‘I celebrate myself, and sing myself,’ wrote Walt Whitman in his rhapsodic celebration of freedom, Leaves of Grass. ‘And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.// I loafe and invite my soul,/ I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.’

Dog walkers have complained of being asked to provide evidence of having poo-bags about their person

A century and a half later Roy Marsh, 86, was leaning and loafing at his ease by a boating lake in Skegness when he, too, interacted with a spear of grass. This spear of grass was blown into the poor fellow’s mouth by a gust of wind. Mr Marsh did what everyone would do in the circumstances, which is to say: ‘Ptth’ – not quite a barbaric yawp, but it will have to do until one comes along – and spit it out.

At once, the forces of law and order pounced. A pair of environmental enforcement officers from East Lindsey District Council, in his account of the events, appeared as if from nowhere (they had been skulking, I fancy, in such sedge as had not yet withered from the lake) and said: ‘Can I have a word?’ He was told, some will think a little pompously, that these officers ‘had reason to believe he had been spitting’, and was immediately slapped with a £250 fine.

This raises a host of chewy philosophical questions, and the odd practical one. The main practical........

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