Do you live in a small English town? If you do then you should really relate to this song. You might even know some of the people that feature in it...
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Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Rotten Boroughs - Wiltshire County Council
Picture this if you can...
In a Scout Hut in Wiltshire, an unpaid band of volunteers is holding a meeting. Reference is made to rumours in the NHS. The leader of the group, 70 year old Mrs. Anna Farquhar, says "You cannot help the jungle drums."
Up in the public gallery, a trouble making jungle bunny (offensive remark intended) shouts "You can't say that!" A bemused Mrs Farquhar thinks - quite correctly - she has said nothing wrong but being a polite old dear, she apologises anyway. The aforementioned junge bunny seems to be appeased and stops for tea and cakes after the meeting. No-one thinks any more about it, until...
Thump! 13 weeks after the meeting in the Scout hut — a ten-page report commissioned by Wiltshire County Council lands on Mrs Farquhar’s desk with the sinister sounding title 'Complaint Investigator’s Report'. The jungle bunny has made an official complaint!
‘The comment was inappropriate and caused offence' it says. Her colleagues had ‘failed to challenge’ her statement. There was a ‘clear lack of understanding of equality and diversity issues’ among the group. All this is, of course, total bollocks!
The bunny had been interviewed, of course, before the report was published. So, too, had members of other organisations that had dealings with Mrs Farquhar and her team. Scandalously, though, the only person who wasn’t interviewed was Mrs Farquhar herself or anyone on the 20-strong ‘steering committee’ who were present in the Scout hut. Except one, that is. And she was the one colleague who agreed with the bunny.
The story doesn't stop there and you can read more about it in the Daily Mail by clicking here.
What is clear in this case is that the Council wasted good taxpayers' money on a ridulous complaint which should, within the confines of the law, have been rejected out of hand on a test of 'reasonableness'. Because they failed to act appropriately, a decent woman has been caused unnecesaary stress and upset.
Frankly, if I were her, I would lodge an official complaint. This seems to work for everyone else!
No uprising here!
It ain't going to happen!
And I am going to tell you why...
The average Brit basically doesn't give a flying fuck. You can yell at him all you like, he'll just shrug and say "whatever" then he'll go down the pub for a good moan and a few beers with his mates. Or he'll go home, slob out in front of the tellie, sink a few beers and moan at his girlfriend.
Put up his taxes, he'll have a good whinge. Petrol at £1.50 a litre, short petrol protest maybe, then business as usual. Expenses scandal, good moan about MPs being a bunch of crooks. General election - can't be bothered to vote because they're all the same. Immigration? Bloody disgrace but so what! Europe? Crap but we're in now...
Let's face it - this ain't Tunis or Cairo. This is London, the whingeing capital of the world. Whatever happens here we just sit on our arses and moan, then forget all about it! About the only bloody thing that gets us worked up is the weather - the one thing we can actually do sod all about.
The only uprising there will be in this country is the one being planned by Milipede's union masters to bring down the government. And what will we do about the summer of discontent? Have a bloody good moan and then just get on with life.
If the world ever ends, the only thing the British will be worrying about is the effect it has on the football programme.
Britain is fucked - but who cares? Nobody!
Get real, Rowan...
Will no-one rid us of this turbulent priest?
I am well known for my views on organised religion and the Catholic Church in particular, but when I reviewed the patronising and out of touch remarks made the Archpisspot of Cunterbury in his Christmas sermon, then the words of Henry II just seemed to come echoing back to me!
So, in the interests of evening things up with the Kafliks, lets take a look at what the man in the teacloth had to say for himself :
"Faced with the hardship that quite clearly lies ahead for so many in the wake of financial crisis and public spending cuts, how far are we able to sustain a living sense of loyalty to each other, a real willingness to bear the load together?" Do what, Rowan? Exactly how much are you and your church contributing?
"We can and will as a society bear hardship if we are confident that it is being fairly shared." OK, Rowan, I'll give that one, but then you go on to say "...no interest group or pressure group is able to opt out" - well. apart from the Church of England that is.
