SPQR an' that...

Peter Brookes' perfect cartoon in 'The Times' today just sums up how we are being stuffed by the banks - again.

It also strikes me that the lights on the stairs look remarkably like those normally seen in the background, when Beeb hacks meekly trot off and crave interviews with shuffling, nervous, inadequate, pompous, inarticulate, unqualified, infuriating politicians.

Nuff said.

L.S.D. in metric...

They're refurbishing Wadhurst station - one of my many routes up to town, depending on how I feel when I walk out of the Turrets. The lady and the chap who work there are charming, very friendly, and always have a pleasant comment to make; even to a dishevelled bloke with a Senior Railcard, and travelling after 9.00 am...

On Wednesday, when I arrived, the lady was sitting in the waiting room surrounded by what looked like bomb damage, with weapons of mass destruction in every corner, and a huge hole in the wall. It was clear what they were doing; replacing the ticket office window, which had always seemed too high, and not appropriate today with the myriad of electronic kit you have to survive to buy a ticket.

One of the two chaps working there, suddenly exclaimed that he couldn't understand what "12s and 17s 6d meant"... He'd discovered a shred of old newspaper tucked in the wall cavity, and was reading the adverts for rooms to let in Clapham. We couldn't find the date, but it was probably about the early 1900s.

I translated, and even then got it wrong at first, but 60p and 87.5p seems a fair price if you want to live in Clapham. He was delighted too! So there we have the result of all the bungling of changing to decimal coinage in February, 1971, (the week before I first went out with Mrs S), and it's taken all this time for the change eventually to filter through! There was the usual political disorganisation, bureaucrats who still had to use their fingers to count, and weasley traders cashing in on the disorientation - especially the Government; oooh yes... Euro anyone?

I had to learn construction measurement in both Imperial and Metric in the late sixties; we were in the first wave of students who did this and it seemed a nightmare at the time. I still work in both regimes, e.g., I made the Electro-K bass in Imperial, but am currently making a cold frame in metric, and agent's particulars still print space sizes in both, with one in brackets!

It still seems to me that like most politically expedient gestures, there's an awful lot of work for state pen pushers, and their 'consultants', to get paid for, just to fiddle around with the rules and get nowhere. I bet there's an office somewhere in London, where about three hundred people have spent all their working lives on achieving almost nothing, dealing with the change to European weights and measures!

Meanwhile, the good people at Wadhurst Station can soon have a cleaner place to work, most passengers will be happy too, and I will at last be able to reach the buttons on the keypad...

All on expenses...

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An MP parks his brand new Lexus on a double yellow line in Parliament Square to show it off to his colleagues, and assembled sycophants, spads and wonks.

As he's getting out of the car, a No 11 bus comes speeding along and takes off the door before zooming off down Victoria Street.

More than a little distraught, the MP grabs his mobile and screams for the police, shouting ‘commands’ all the time and annoying the passers-by, and the residents in the blue plastic tents more than somewhat. The Police arrive a few minutes later, but before the copper has a chance to ask any questions, the man starts screaming hysterically: 'My Lexus, my beautiful silver state benefit Lexus is ruined. No matter how long it's at the panel beaters, it'll simply never be the same again!'

After the MP finally finishes his rant, the policeman shakes his head in disgust.
'I can't believe how materialistic you bloody MPs are,' he says. 'You lot are so focused on your fiddling your expenses and claiming for things you don’t deserve, that you don't notice anything else going on in your life.'

'How can you say such a thing at a time like this?' sobs the MP. “Don’t you know who I am; I’m bloody important I can tell you?’

The policeman replies, 'Not really, I presume you sometimes turn up here occasionally, but didn't you realise that your right arm was torn off when the bus hit you.'

The MP looks down in horror. 'F*****G HELL!' he screams........'My Rolex????...

Handbags at dawn...

This pic was taken in a forest not far from here, and reminded me of a short story, somewhat prompted by some of Guido's posts this morning...



Two Crocodiles were sitting at the side of the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

The smaller one turned to the bigger one and said, 'I can't understand how you can be so much bigger than me. We're the same age, we were the same size as kids. I just don't get it.'

'Well,' said the big Croc, 'what have you been eating?'

'Politicians, same as you,' replied the small Croc.

'Hmm... Well, where do you catch them?'

'Down the other side of the lake near the Houses of Parliament.'

'Same here. Hmm... How do you catch them?'

'Well, I crawl up under one of their Lexus cars and wait for one to unlock the car door. Then I jump out, grab them by the leg, shake the shit out of them and eat 'em!'

'Ah!' says the big Crocodile, 'I think I see your problem. You're not getting any real nourishment. See, by the time you finish shaking the shit out of a Politician, there's nothing left but an arsehole and a briefcase.'

A breath of hot air...

I picked up a copy of Vernon Coleman's 'England our England - a Nation in jeopardy' the other day.

It's not much more than a powerful set of blog posts, often turning into a prolonged rant as well, but it lifts several lids on the EU disaster waiting to happen. Naturally, our spineless administrations - and those as far back as Heath's as well, get a lambasting on every page. I just can't help thinking how much taxpayer's hard earned dosh is wasted by such enormous 'public' organisations, staffed by such incompetent but power-hungry people.

