The Grumpy Old Blog

I love when TV interviews people who go to party political conferences. These people fall into three basic categories: a. Someone who has been elected to something in their party b. Someone who wants to be elected to something in their party c. Someone who is out on institutional day-release to attend the conference 1. The Conservative supporter is inevitably a Jacob Rees Mogg clone, in a four, or even five-piece suit, sounding either like Jacob or otherwise sounding like a Gloucestershire country bumpkin who inevitably needs plugging into a slow-speed charger following the interview. 2. The Labour supporter, usually looking like Dave Spart from Private Eye, has great difficulty in pronouncing basic English words. They use “basically” and “essentially” before each sentence, include a “literally” in the middle, and will happily declare Barbara Castle from the Harold Wilson years as the finest Transport Minister who ever was. This, despite the fact that while she was in real life q...

Just back from performing my civic duty, although I was quite upset to see no Monster Raving Loony Party candidates on the ballot. As you can see from the photo, it didn't get off to a spectacularly good start at the polling station. Presumably, it was a helpful prospective local councillor covering all angles . . . or entrances/exits (there was only one, and that was to the left). Managed to pick up the local pedestrian, as opposed to bus, lunatic on the way. Like a fool, when he asked where I was going, I said "to vote", to which he replied "so am I pal, I'll walk with you". He was full of enlightening and vital information, or as it might otherwise be more correctly termed, conspiracy theories. It was a wonderful list. Unusually for me I just nodded and let him get on with it. The breadth of his knowledge on current affairs was fantastic, albeit in a very Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy sort of fashion. How people reach such incredible heigh...

    Brilliant! February may not quite be finished, but spring MUST be on the way, as the first leaflets 'spring' through the door for the 4th May local elections. Almost 10 weeks to go, and some Labour oik who I have never heard of or ever seen before is having a go at gaining my vote. I have every faith that the respective Conservative and LibDem oiks as well the one of five-a-day, thoroughly detestable Greens will be shoving their recyclables through my letterbox soon too. I don't know why, but my paper recycling bin is to the left of my front door. Just cut out the middle man - me - and put your electioneering rubbish straight in the bin. Unlike some friends of mine who have become councillors, with their hard work benefiting the residents of places such as Swinton, Crumpsall and Prestwich, I am not interested in some oik whom I have never seen before, with his ridiculous footballer haircut and man bun, and a stupid curtain-ring earring in both ears, representing me. I ...

Well done to everyone involved with Sport Relief in raising almost £40milion and especially to the fantastic Zoe Ball for raising a thoroughly amazing £1million-plus on her own. Bet dad Johnny must be so proud. Astounding. P.S. Also, delighted to see that 3 of the 11 homeless people sleeping in doorways along Manchester's Deansgate this morning now have little put-me-up-tents. Not that I'm advocating too much charity should begin at home. But at least three of these unfortunate people can now cough and sneeze in the comfort of their own now-enclosed pavement slabs. Oh! And that after 8 months of chaos they have now resurfaced Bury New Bottleneck Road as part of the £800,000 "Village" improvement that no one in the area wanted nor were consulted on. I'm just chuffed, as a council tax payer, that the cash-strapped Council indeed had some spare cash to waste, er, sorry, I mean spend on this. Well done to Councillor Backhandcash for pushing it...

Councils are very hard to understand. I heard on the radio this morning that 7 million actions have been taken this year by council bin-snoop police throughout the country, many resulting in income for said councils in the form of fines. One lady in the midlands was fined £50 for throwing a jam jar into her full paper-cardboard recycle bin. They should be glad she recycles anything, given the shameful way the residents of our apartment block carry on!  Yes, councils continually cry poverty, yet pay very senior staff  a fortune (not the humble coal-face workers dealing with an often very-miffed public; I mean they pay a fortune to the ones with strings of meaningless letters after their name and who use just an initial and surname so you don't know whether they are a Mr, Mrs, Miss or a combination of all three. I mean, if you get a letter from "A Jobsworth" would you know whether they are a Mr, Mrs, Miss or a combination of all three?).  They come up with wonderful ideas...

What things have Councils across the UK got in common? Actually, this is more about those things that annoy the public who pay for them from their hard-earned cash and whom they are meant, as a result, to serve to their alleged best Here are a couple of aggregated points: Most councils have senior executives on six-figure salaries, many larger than that of the Prime Minister, with inflation-busting increases every year while those at the coal-face in a best-case scenario receive no increase, while in a worse-case scenario, are shunted off to the Job Centre Most councils do things simply because they can, and get away with them because they have the law on their side, regardless of how reprehensible or morally offensive those things are. It is almost impossible to have their decisions reversed. That the members of the public who fund them have to turn to their MP, the media or to consumer programmes on television or in newspapers for action is utterly reprehensible It is so diffi...

Local election day in the UK, where many Britons head off to the voting station to put an "X" beside the name of someone they don't know representing the political views of a party they know nothing about. And that's just the candidates. Just back myself from the high-tech plywood and nails that I believe is officially called a "polling booth". Plainly the local invigilator must have worked in a bank, as the little voting pencils were very technically Sellotaped to a piece of string in the booth. The iPad generation hasn't enveloped the political voting system just yet, despite many councillors spending vast sums of local council tax-payers money on iPads and Samsungs to assist with a larger screen to play Candy Crush on as they attend vital Council meetings. The local school kids have been kicked out of their play-school hall to accommodate this. I was bitterly disappointed that only four names appeared on the ballot paper, none of whom was ...

More news about the the trees being proposed for Prestwich village, which is a small suburb of Manchester not far from Blackburn, but thankfully for residents, inconveniently far enough away that people in Prestwich can easily avoid it. My contact in Bury Council (Sir Frederik Scuttle OBE DipEd PhD SFA WTF) informs me that their HR department invited famous hypnotist Paul McKenna in to the Council last week to provide "training" for union members, Green Party members and var ious green welly warriors, all of whom eat organic cardboard, recycle their bicycles and own allotments so far from home they have to drive in their often smoke-belching MOT-failures to get there. For reference, here is a picture of one of the "trees" they now "believe" are being planted. All potentially in the ground. And for those thinking of taking a cycle path through Prestwich. Take care! Be afraid. Be very afraid. You will find them and they will kill you. ...

The supermarkets have been at it now for a long time. Once one of the big ones diversified away from their core grocery business, the rest followed. We seem to have long-since accepted that the big supermarkets sell clothes, white goods, brown goods, magazines, greeting cards, crockery, gifts, in fact you name it, they sell it. Originally, and to a degree still representing a good deal for the consumer - apart from their fake special offers that they always claim when exposed on the TV consumer programmes as an “error” – it would be more acceptable if they didn’t kill the local high streets and suburbs with their total unethical, and at times, dishonest attitude to the small local business. But this can be partially explained by lack of reality and short-sighted councils who just see these metro supermarkets as reliable businesses that can and will stump up premium business rates, month-in, month-out, without question. Despite it being we the residents who pay these...