Sunday, February 19, 2006

Send them some flowers

Flowered Up I'm cock-a-hoop* about the latest news. Bath has won something in the "Britain In Bloom" competition. "Britain In Bloom" is where cash-strapped councils prove their mismanagement skills by allocating funds to repainting lots of poles all over their territory. They then allocate even more funds to buying flowers, pay people to wobble about on hydraulic lifts and clog up traffic routes while hanging the flowers. Flowers in place, more funds are diverted towards the entertainment of a crowd of overfed people with large noses (all the better for looking down at things from), commonly referred to as "judges" by those involved with "the project" (and equally commonly referred to as "useless leeches" by council tax victims payers).The useless leeches judges spend a day or surveying the wilting floral displays, accompanied by various city officials on the lookout for new places to eat and drink. The mayor does a bit of public spouting. Everyone smiles. Backs are patted, and the judges fuck off and spend somebody else's cash. 99% of residents, of course, are unaffected by any of this until they see next year's council tax bill.Now, in the case of Bath, the council has already adequately demonstrated its mismanagement skills by allowing millions of pounds of our its money to be pissed down the huge plughole somewhere in the new Bath Spa. They must be over the moon (well, in fact, they are over the moon, it says so in the local rag) at receiving further recognition. Allow me to add my own congratulations to the heaps already piled upon them. Well done, Bath City Council!*I'm not really.

Cost of a haircut

Full Recovery Expected So, where better to go on a slightly down and introspective day than the barbers? Okay, the pub would have been my natural choice, but not a wise one in my current state of mind:'How's that bug fix going, Monkey?''Ah. Boss. Look. I'm going to have to pull your nails out one by one and bang them into your testicles with your head because you are a worthless irritating self-important collection of uselessness not even fit to be called a shemale .''Another couple of days, then? Right.'No. I settled on getting a haircut. The bloke doing the cutting had the usual conversational skills required for an intensely customer-facing job:'Hello.''Hello.'[5 minutes of silence as he wonders which brain-stimulating topic to start with]'Sun's coming out, then...''Yep.''Better than last week.''Yep.''It was really grey last week.''Yep.'[5 minutes of silence as he rummages around the mental rolodex for the next Exciting Subject]'You got the day off then?''Nope. Just came into town for lunch.''Right.'[5 minutes to calm down]'Square or tapered at the back?''Tapered.''Right.'[5 minutes of snipping at the air]'Eleven quid please.''Holy...'Yeah. Just what the doctor ordered

Thursday, February 16, 2006

hey buddy.got my blog back