20 years ago today...

On the 20th anniversary of the worst peacetime nuclear disaster that scattered radioactive fallout across much of Europe between here and the Ukraine, I was bemused to find through cognitive association an image of someone called John Dodds popping into my head. He was a character in Eighteen Plus and I'm not even sure that I had met him in 1986 so the connection seemed at first lacking in reason.

However, about twenty minutes later, I remembered the association. John had told me a fairly lame joke a few years later whilst we were getting changed for something, probably at the former 18 plus headquarters, Nicholson House in Newent.

These are my radioactive underpants. You have to be careful putting them on though, or Chernobyl fallout!

(it's the way he tells 'em...)

Local election update

Three more bits of election stuff. Through the door last week was the glossy full colour double sided folded A3 Labour leaflet for Sherry Bradley. It mainly attacked the Tories for doing terrible things whilst the Morley Borough independents stood by doing nothing. Inside were the obligatory poses with the sitting MP, a closed school, a new library etc. No BNP bashing though, which is surprising as some of the Labour voting share could go that way.

Sherry is very tall with striking blonde white hair, she is much more imposing in the flesh than she looks in the photos. I have never actually spoken to her but obnserving from the edge of the crowd she strikes me as aloof and dismissive with her body language. Of course, that has been at election counts and party tribalism tends to generate an us & them mentality amongst the diminishing faithful.

The second noteworthy arrival was the voting cards. this time we get to brandish our pencils in the Glen Road Changing Rooms instead of the portable building delivered for the purpose. It took the Council long enough, why hire something when you own something else more suitable across the road?

The third noteworthy arrival was the Elliott Battle bus outside our house tonight. People often park there when leafleting as it is a convenient base for the Birdland labyrinth. My gruff "Oi! you can't park there." out of the door as they walked away was greeted by surprise and then amusement! Judith brought me leaflet number two which was a suitably dismissive rubbishing of the Sherry Bradley leaflet "facts" and various distortions. Of course it retaliated with the MBI version of "facts" and various distortions which will give the Labourites a chance to dictate some more letters for the local rag. Only 11 more days and then we can have 9 months off until the spin bus starts up again in 2007...

Happy St. Georges Day

Good weather treated us to a pleasant St. George's Day Parade and subsequent event at the Rugby & Cricket clubs in Morley. Celebrating being English is not politically correct- after all we are not a repressed minority like the Scots, Welsh and Irish. Rule 1 of PC says that the history and achievements of the majority are trumped by anyone with victim status and should be frowned upon or scorned.

The other reluctance to acknowledge Englishness is the supposed hijacking of the English flag by the "far right". This is of course a nonsense, the main potency of the image is supporting Eng-er-land during world cups and such.

One thing that struck me at the event today, however, was how much we were celebrating military victory, whether the dark ages or the war. Celebrating being english isn't about the actual fighting to remain as such, it is a collective consciousness that this is what we are in all of its multi-stranded complexity and we rather like it, whatever the weather.

Grass alert downgrade-Defcon 3

Being the first warmish dryish day for a while, I finally ventured out with the lawnmower to give my grass bits their first cut of 2006. I wasn't alone in the task- the distant sounds in the breeze were reminiscent of a rainforest logging operation.

I have a front lawn that came with the house (open plan street scene) and the back garden was turfed by some passing vagabonds who also laid me a wonky patio, having found no opportunity to provide tarmac for the drives of what was a brand new estate back in 1995. The turf has stood the test of time, being lush, green and thick, unlike the tatty meadowturf that Persimmon provided.

However, 2005 was rather rainy in the Autumn and I never had the chance to give it a pre-winter chop. Consequently it has looked extremely rug-like the last couple of months and in need of a tonsorial tidy. When I say rug, I once went to someone's house who had a genuine shag pile which was a cross between an Afghan coat and a shaggy dog- we had to take our shoes off and they even had a special rake to comb the carpet!

People aspire to a bowling green lawn and I can only think of two domestic lawns I have ever seen that good, one of them by a professional gardener whose busines name is "Weed Free". I have always been happy with a passable lawn, although over the years I have sometimes gone away on an open ended business trip and returned to something I would half-expect to find Dr. Livingstone in.

