Rhyming Slang

Posted: Tue 16 February, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

On the local news just now, there was a story about Cambridgeshire county council workers protesting against cuts and job losses within the council. (We’ll currently gloss past the fact that a good 50% of  the workforce for any local authority are useless workshy cunts – or at least that’s my experience of council work, anyway)

The chant that was being used by protestors was :

“Sack the bankers
Not the workers”

Which isn’t quite rhyming slang – but I assume that “sack the bankers, not the wankers” wasn’t quite the message they were trying to convey…

Membership Change

Posted: Mon 15 February, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Politics | Leave a comment »

One of the more bizarre stories this weekend was about the BNP (British National Party) voting to change its rules on membership, and allow non-whites to be members.

They’ve had to do this as part of an equality ruling – unsurprising, for a racist organisation – but still, it’s pretty damn funny.

Mind you, I’d love to now see a non-white person or two joining the BNP, just to sit in on the meetings, sit there smiling and truly fucking with their heads.

And of course when it gets to the “Send ’em back where they came from” section of the meeting, just asking them if they know how much a ticket to [town of birth] costs.

Back to the Status Quo

Posted: Wed 10 February, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Norfolk, Politics, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Regular readers will know that one of the reasons I left my job last year with [Council that shall not be named] was because they had called a halt to all development work while a big legal battle was fought about a reorganisation of councils in Norfolk.  As a result of that decision, there was no new work being done by the council, and I was sat on my arse doing fuck all. Admittedly, while being paid for it, but still, I was a bum on a seat.

At the time I’d suggested that it was better to work on new development stuff, make it really good, and end up with a product that the other councils wanted to use. That way it meant that [Council]’s IT department would keep their job, rather than being rationalised/redundant.  But no, that would’ve been ‘a waste of resources’, and I didn’t understand the politics of it all.

It’s been announced today that Norwich city council will become a unitary authority, and all the other Norfolk councils will remain as they were. So after a year’s waiting and fucking about, all the decisions have been left as “Oh well, it was worth a try”, and things are back to where they were a year ago.

What a total waste of time and money.

Living with Terrorism

Posted: Sun 3 January, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Politics, Security, Thoughts, Travel | 4 Comments »

Over Christmas there was yet another terrorist “attack” in a plane over the US. And as a result, Fuhrer Brown has said that full-body scanners will be brought in to all the main UK airports because ‘they’re crucial in the fight against terrorism”. Which, frankly, is bollocks – the experts don’t even agree that the explosives used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day would be found by a full-body scanner.

I’ve written before about Security Theatre, and really this is all more of the same.

What makes me really laugh though is all the shite that politicians spout about doing this “because we won’t give in to terrorism”.

  • Every single time you take a flight and have to take your shoes off for a search, terrorism caused it.
  • Every time you go through a full-body search from now on, that’s been caused by terrorism.
  • Any time you can’t take a drink or shampoo abroad, that’s been caused by terrorism.
  • Any time you read about ID cards or airport security, that’s been caused by terrorism.

And actually, for pretty much all the above items, you could replace “caused by terrorism” with “caused by the threat of terrorism”. Because most of it isn’t actually related to terrorist acts – it’s related to “plots”, rather than the real thing.

Basically, if you’re travelling by plane, you’re affected by terrorism or the threat of it. Every time you’re affected, you think about why you’re being affected. And bang, terrorism wins yet again.

In fact, the only recent occasion where terrorism really hasn’t affected things (yet, anyway) was the bombings in London on the 7th July. Certainly that event has made people more aware of the risk of terrorism and suicide bombers – but it hasn’t involved extra security checks, or changes to the way we live.

So wittering on about not letting terrorists win, while adding in new pointless security measures “to prevent terrorism”, that’s terrorism winning its case.

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