I do everything I can to improve my corner of the world.

There is a man on most streets who cuts the grass verge outside his house and, without ever discussing it, the two verges either side. Eleven years now. No committee asked him.

It rarely means giving up a job for a cause. Nearly always it means the verge either side - the ordinary thing within reach that sits slightly beyond what is strictly yours.

A corner improved is not measured by how much of it changed, but by whether the people living in it noticed any difference. On that street they would notice within a fortnight if he stopped.