Several bags of grass clippings later, the front is OK but the back has simply been downgraded from a disgrace to bloody awful. Henceforth I propose to categorise my grass cutting in the Pentagon style:

Defcon 5 - Wilderness
Defcon 4 - Shagpile
Defcon 3 - Looks rough
Defcon 2 - In need of a cut
Defcon 1 - Tidy (i.e. cut well less than a week ago)

Thanks to the Religious Policeman for the inspiration.

Mermaids and rude food...

Danish footnote- we went to see the little mermaid, of course, although there was one at the airport, another at the hotel and hundreds in the souvenir shops. The soft focus postcards don't prepare you for the somewhat industrial background and we were braving freezing sleet and stair-rod rain by the time we got to her. David risked the rocks and possible falling in the water to pose next to her but most grockles stayed in their tourist coaches. I noticed that there was a discreet waterproof camera trained on her near the waterline and I don't know if it was a webcam or (more likely) a police watch for beheadings- she has been vandalised several times over the years.

One other odd sight- both Karen and I couldn't keep a straight face when we saw some wittily named sweets in Tivoli. I saw them again at the Zoo so invested 11 DKR in two boxes, the wine gums in the green box and the liquorice in the black box. Both David and Karen liked the wine gums but they both hated the liquorice as it tasted very salty. I thought that it being very salty was somewhat appropriate and find it hard to believe that the author of Pippi Longstocking didn't know the english meaning of her chosen title.

David was very puzzled as to why I wanted to keep the boxes, I explained it was for my "interesting box collection" which now stands at two.

Wonderful, wonderful, Copenhagen

At school, one of our deputy Heads asked how many had heard the song Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen. Most of us had, but none of us had a clue where it was. We are just back from a short city break to Copenhagen, Capital of Denmark. I'd visited more than 20 years previously (and unexpectedly) in transit from Paris to Oslo, promised myself another visit and finally got round to returning.

Tivoli was a definite must, the romantic pleasure gardens in the heart of town a couple of minutes walk from our Hotel. Although bitterly cold, we went in every day, buying writstbands for the rides on one of them. My favourite was the Rutschebanen, their 1914 wooden rollercoaster that still features a brakeman (5 rows back in this photo), something rather uncommon in Britain now (only Great Yarmouth Scenic Railway springs to mind).

We also went to Bakken, reputedly the oldest amusement park in the world and a complete contrast to Tivoli, being in a large country parkland forest with a background of trees rather than copper domed towers. It also has an old woodie, this time with the brakeman right at the back.

Another visit was the Round Tower, the Experimentarium and the Zoo as well as the National Museum, the Post & Telephone museum and the Little Mermaid. To fulfill my urge to go up high structures, we went to Vor Frelsers Kirke with the staircase round the outside of the spire, a very strange experience indeed.

Two let-downs- some ruins under the Parliament building were closed for refurbishment and the Town Hall tower was unexpectedly closed- probably because of Easter, but no signs saying so (& I can read/speak a little Danish from my Norway experiences as it is similar to Norwegian).

Something Copenhagen is famous for is Hot Dogs... I'm not quite sure why as they weren't anything unusual, just widely available from street kiosks all over town. Our favourites were the French style, where they spike a hole down the bun, squirt mayo inside then squeeze the sausage in afterwards.

Is Copenhagen wonderful? Yes it is. Charming, urban, cosmopolitan, vibrant, relaxed, friendly, very European and the most relaxed of the nordic countries in culture. Rather expensive though! By the way, if you have been humming it, the song was by Danny Kaye...

Eclesiastical architecture

I spent my birthday visiting three Cathedrals in London. The first, Westminster Abbey, is a grockle production line, incredibly popular, frequently crowded and extremely cluttered with memorials to the dead. They charge a Tenner to get in and it doesn't even have public toilets...

The second was to Westminster Cathedral, the unfinished Catholic edifice to the West. It has an impressive tower (with a lift) but sadly, it was closed that day. It is built from brick and concrete and is rather disappointing with the acres of black painted brick in the lofty spaces.

The third visit was to st Pauls and i particularly enjoyed the visit to the golden gallery which exposes Wren's famous brick cone to public view whilst traversing the numerous cast iron spiral staircases and platforms within the outer dome. It is a long way up but well worth it (and only £9!)