Which is what my point is all about.

As some old friends here might have established some time ago, my business is developing property - mainly hotels. ('Nasty, greedy old Git in a sheepskin coat' come some comments from those who think I drive a Hummer, and live behind electric gates...)! Wrong I can assure you, the 'Scrobmobile' is well qualified for scrappage - by three years - I just love driving it; and the gates have been non-existent for twenty years as I keep hitting them when I get home...

So my company takes enormous risks to get something built. There are no contentious issues with hotels, mainly because they have to be on big roads to be seen, or town centres, to attract business and tourism, and hardly anyone wants to live near those sorts of place anyway.

We search everywhere to find sites, and meeting as many people as possible to achieve our goal is the norm, which is why I usually go to big events like 'The Thames Gateway' exhibition. (see November posts passim, especially recalling the lovely lady, who still keeps in touch...). We definitely cannot afford to go to MIPIM, (big property bash in Cannes), which is good if you have several thousand quid to spread around, and end up so alcoholically re-adjusted, that you've forgotten who you met..), so I make sure I get around here in London mainly, but on a strict budget. (The bus pass even works for me too)!

I've just been informed by email that I 'should' consider going to yet another 'Local Authority talking shop'. Most of the delegates are from local councils and boroughs, but also hundreds of quangoes like SEEDA, BURA, and the like which control/degrade/interfere with every aspect of trying to get a simple building built for business. You'll count the commercial ability points on one hand...

This year, the Thames Gateway organisers are charging four times as much (£400) for private individuals (i.e. the tax paying companies which provide the wealth they fritter away), and even giving discounts to public services staff who don't create anything, except prolonged chaos in this weak, drowning government's task of ruining UK inc.

The latest one wants me to pay something similar, but for what?

This...

...A chance to hear the views and learned discussion of various councils, unelected spenders of the public purse, dead-handed planners in sink boroughs, lessons from bankers (for Chrissakes), wise words from 'Learning and Skills Councils', regeneration experts - perhaps the sort of person which prepares the budget for the Olympics..., a smattering of MPs on expenses of course, loads more 'government' employees of a day out, someone in a pullover from the LDA, and a handful of bemused students who like to collect all the biros, sweeties and scratch pads from every stand!

These exhibitions are usually sponsored by private concerns, and they put up much of the money. The big names are there, but they can afford to, because they've got an ongoing project worth zillions lurking in the planning system, and anyway, I hardly ever come across them in our business, they're far too big. There are also a few housebuilders, who are hanging in too. Don't knock them, many of the good guys have gone now, and love 'em or hate 'em, they at least take huge risks, and bring something to the prosperity of a crap area, while councils wouldn't have a clue how to do it themselves.

So your correspondent will not be gracing any of these big events to meet nobodies, instead, he'll be doing what he normally does; wake up early, start thinking what to do next to earn a crust, get going on the phone early, email like crazy, get up to town the cheapest way possible, take a few Ryvita and a bottle of tap water for lunch on a bus between meetings, get excited rarely - but, when something goes well, you know it's despite government spouting rubbish, not because of it.

Oh yes; for one day, I will be at my monthly business meeting bash; (no public faces there, we don't want them), this Thursday, and I should know it works, because I started it over ten years ago!

And it costs nothing to arrange, you buy your own drinks, and it's free!

Student loans fiasco...

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Today is the 'Turrets Annual Hedge-cutting Day'. They always get done this weekend, because it is a ritual which started seventeen years ago.

You see, this is the time when Elder Daught left home for the first time to go away to College. Two years later, Younger Daught left for Uni too, and it was painful on both days. Mrs S and I kept wandering around the house, trying not to think of her going, and eventually I said 'sod it' and went out to start clipping the church side holly hedge, (now thankfully gone). It seems like yesterday and I can remember feeling utterly miserable all the time.

The BBC news this week had a story about the utter failure of the Student Loans company to get their act together, and organise the new intake's loans in time. What a bunch of losers, they are; originally cobbled together in a vain attempt by both governments to squirm through the fact that they were making students pay through the nose for tertiary education. In fact the brighter/better off parents just got the loans out at the ridiculously low interest rate, invested the dosh in a better deal, and then pocketed the interest.

So Nulabyrinthe's policy of chucking every student into a 'University' to study just about anything, and thus keep them off the unemployment lists for three years, has now culminated in thousands of disillusioned kids having to cope with having no money for the first few important weeks, as well as the fear of leaving home for the first time, and facing their own crisis in another world. They've been let down - yet again - by a weak and ineffective administration.

To think that their future is overseen by a 'government' staffed by such pathetic figures as Ed Balls, and his ugly wife, Yvette 'Turtle in the headlights' Balls-Cooper (did you see her on TV this week; absolutely petrified and gulping for air), I fully expect them to be let down several more times before they get their degrees. Ministers knew months ago that there would be a problem, but as usual, they put their personal situations first, blurted anything they were told to by their whip-meisters and did nothing.

This is a cock-up of devastating proportions, and my heart goes out to the families who are trying to come to terms with one of the most upsetting times of anyone's life.

Those hedges will just fly today...