"God, it seems, knows that whatever limitation and humiliation our human freedom lays on him, we cannot live without him; and he accepts everything for the sake of our well-being." So exactly what exactly is He doing for us - and incidentally Rowan I notice that on your website you have demoted the Allmighty to lower case 'he' which I would have thought was a little disrespectful? He is accepting what and doing what for us exactly? Please do tell, because I see no sign of it.
And please don't lecture me about how the rich need to contribute more than the poor. I have always maintained that incremental taxation already achieves this. If I earn £30,000 I pay 20% tax on it so why should I pay 40% if I earn £60,000? Why should I pay four times as much for earning twice as much. It is already grossly unfair and I don't need some guy who has a grace and favour palace in Lambeth and pays next to fuck all tax to lecture me on this subject!
And what about overseas, Rowan? Well "I remind you of our Zimbabwean friends, still suffering harassment, beatings and arrests, legal pressures and lockouts from their churches." Er, excuse me but I see you used the word 'legal' there. It's not up to you to tell other countries - or indeed our country - to go against what is legal.
And then to make it worse, you continue "Our prayers continue for Asia Bibi in Pakistan and others from minority groups who suffer from the abuse of the law." Seems you don't like the law very much do you?
How about Iraq? "It is a great grace that both Christians and Muslims in this country have joined in expressing their solidarity with this beleaguered minority." What you should be doing, Rowan, is keeping your nose out of other peoples' countries.
Henry II dealt harsely with a former Archbishop when he stuck his unwelcome nose into politics. I sincerely suggest that you need to stick to things spiritual and when I comes to politics, remember that it is not your place to comment...
Bastard!
bastard [ˈbɑːstəd ˈbæs-], noun
"a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate baby, child, or adult"
Straightforward stuff. Some bloke knocked up an unmarried woman. Legal consequences followed. The overseers for the poor of the parish hunted down the father and made him support the child. Often this involved putting considerable 'pressure' on the woman to reveal who he was. Stigma was attached to the dastardly deed.
Some of us might even be old enough to remember when women were bundled off by their parents to live with relatives far away while they had their bastard baby. After the birth it was unceremoniously adopted so the mother could return home with her reputation unblemished.
Now I'm not advocating that we should return to these draconian times, but I do think we should regard unwanted pregnancies in unmarried women as just a little more than a minor inconvenience.
OK, so it has become socially acceptable to not bother with even civil marriage. However, when you bring a child into the world it carries certain obligations. If you are working on the basis that marriage is not for you because you regard your relationship as transitory, then why are you having children?
Our new Labour (no pun intended!) party leader claims to escew family values and wants to support the family through the welfare system, and yet he has one bastard child already and is in the process of producing another.
Children are being born today with no hope of ever tracing their roots because either the mother doesn't know who the father is or because the father - as in Miliband's case - is so disinterested he doesn't even bother to get his name on the birth certificate.
If this is you, then you are a selfish bastard - in the other sense of the word...
Ambulance chasers
Answer : One is cold and slimey. The other is a fish.
For some time now I have deplored the continuing advance of the litigation culture in this country.
Nothing is ever my fault. If I fall over a paving stone, sue the council. If I drive my car into a ditch, sue the road repairers. You get the picture...
Lawyers hit an all time low in my estimation when they started chasing ambulances. Until today. Today a leaflet came through my door which is disturbing even by their standards.
Let's drum up some divorce business!
"Falling apart at the seams? Looking to end your relationship? Try our fixed fee divorce service!"
"Talk to one of our experts in confidence about our fixed fee divorce service. First appointment free."
"We will answer your queries on divorce, seperation, children, finances, cohabitee disputes, domestic violence, living together agreements, pre-nuptial agreements, changes of name and " - wait for it - "other related issues." - whatever they are...
Never mind marriage councelling. Never mind working at the relationship.