Letters to the editor...

I read in the letters pages this week of the morley Obs that Stewart McArdle, independent Councillor for Morley North, observed an election candidate giving his house a wide berth when leafleting for the Leeds Election next month. He doesn't say who it was so it is just speculation, but it is interesting to observe how members of political parties begin to regard anyone not for them as against them. Indeed, I pulled up at my house one day a few months ago to find a Labour Town Councillor walking back down my front path who visibly started and then looked guilty when he realised it was me and he had just leafleted my house.

Stewart McArdle writes cogent letters and I have considerable admiration for his musical knowledge he has imparted to Morley FM, even though I don't always agree with his views on Government being the solution rather than the problem. In passing, there is a review of Morley High School's recent show on page 18 by an SM, I wonder if it is Stewie Mc? it could be, the prose style looks familiar.

On the same page as the show review, there is an "advertisement feature" titled Call in experts for electrics about not being allowed to do your own wiring any more, sidelined with an advert from John Prescott's ODPM telling us that the new rules are for our own good, as of course, no matter how competent we think we are, we might not be. There is an irony here, because an accompanying photo of a tradesman wiring up a distribution box is definitely not to code, it includes an American mains socket which isn't earthed and the wiring colours aren't european. How odd!

Tucked away on page 20 is a letters extra. The first letter is having a go at Coun Gareth Beevers for having the audacity to not be restanding in the Leeds elections next month. It also speculates on the possible reasons which may or may not be wide of the mark. The second letter is having a go at prospective candidate Terry Elliott who it is implied was instrumental in getting rid of the Morley Magistrates Court and his Committee recommended the closure. from previous chats with Terry, I suspect that recommended is not the right word, perhaps agreed to based on Hobson's choice?

Apparently, the two letters are from ladies with different names but a common lineage- I'm told they are sisters. I also wonder whether they share something else in common, namely memebrship of the Labour Party and a willingness to agree to submit letters written by others in their name?

Of course, if you throw enough mud, some sticks. Both of the "victims" will undoubtedly write rebuttals, which will either clarify matters or add fire to the flames.

I've always been of the view that the best politicians are the ones who don't actually want to do the job but once elected get on with it. I suspect that Terry Elliotts' motives to stand are to keep the opposition out rather than any form of self-aggrandisement.

My own motives to stand on Morley Town Council were two-fold: I wanted to keep out the BNP and I wanted to have my say at Town Council meetings, where I frequently cringed at the lack of cogent discussion and the roughshod handling of correct due process. I have frequently been outspoken in the (coming up to) two years since I was elected but I continue to feel uncomfortable about the fervent spending of other people's money and the role that the council actually has which is simply a Parish Council no matter how much some Members hanker for the old days pre-1974. Whilst we have become a Quality Council, I remain to be convinced that it actually gives us any particular capabilities that cannot be distorted and twisted by both local and central Government if what we decide doesn't suit them. It is as if we have been delegated responsibility rather than authority, which is generally the wrong way round...

Training day

Today, David's school is closed due to staff training. Most parents reckon that they all nip down to the Pub, but the staff do get a trainer in to cover off some initiative or other.

David could have gone to his regular after school club, however Karen had some holidays to take and I was owed a day in Lieu after doing some weekend work so we have been out and about.

In the morning, we went to Meanwood Valley Urban Farm which is something David had heard about. It stars Donkeys, Chickens, Rabbits, Sheep, Pigs, Ducks and Goats, as well as some Frogs apparently suffering bombing raids by Herons. The Hens were all cooped up rather than free range, presumably due to all of this avian flu business. We also discovered a very old cat called Tiddles, who was apparently 18 years old.

The place is accessible and features an environmentally friendly main building (called the Epicentre) that features a very prominent turf roof. Being Spring, the gardens look a bit scraggy at the moment but it is probably worth a re-visit in high Summer.

The was an amusing sign in the newest building opposite the Cafe/Bookshop saying Guinea Pigs for sale, with a graphic picture of a rabbit. Underneath, someone had added- "sorry, we couldn't find any pictures of a Guinea Pig" in Biro. I was interested to see that the roof solar panels were generating 500 watts today from an overcast sky.

