Railings

Do the council install railings in a pre-rusted condition because they have some sort of deal with the company that makes tetanus shots?

Railings. Back in the day when cheap labour was available to sand and paint the damn things every year, they probably seemed like a good idea. Stout enough to stop larger animals wandering from field to field, aesthetically pleasing (not spoiling the view and with a pleasing symmetry) and of course they can let smaller animals like rabbits, foxes and badgers wander from field to field.

These railings, in a park, have become part of the landscape. Plants grow up around them, the soil flows up them and the brown rust makes them look more vegetable than mineral.

One wonders if they would be the bovine crowd-control device of choice today. In these health and safety conscious times, one wonders if a rusty iron impaling device is quite the right thing to place in a public area. Not only that but you might as well label every ten feet with its scrap value. Luckily the bogglingly dangerous nature of the thing is probably preserving it from the attentions of even the most determined ‘recycler’.