If you weren't thinking about divorce already, now's the time!
Aren't our police just wonderful?
But a search of the house turned up nothing unusual, and the owner climbed into his bed for the night after being assured there was no threat.
But a few minutes later, he was disturbed by a rustling noise underneath his bed. Switching on the light, he was rather surprised to find the burglar crawling out from under the bed. He pinned him down and the police returned to arrest him.
If the police can't even find a burglar hiding under the bed, perhaps this explains why it took them so long to pin down Raoul Moat?
Frying tonight...
It's an electrified third rail on the railway line. It's dangerous. It will kill you if you touch it.
And yet I've just been listening to some poor sod on the breakfast news bleating on about losing their daughter when she touched the third rail taking a short cut home.
This incidentally was not some small kid, but an adolescent teenager.
The mother apparently blames PS2 games where you get up again when you're killed for distorting kids' sense of real danger. She blames lack of authority for kids playing on railway lines. She blames lack of signage.
I am sorry for her loss, but she seems to be blaming everyone but herself. It's tragic, but at the end of the day, you have to take some responsibility for your kids upbringing yourself as well.
Still, look on the bright side. You can always sue Railtrack.
A sense of Community
Last Thursday night I attended a meeting of my local Community Association.
Around 9pm, I was walking home about ten yards behind two men and a woman who had attended the same meeting when, on the corner of my road, a young woman ran past crying and in considerable distress. She was pursued a few moments later by an obviously angry young man who grabbed her and was clearly about to assault her.
I was not about to allow this to happen in broad daylight so, from some yards away, I yelled at the man to stop what he was doing. He gave me a brief mouthful. I told him again to cool it and the situation calmed down.
So why am I telling you this? Am I trying to blow my own trumpet? No. Far from it.
I am not a young man and I was on my own. My neighbours who are known to me all turned a blind eye and walked away. Both these men are younger than me, one considerably so. But did they stop and help? No.
And what makes it worse is that these two so-called community minded individuals are both committee members of the aforementioned community association. I will not name them here, but they know who they are.
They should be ashamed of themselves.
Around 9pm, I was walking home about ten yards behind two men and a woman who had attended the same meeting when, on the corner of my road, a young woman ran past crying and in considerable distress. She was pursued a few moments later by an obviously angry young man who grabbed her and was clearly about to assault her.
I was not about to allow this to happen in broad daylight so, from some yards away, I yelled at the man to stop what he was doing. He gave me a brief mouthful. I told him again to cool it and the situation calmed down.
So why am I telling you this? Am I trying to blow my own trumpet? No. Far from it.
I am not a young man and I was on my own. My neighbours who are known to me all turned a blind eye and walked away. Both these men are younger than me, one considerably so. But did they stop and help? No.
And what makes it worse is that these two so-called community minded individuals are both committee members of the aforementioned community association. I will not name them here, but they know who they are.
They should be ashamed of themselves.
Is society broken?
A lot has been said recently about whether our society is broken and how we are going to fix it. So is it really broken? Too bloody right it is!
I'd like to illustrate this point by talking about some experiences I've had over the last couple of years:
I live in a house in Prescotville - you know, one of those nice new housing developments that has been tacked on to a town somewhere near you where, thanks to the edicts of our erstwhile Deputy Prime Minister, the houses are packed in so tight that you can't fart without upsetting a neighbour.
My neighbours tend to fall into two categories. Firstly, there are the grey contingent made up of retired or semiretired people who like to live in a town because it gives him easy access to all the facilities. These people tend to keep themselves to themselves. Unfortunately, they keep themselves so much to themselves that they exclude any sense of community.
The exception to this, of course, is the clique of clubs and societies that they all belong to so that they only mix with people of like opinions. Examples of this are local town society (known locally as the town national front) who think they know better than everyone who lives in our town what is best. They represent everyone regardless. Needless to say, they never ask anyone other than themselves what they think about what's going on!