Whilst there wasn't much to keep you amused for too long, it only costs £1 to get in (under 12s free) and it sounds like a school trip there is great fun with activities involving mud, worms and rare breeds.

There is an exhibition in the epicentre upstairs, but it is a rather preachy Green save the planet sort of thing about recycling that our MP would enthuse about. It was also guarded today by an uncommunicative cleaner with a mop and what smelt like highly concentrated bleach!

The late afternoon was spent in Driglington Library where there was a Spongebob Squarepants event scheduled for 3:15. David had great fun colouring in and taking part in activities whilst I worked my way through the non-fiction shelves. Drig library is fairly small but does have an adjoining community Hall in a similar style to the Gildersome complex. This building opened in 1972 under the auspices of Morley Borough Council, who obviously decided to spend a lot of their money on amenities when they knew their demise was iminent.

Perusing the assorted leaflets, I came across Colin's Chat, the regular newsletter of CCMP. It suddenly struck me that I hadn't received one of these for a couple of months, indeed since I interviewed him on Morley FM. (& I thought I gave him an easy time of it!) In there, he commented on the great smoking debate and how he voted for a complete ban.

As a reformed smoker, I would be expected to be very anti-smoking but that is not the case. I don't like the smell of ciggys but I'm of the view that if people want to live unhealthy lifestyles with cigarettes, drugs, booze or poor diets, that is their own choice, as long as they don't force me to do it. If owners of private property wish to allow, bar or compromise on smoking on their premises, it is up to them, not the nanny state. A Pub remains private property regardless to the term "public house" and Market forces will sort it out without having to order anyone to do anything as people will vote with their feet. The rather fatuous excuse of "what about the workers?" doesn't hold much water with me either as plenty of people who work in Pubs smoke anyway.

Colin says "Only one third of the population now smokes, and many of them want to give up. This legislation should be welcomed." By who? 17th century religious zealots? Typical of Labour to "help" people because they can't help themselves and the Government knows best. I get they would get really upset if everyone actually stopped, think of the revenue loss...

Is there an election on?

We have had our first bit of political junk mail for the May Council elections, after a two year sabbatical from all of this voting business. Like the first cuckoo of spring, it heralds an end to miserable old Winter and the promise of better times (well, if you believe a politicians promise- they offer you the moon on a stick but after they get in you realise it is frequently the wrong end of a shitty stick!)

The first leaflet is a little previous arriving on Saturday morning, seeing as how the deadline for candidate submissions is Noon today and the publication of nominated candidates isn't until Wednesday.

The organisations have been fighting a phoney war for a few weeks now in the local rag and rumours have been circulating about possible candidates. Former Councillor Sherry Bradley will be restanding in Morley South hoping to win her seat back (and presumably job on the Exec if Labour take overall control again) and she is up against Terry Elliott, Husband of Judith Elliott who is the replacement Morley Borough independent after Gareth Beevers has decided not to restand, owing to work committments (well, that is the official reason, I have my suspicions that it isn't the only reason, we haven't heard much from him in the Press recently and he doesn't get along to as many Town Council meetings as he used to either.)

Anyway, Terry's leaflet is first through the letterbox and it is the usual double-sided lime green A4 flyer.It is perhaps a little too dull to Fisk, although I would question how many Morley Police Forums he has actually been to recently rather than the most recent one and then lots when he was on the Police Authority but that was a long time ago, I gather...

Terry is a very down to earth likeable chap and isn't one to call a spade an earth inverting, horticultural instrument. I always enjoy my natters with him and we had a chat at the end of the recent Mayor's Ball when he confirmed he was indeed going to stand. He also told me that being a Magistrate was all about applying common sense rather than getting obsessed with sentencing guidelines and admitted that when I queried something about his OBE, he hadn't actually bothered to read the associated bumpf about suitability of wearing it with White tie etc. as explained by Martin Wainwright on Morley FM.

One final thing- every time I see the MBI scales logo, I am reminded about a rather sick joke about a murder, a patio and a bike rack...

The lost Geordie seventh wonder of the world...

Google Earth is an amazing thing. I can spend hours looking at satellite views of places I have been to before (or would like to visit) all over the world, some tantalisingly indistinct, others sharp enough to see pedestrians.

Sometimes the pictures surprise- buildings demolished years ago are still visible due to the satallite mapping being out of date.

