,000 a year across the county.

A spokesperson waffled that papers can still “be accessed free online from a link in the online resources section of our library webpages”.

Try telling that to your grandmother.

Web-first has been the way of the world for journalists for some years now. It’s how the younger generation ‘consumes’ news, and I accept that. But I’m sad that the habit of settling down in a comfy chair and enjoying a leisurely, thoughtful read is disappearing.

It just isn’t the same following a cursor up and down a screen. It’s much harder to take things in properly, and in depth.

I’m entitled to this opinion because I spent years trying to make sense of umpteen-page reports on the Wiltshire Council website for the benefit of Journal readers.

Grumpy? Moi?

anneriddle36@gmail.com