Like many small to medium-sized towns in rural locations, there is a large church community. This means that if you want to know what's going on and you don't go to the church and you're out of luck. Also if you belong to the wrong church or no church at all you are excluded.
On top of this are associations like, for example, the U3A. I have been associated with more than one U3As over the years. Where I live now, they are extremely elitist and authoritarian. The minute you join you are press-ganged into going onto the committee -- and frankly I admit I would rather push redhot needles through my eyeballs -- and if you refuse for any reason that you are socially excluded.
Recently, my wife and I went on an expensive cruise around the Caribbean. I was asked to give a talk about this to my local U3A travel group. Amazingly, once some of the petty minded snobs (not everyone, I must add, falls into this category but there too many who do) realised that I wasn't actually pond life and might have a few quid in the bank, people who had prevously totally ignored me suddenly became very friendly and chatty. Well tough luck, pal! You're too late. I've already seen your true colours and I'm not impressed.
The second type of residents on our development are the younger generation. To these people, anyone with grey hair is either invisible or a bloody nuisance. My experience of these people is they are extremely self-centred hence the well worn expression of "me generation". They also don't seem to be particularly bright.
To give you an example of this, one of my neighbours who has a 120% mortgage recently complained to me that he was worried that if his house price fell during the credit crunch he would end up with negative equity! Yeah, right...
Alongside my house, are some parking spaces. These are privately owned by me and my immediate neighbours. When a couple moved into the house over the road, they decided that it was okay to use these private parking spaces to park their car. When I pointed out -- politely I might add -- that these spaces were in fact privately owned, my neighbour called me a "stupid old bastard", turned his back and walked away. He hasn't spoken to me since. This is a classic example of a person who is not intelligent enough to read the contract for his new house before signing it and who takes a very common attitude to someone pointing out that he is in error. Naturally, it is my fault not his!
Our road is close to town, and is frequently used by people who go shopping and by people who park their cars all day, five days a week, while they go to work. On the lampposts signs are clearly displayed which say "residents parking only". These are ignored, so a group of us local residents -- needless to say mainly, but not exclusively, the grey old farts -- decided to put very polite notes on windscreens pointing out the signposts and asking drivers to use the car park 50 yards away in future.
Unfortunately, my house is directly opposite the main problem area, so even if it is not me that puts the notice on the car I get the blame. I have now been threatened with physical violence on no less than five occasions. One man banged violently on my door and window and proceeded to tell me "If you touch my fucking car again, I'll kick your fucking head in!" Err, excuse me but you are the fault not me. Except of course, in the me generation, it's always someone else's fault. If you want evidence of that, look at the number of ambulance chasing insurance companies that have sprung up in recent years.
But if you really want to see an example of a broken society, come round my house in the early hours on Saturday or Sunday morning. The younger generation, having pre-fuelled -- a most dreadful expression -- have been out for a night on the piss. Having parked their cars down our road where, you will remember, they are not allowed to park in the first place, off they go to a night on the town.
I have no problem with people going out for a night on the town. I have no problem with them enjoying themselves. What I do have a problem with is when they roll back down the road, pissed out of their brains, making a god almighty row, disturbing my sleep, trampling on my front garden, pissing in the gutter or through my letterbox and then jumping into their hot hatches and wheeling off up the road at 90 miles an hour.
And of course, you can guess what the reaction is if you lean out of your window and ask them to keep it down. Yes, you guessed it "Fuck off grandad or we'll kick your fucking head in"
Broken society? Yes, I would say so...
I'd like to illustrate this point by talking about some experiences I've had over the last couple of years:
I live in a house in Prescotville - you know, one of those nice new housing developments that has been tacked on to a town somewhere near you where, thanks to the edicts of our erstwhile Deputy Prime Minister, the houses are packed in so tight that you can't fart without upsetting a neighbour.