A saunter to 55 deg 0' 22.60" N 1 deg 39' 53.28W brings you to what looks like a garden feature in a Council Estate I lived in when I was aged 10 or so. It was the Kenton Bar Estate in Newcastle and a saunter to the co-ordinates shown shows the primary school to the South (which I attended for about 9 months), some flat roof single storey flats to the East (looking rather like Lego shapes) and two blocks of low rise flats at right angles, one to the North and the other to the West with a bit of a gap between them.

This area was designated as a sort of modern Town Square and shops were built under the Western Block. To the left of the parade was a coin-op Launderette which had all brand new Bendix machines and, innovative for the time, a Dry Cleaning machine. In the centre was a Newsagent, called North kenton News (which was a misnomer as North Kenton was thought of as the older and much scrattier estate adjoining to the North East). There was an Off License, Goldfinch Wines, which my Parents later had as tenants for a couple of years. There were also two vacant shops seperating the three open ones and I seem to recall that when we first moved there in late 1968 only the Offy was open.

There were intended to be shops below the other block of flats but they were never constructed so there was clear space below apart from the stair wells. The square was on two distinct levels joined by a ramp and stairs either side of a water feature. I visited the square a number of years ago and was surprised to find it had been tapered to a slope (as it is on the Google Earth view) and I'm pretty sure the path running at right angles to the Western block is the vestigial remains of the ramp as there are some low level light fittings I recognised. The vestigial wall at the left hand end of the Northern Block gives an indication of the height differential with must have been 10' or so.

There is a very prominent feature removed from this 60's socialist eutopia square that fascinated me as a kid, both aesthetically and technically. It would be interesting to find out why it was built in the first place and eventually removed at what must have been a considerable expense. Anyway, I will blog on what was missing after a suitable pause for comment and speculation from all three of my readers.

Mothering Sunday

We have a routine on Mothers Day, inspired by an episode of "Little Bill" that David saw many years ago. Karen gets served breakfast in bed, consisting of Scotch pancakes made up into faces by the addition of raisins.

As David recently discovered the joys of Banana Splits, we also have marachino Cherries and squirty cream in the fridge so the pancakes had red noses and hair.

The fact that David was at his Grandmas because of the Mayor's Ball last night was readily circumvented- when we got back home this afternoon, Karen had to go back to bed in order to be served breakfast!

Lazy Sunday afternoon...

...not this Sunday just gone, nearly four hours at Rothwell Sports Centre whilst David and I went for our orange belt Karate grading.

GKR Karate have changed the system a bit since we last went. Now all belts grade together, although under 12s and over 12s are done seperately. This is because it has been made easier for the Kids- they don't have to do Kata until Green belt.

Grown-ups, however, still have to perform Kata at yellow and orange. In GKR Karate, the first two Katas are similar, the second including a number of kicks as well as the stance, block and punch movements of the first kata.
Once the main stuff is out of the way, the lower grades get some sparring tuition whilst the higher grades are tested on the advance Katas.

Whilst my balancing during very slow training kicks is still terrible and some of my advanced hand movements are a bit suspect, I'm pleased that my stamina and skill are much improved. Last time, I was close to needing a sit down after the intense routine, this time it was much easier- and indeed more enjoyable.

I had a minor panic attack last friday in the Dojo- the 2nd Kata was being done much faster than normal and I mixed my blocks up somewhat, something immediately being picked up by Sen Sei, the instructor. This gave me a slight crisis of confidence that maybe I had been doing it wrong for ages. However, I was just having an off day and sailed through it today, hindered only slightly by an enthusiastic but dyslexically limbed orange-belter in front of me!

Bookworms

We had a book fair at work in aid of Children in need today, as well as it being a good hook to get staff involved in our "right to read" scheme, where we visit nearby primaries and listen to kids reading books on a one to one basis.

Knowing this event was coming up, I took the opportunity to have a bit of a clearout of the vast number of management books I have acquired over the years. I originally intended to sell them on ebay, but taking a couple of Ikea sacks in to work was much less fuss!

My loft looks something like the back room of an Oxfam shop as Karen is often loath to get rid of things and I have tended to save boxes for a while now if there is a vague chance that the item will be ebayed. I cleared out a load of baby items for the Morley for Thurokovil appeal jumble sale last Spring but it is still an obstacle course.

