Vandals

I mentioned strange activity on the Common on 27th July, and today, on the scenic route to the 'Cricketers', we came across it again. BH worked hard to demonstrate that it was not the forces of evil, rather the forces of good. That the council had changed its mind about the designation of this particular path. That the path had been closed to horses for the winter. And so on. But I was unconvinced, holding to the belief in the forces of evil, or at least of those of nocturnal vandals.

But it is all a bit odd. The cuts are very neat, more the work of a circular saw than a chain saw - so next time I must take a closer look at the teeth marks on the faces of the cuts. That aside, I can't see this sort of cut, in this sort of number (a lot of signs in the vicinity of the small stew pond have been attacked in the same way), being made by a handsaw (see Hamlet, Act II, Scene II) and that being so, what kind of a vandal would bother to take any kind of a mechanical saw out with him on his revels? Or her revels. How would he pack both saw and tinnies into the one hold-all?

Or is it a political rather than a common-or-garden vandal, someone who does not care for the Common Management Policy and finds it easier to protest with a chain saw than to turn up at tedious meetings? Someone who does not understand that responding to something thought to be bad with something that is bad is a dangerous path, which can very soon degenerate from bad to worse. Something which those who disrupt diurnal fox hunts and nocturnal badger hunts don't seem to understand at all.

PS: surely they are not just pinching the stuff to make kindling from it? It looks to have a straight grain and would probably make very good kindling, but there are easier, legal ways to go about it.