My neighbours tend to fall into two categories. Firstly, there are the grey contingent made up of retired or semiretired people who like to live in a town because it gives him easy access to all the facilities. These people tend to keep themselves to themselves. Unfortunately, they keep themselves so much to themselves that they exclude any sense of community.
The exception to this, of course, is the clique of clubs and societies that they all belong to so that they only mix with people of like opinions. Examples of this are local town society (known locally as the town national front) who think they know better than everyone who lives in our town what is best. They represent everyone regardless. Needless to say, they never ask anyone other than themselves what they think about what's going on!
Like many small to medium-sized towns in rural locations, there is a large church community. This means that if you want to know what's going on and you don't go to the church and you're out of luck. Also if you belong to the wrong church or no church at all you are excluded.
On top of this are associations like, for example, the U3A. I have been associated with more than one U3As over the years. Where I live now, they are extremely elitist and authoritarian. The minute you join you are press-ganged into going onto the committee -- and frankly I admit I would rather push redhot needles through my eyeballs -- and if you refuse for any reason that you are socially excluded.
Recently, my wife and I went on an expensive cruise around the Caribbean. I was asked to give a talk about this to my local U3A travel group. Amazingly, once some of the petty minded snobs (not everyone, I must add, falls into this category but there too many who do) realised that I wasn't actually pond life and might have a few quid in the bank, people who had prevously totally ignored me suddenly became very friendly and chatty. Well tough luck, pal! You're too late. I've already seen your true colours and I'm not impressed.
The second type of residents on our development are the younger generation. To these people, anyone with grey hair is either invisible or a bloody nuisance. My experience of these people is they are extremely self-centred hence the well worn expression of "me generation". They also don't seem to be particularly bright.
To give you an example of this, one of my neighbours who has a 120% mortgage recently complained to me that he was worried that if his house price fell during the credit crunch he would end up with negative equity! Yeah, right...
Alongside my house, are some parking spaces. These are privately owned by me and my immediate neighbours. When a couple moved into the house over the road, they decided that it was okay to use these private parking spaces to park their car. When I pointed out -- politely I might add -- that these spaces were in fact privately owned, my neighbour called me a "stupid old bastard", turned his back and walked away. He hasn't spoken to me since. This is a classic example of a person who is not intelligent enough to read the contract for his new house before signing it and who takes a very common attitude to someone pointing out that he is in error. Naturally, it is my fault not his!
Our road is close to town, and is frequently used by people who go shopping and by people who park their cars all day, five days a week, while they go to work. On the lampposts signs are clearly displayed which say "residents parking only". These are ignored, so a group of us local residents -- needless to say mainly, but not exclusively, the grey old farts -- decided to put very polite notes on windscreens pointing out the signposts and asking drivers to use the car park 50 yards away in future.
Unfortunately, my house is directly opposite the main problem area, so even if it is not me that puts the notice on the car I get the blame. I have now been threatened with physical violence on no less than five occasions. One man banged violently on my door and window and proceeded to tell me "If you touch my fucking car again, I'll kick your fucking head in!" Err, excuse me but you are the fault not me. Except of course, in the me generation, it's always someone else's fault. If you want evidence of that, look at the number of ambulance chasing insurance companies that have sprung up in recent years.
But if you really want to see an example of a broken society, come round my house in the early hours on Saturday or Sunday morning. The younger generation, having pre-fuelled -- a most dreadful expression -- have been out for a night on the piss. Having parked their cars down our road where, you will remember, they are not allowed to park in the first place, off they go to a night on the town.
I have no problem with people going out for a night on the town. I have no problem with them enjoying themselves. What I do have a problem with is when they roll back down the road, pissed out of their brains, making a god almighty row, disturbing my sleep, trampling on my front garden, pissing in the gutter or through my letterbox and then jumping into their hot hatches and wheeling off up the road at 90 miles an hour.
And of course, you can guess what the reaction is if you lean out of your window and ask them to keep it down. Yes, you guessed it "Fuck off grandad or we'll kick your fucking head in"
Broken society? Yes, I would say so...
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