I have a monster collection of floppy disks, many from when I was self-employed which probably contain software that has no use whatsoever, being for a doomed (now defunct )product development that kept me solvent even if it drove me to distraction at the futility of it all in a Marvinesque way (as in HHGTTG). The trouble is, that was my early days of venturing onto the internet and in amongst the chaff are 100% whole wheatgerm emails and documents that would be worth a fortune to a biographer if I suddenly became rich and famous. Maybe a trip to the tip is on the cards...

The book fair had a great selection, although the most interesting ones were the ones I had donated! I came away with a book about the history of magic illusions and another one which is some sort of conspiracy theory about the Titanic actually being her sister ship the Olympic.

Returning to my desk, there was a small bemused crowd looking out of the window- it seems that a sex worker was providing a client with personal services, in a nearby alleyway that was slat fenced so not particularly private. It started as a hand shandy and migrated to a pugwash (if you are unfamiliar with these terms, Roger Mellie can help). We did think that fire hoses may have sorted out the issue- it works with dogs apparently (unless they get stuck).

Summonsed to appear...

When you are a Councillor, notices of meetings are also known as Summonses. Most of us think of a Summons as something a Court sends you when you have committed an offence but Councils are something a bit like clubs who summons members to meetings as they are expected to attend. The Houses of Parliament work the same way and indeed old established clubs and societies like the Masons follow the same practice.

I've been summonsed to a special meeting on Wednesday. What is special about it? Well, it is a training event on the Councillor's code of conduct. Why does it have to be embedded into a meeting? Beats me, perhaps someone thought that they would get a better attendance if it was a pukka meeting as the sound of training can be a bit dry to some. However, by making it a proper meeting, it comes under the auspices of the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, which means the public are entitled to be present unless specifically excluded for particular items where publicity would not be in the public interest. My "yellow bible" doesn't mention training as a valid reason to exclude!

The matter is further complicated by the meeting time being 6pm, but the listing outside the Town Hall shows it as 7pm. Technically, the meeting should be postponed until then, as it is an obligation to post details three clear days before the meeting, i.e. if the poster was changed tomorrow, the meeting would have to be on Friday.

The other thing I'm not overly impressed about is that the meeting is at 6pm- I'll have to rush eating tea and so on. I would have been much happier if we had simply been invited to a straight-forward training event- so what if some people don't come? it is their choice as individuals and selling the event on the benefits always goes down better than being told to do something for your own good. We get enough of that from the Government...

Unlinked...

All of the template links have disappeared, due to my changing something when blogger was misbehaving a couple of weeks ago. I'll put them back in due course.

Now, what did I have up there? Never mind, some of them were out of date anyway, particularly the police ones, as quite a few bloggers have got cold feet after being leaned on...

Keys to the kingdom

I recently managed to leave a house key in a Hotel Safe. It is a long and rather dull story, so I won't bother.

Visiting B&Q for some new heavy power cable for a new cooker, I noticed that they now cut keys so handed over mine to duplicate. Their key cutting machine is very high tech and appears to require minimal skill by the Operator (a definite bonus in retail, especially in DIY stores. It isn't a bonus for the Customer though!). He opened a little door and put the key in. The machine then moved it around inside, measuring it to get an accurate profile. It presumably then informed the operator which blank to choose, as he opened up a storage cupboard behind and chose a key from a numbered bin. Putting the key in place via the little door again, the machine then proceeded to measure the blank to make sure it was suitable. It then ground the notches accordingly, presenting the finished product back at the access door. The operator then removed it, ran it through a grinding aperture (presumably to remove burrs) and returned it, after comparing it to the original and commenting that it was fairly worn. (Well it would be, it has been used at least twice a day for more than a decade).

The machine itself was a tall square cabinet, with windows on three sides, horizontal slit windows so you could see the wonders within (lit by those blue LEDs that seem to find their way into most appliances these days). It was probably very heavy, as it had fork holes at the base, with a warning not to lift it more than one inch clear of the ground (so presumably a high centre of gravity as well). The blurb said that it was "Laser key (R)- cut to work first time, every time! Laser Key (R) uses the latest scanning and robotics technology, which can correct for wear and tear, to cut a precision key that will afford trouble free operation."

