Shades of Grey

I get annoyed with out of date notices on notice boards. The large one on the side of the Town Hall is a case in point, lots of people put signs up on it but very few of them take them down again afterwards. It is not as if it is an elfen’ safety thing like the banners that need a ladder (The lantern festival banner was still up this morning, four days after the event).

When I started off as a councillor in 2004, there was a bit of a minor bunfight about that notice board as it was only really for Leeds notices, not Parish ones. (The Council eventually had their own made). Businesses started to put adverts up on it, which were removed by some of the more activist Councillors. I did wonder why their fervent desire to remove adverts for mobile discos and town cafes wasn’t matched by the obvious housekeeping of taking down obsolete posters though, so I started to do it myself. Since then, whenever I have been over to look, I have stripped out old ones for events that have been and gone.

I was doing this on Sunday morning and also took a photo of one of the posters as I didn’t have a pen and paper handy, then I noticed that a Policeman (or a PCSO) was proceeding in a Northeasterly direction towards me down the precinct. Now rather a lot of uniformed officers have shown themselves to have a rather poor understanding about the law of photography in public places so I prepared to put the Kodak into Camcorder mode in case he turned out to be another one like this. However, he showed no interest in me other than a cursory glance so Morley isn’t a Police State yet…

Walking back up the precinct to put the old posters into the bin, I saw something rather odd.

This must have been the Tingley Troll Pumpkin Pinata from the Lantern Festival. Further evidence of the parental participation during the evening could also be seen on top of the bin as well.

It strikes me that hundreds of thousands of bins must look a bit like ours does today.

One other thing seen today in Morley is a closed road in the middle of town. Four days to resurface a couple of hundred yards! Mind you, it was in a bad way though and needed it. I’d hate to live in one of the nearby flats are there was a near-constant beeping of reversing machinery when we passed. At least they aren’t doing the work at night.

Here is someone else from Morley who rummages round in bins, I believe he is called Boyd Schitt, or possibly Willy Eckerslike.

So says Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. But, there is a big but.

See Spyblog, the BJP  and The Register. (Don’t miss the El Reg article comments).

Meanwhile, the Plod demonstrate why they are in need on guidance. Schoolboy terrorists in Cheam, Middlesborough Jobsworths, snapping Letitia, Curly in Shields and harrassing the press.

Today is Halloween and the inevitable Trick or Treaters. Children, enjoy it while you can, because by next year, you may only be allowed to knock on doors that have a large Tick sticker on the door, showing that the householders have been approved by the Criminal Records Board for young persons interaction. Also, on no account take photographs of the people who come whether tricking or treating.

The way things are going in Britain, soon the only place you will be able to take photos without getting treated with suspicion is in Second Life.

Speaking of which, here is a delightful photo of the Wicked Witch of the Great White North. Apparently Halloween is big over there. 

Shouldn’t you have a crooked pointy nose & warts? You look cuter than Mrs. Shrek here!

Please Sign their petition. Then sign the one at Number Ten.

I really thought this story was a joke when I read it in the Mail on Sunday. A scaffolder was asked how he disposed of his industrial waste. On pointing out that a scaffolding business doesn’t produce any waste as it simply erects and removes scaffolding, he was advised that he was committing a criminal offence for taking his sandwich wrappings back home.

Just in case you think it is a Daily Mail-ism, here is the same story in the Telegraph.)

Now, I’m not going to come over all nanny state, as there are far too many examples of this type of b*ll*cks and not enough hours in the day, so I’m going to go off at a tangent here.

Have you ever wondered why scaffolding is the size it is?

The answer is gas. Gas piping used to come in 1 & 7/8″ outside diameter size cast iron tubes, internal size 1.5″. (It came in lots of sizes, of course, depending on the requirement). This was/is also widely used for lighting bars in the theatre, known as gas barrel in the UK, pipes elsewhere. When metric came along it became 48mm. Aluminium is the material of choice for theatres but steel is typical for scaffolding systems.

Thank you very much…

Michael Bunting is a former policeman who ended up being sentenced to four months in prison for retaliating during a vicious attack. The attack is a harrowing story but the treatment he received in prison was much, much worse. (His attacker was given 120 hours community service).

“You’re in our territory now, you f*****g filth, and we’re gonna f*****g carve you up.’

Michael was sacked from the Police Force on his release (standard procedure it seems) but Michael still protests his innocence. Many of his colleagues supported him despite intimidation by the judiciary- at least one did not.

He will be sending a copy of the book to Jack Straw who defended have a go heroes last summer. He comes across as a broken man who has been to hell on a handcart and back, only now slowly starting to pull together his new life.

You can find the book on Amazon and Michael’s website (including a blog) here.