Did it? Did it buggery. It would open the door with a fair bit of fiddling about but it didn't live up to the hype.

Laserkey (R) has a website at www.laserkey.co.uk but last time I looked it was just a holding page.

Meetings, bloody meetings...

The title comes from a training video I used to show in the 80s when I was National training Officer for Eighteen Plus. When I say video, I actually mean 16mm film because it was getting on a bit. It starred John Cleese (who started Video Arts, the Training production Company) and emphasised the importance of making sure meetings achieved their outcomes.

One of our more peculiar traits of the Morley Town Council (of which I am a Member) is to vote on items without having discussed them very much, which strikes me that it probably means that some Councillors don’t necessarily understand the whys and wherefores of what is proposed, let alone the unintended consequences. One such example was the March Full Council meeting where in amongst the business was a proposal to set up some form of executive body for strategic planning along with a reduction in Council and Committee meeting frequency to bi-monthly (with the exception of planning, which continues to meet twice a month as it needs to do so).

Now the scheme may have considerable merit and be blindingly obvious to the people that created it but conveying that across in a short written report with a list of cascading recommendations and then moving into voting on it without discussion suggested to me that people were restless in their seats and were keen to get on home or onto the refreshments rather than actually discuss what it meant.

I had a number of half formed concerns that I wanted to express, but being only allowed to make one speech, was waiting for others to make points that would swing my views accordingly. However, I was waiting in vain!

Needless to say, the topic got bogged down in confusion, but was eventually passed with something of a minority, there being a lot of abstentions along the way.

At the end of the meeting, another Councillor commented that if we had “Group meetings”, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen. However, I think that would cure the symptom, not the problem. What is the point of having several Group meetings where political parties make up the minority?

The six Labour members obviously have a Group meeting, as they vote the same way and look to key individuals for guidance. They also seem to abstain a lot, which is puzzling. An abstention is something of a wasted vote, as the majority is based only on yes or no votes. Does it mean “I don’t know?”, or “I don’t care?”?

The two Conservatives could have a Group meeting over a cup of Coffee or anything else, as they are married to each other (and infrequently seen together at full Council anyway, due to childcare etc.)

The five Morley Borough Independents regularly have Group meetings anyway, because they are all on Leeds City Council as well, although only one of them actually stood as an MBI on the Town Council.

The other eleven Councillors are truly independent with a wide range of views, leanings and alliances. Whilst there is often a common consensus of outcome for the good of the Town, the approach varies from libertarian to idiotarian, with a pinch of statism for good measure. Holding a Group meeting for such a bunch is a bit like herding cats!

Cat herding, though, is attempted because it is the traditional thing to do. There are regular Group meetings and I have been along to a couple of them but I have also felt an unease as the undercurrent seems more to be not losing face to the others by being poorly prepared, such as someone not being primed to Second a set of Minutes.
The trouble with having pre-meetings to decide a position on an issue is a two-fold problem; it is behind closed doors and it closes minds by falling back into the adversarial trap of political point scoring rather than consensus through rational discussion. The solution is simple- the pre-meeting should happen in the Council Chamber on the night. Proposals sometimes need a presentation and time for questions of clarification before debating the merits.

A lot of time at last night’s meeting was wasted re-enacting the battles of the Letters to the Editor page in the Morley Obtiser. Fortunately, the Press and most of the Public had gone home, the two remaining being used to the cut and thrust of small town politics which substitutes the Sabre for a traffic cone...

Poor old Ken...

Ken Livingstone, the newt loving keen spender of other people's money, has been suspended on full pay for four weeks for being rude to a journalist. This "punishment" has been imposed by the Standards Board for England, an increasingly discredited unelected quango that ensures that those in public office behave themselves. Unfortunately, however, it has become victim to the law of unintended consequences, as it has become a stick for political parties to bash their opponents for frivolous and vindictive complaints. Morley Town Council has an entry in their database and I thought there had been another case as well involving others but can't find it, perhaps it pre-dates their web records. There are also a handful for Leeds (I can't hyperlink directly, but type Leeds into the third box here.

Why is it so easy to be a vexatious litigant? Because Councillors are expected to treat everyone with respect, which is one of these multi-culti nonsense things that old people think means to defer to others, whilst youngsters think it means something you show to someone who intimidates you, I subservience based on fear.

The reality, of course, is that no-one is entitled to respect, only a basic level of tolerance. Respecting someone may be very difficult if you are of the opinion that they don't really deserve much, through their behaviour, unpleasant beliefs or ignorance. However, the God of political correctness says that you must be blind to the faults of others, especially if they are thought of as "victims". This God is a false god and needs to be eradicated, principally by ridicule. Tolerance is good manners, respect is earned. By being bound by a code that says you are not allowed to say what you think, the Councillors code leads to self-censorship and people saying things they don't actually think. Was Red Ken wrong to offend a Jewish journalist? Possibly, but I wasn't there so don't know the full story or the background. Has he broken the code of conduct? possibly, depending on whether you think he is on duty all of the time or not, but it shouldn't be a crime to say what you think, even for holocaust deniers live David Irving.

Who should decide to discipline the London Mayor? let the voters decide...

Journey into Space... and slurry...

We had a trip out down to Leicestershire on Sunday, or “Adrian Mole Country” as the County signs ought to proclaim in celebration of Sue Townsend’s anti-hero.

Our destination was the National Space Centre which is a Millennium Project funded museum located just north of Leicester. The most prominent feature of the building is a large tower which looks from afar as though it is made out of air filled packaging, there is a certain inflatable feel to it.

It is rather expensive to visit, £9.99 for adults, £7.99 for kids. There are certainly some fascinating exhibits but much of the detail is not of interest to primary school kids. There are diversionary items for that age range, however, with assorted tunnels and rubber gloves for smaller kids to interact with, as well as the ability to build soft play rockets and watch videos of Mr. Sunshine in an under 5’s area.

The main attraction in the museum is the space theatre, which is a cross between a Planetarium and a Cinema where you sit in comfy recliners under a huge dome not much smaller than the Madame Tussauds in Baker Street (which apparently has now abandoned planetarium shows in favour of entertainment videos.) We saw a show called “Big” that attempts to put the size of the Universe into perspective, i.e. absolutely massive and enough to shake a religious person’s belief somewhat. Lets face it, in the scale of things mankind is absolutely trivial and if there is a God/Allah/Jahweh/Grand Architect/Great Green Arkleseizure, the likelihood of them being interested in the antics of individual carbon based lifeforms is a total nonsense and the ultimate conceit of mankind.

The show is well made and includes humour in the form of animated plasticine figures as well as stunning views of other galaxies, although it could have done with being somewhat louder, especially with a couple of ignoramuses behind me discussing something I wasn’t interested in during the show. The use of LCD projectors to cover the dome is well done and whilst not entirely seamless (the joins do show as slightly darker areas forming a giant fuzzy tent frame) and not too bright strike the right compromise between being of Cinema intensity and spoiling the effect of the starfield and milky way.

The tower houses two large rockets, as well as various other artefacts and items, including a replica of Sputnik, the first Satellite to be launched. The tower is indeed inflatable, with a triple skinned pressurised membrane giving the bulbous look beyond the concrete core. The promised views of Leicester were lost in fog somewhat as it was a very misty day.

There is a gallery devoted to training for space missions that is interactive with probably the biggest queues, being the newest addition. It includes a simulator that seats 17 (five rows of 3/4/3/4/3) and bumps you around whilst you visit Jupiter and one of the moons (possibly Europa). You get to wear 3D specs for this ride and it is nicely done, but not to Disney standards.

I personally enjoyed the living in space gallery the most, where you learned about astronaut food, exercise and hygiene, including space toilets…

…next to the museum is another one, the Abbey Pumping Station which is basically a tribute to excrement being the remains of a former sewage works that pumped the slurry onwards after being sand filtered. (The Space Centre is built on brownfield land, literally so!) The displays aren’t just about sewage, however, there being items about trams, Victoriana and even a mockup of a vintage cinema projection room. The crowning glory is the pump hall, where four huge magnificent beam engines sit cold and static in an ornate Victorian Engine Hall, but fully restored and in steam on special occasions. The biggest interest to children, however, is a demonstration flushing toilet and associated drainage plumbing, complete with plastic turd to see how it works!