Best on the Planet?

Many thanks to the CHUM agent who sent us a link to this story about some place called “Bratislava” in a country called “Slovakia”.

Hearing the word “Bratislava” (trans. “Best on the Planet” Ed.), the ignorant yokels thought that we were talking about a primary school built on the side of a Volcano! How about that for proving their Council is right, and that they are only fit for local jobs? At best.

Luckily, the Dog & Duck core team is rather more cosmopolitan, and was able to look up “Slovakia” on Google, discovering that it is in fact a place right in the middle of Europe (formerly linked to another place once referred to as “a far away place”).

‘Einstein territory …’ Pat observed, prompting a moment’s silence to respect the memory of the sanity of our friend and former Excellence Analyst, Albert.

‘That’s not a proper country,’ announced Daffer, ‘it hasn’t even got a coastline!’

Anyway, whoever these strange foreigners are, it seems that someone claiming to be our Jonesy was helping them to deal with something called “the Global Fiscal Crisis” last week.

We eventually concluded that it had to be an imposter, since Jonesy has been far too busy at the SAP helpdesk to go swanning off up the Danube (with or without a paddle).

Also, the slideshow purporting to be his was far too sober (no colour for example), and devoid of the Excellence Delusion.

But there is an intriguing reference to “Managing on the edge of chaos” …. that certainly rang a bell! (Yes! He's back! But for how long this time?)

GUTTED!

We have just come across this - Mr. Liddell Grainger's latest speech about Wonderland.

Everyone is agreed. This is NOT FUNNY.

Yet another serious sense of humour failure is blighting the Dog & Duck, thanks to Jonesy's shower.

Daffer is on the warpath with a filleting knife. Normally it's used for fish when he's at sea, but he would like to make it clear that if half of what ILG says is true, then it will work perfectly well "for that little squirt that I'm ashamed to share a name with ..."

Off yer Bike!

There seems to be a desperate scramble to find genuine (as opposed to "Excellent") savings in Taunton. Withdrawing all national newspapers from Somerset libraries will save the equivalent of 0.25% of the cost of running the Council's spin machine, but who are the victims this time?

The geriatric lobby is already up in arms (hardly surprising to those of us who recall rows of pensioners busy reading the things on a daily basis).

The tight gits will have to buy their own now!

But what about jobseekers?

A spokesman for SCC said that the council will continue to provide local newspapers (big deal - most of them are free anyway! Ed.) "to give everybody access to job adverts".

However, a spokesman for the Dog & Duck said that it is not appropriate for the County Council to assume that Somerset people are only good enough for local jobs, and that a lot of young people, in particular, are prepared to travel outside the area to find work.

'Tis strange how often bikes are in the frame these days ....

Somerset Bull in America

The SAP is rising.

We know this to be the case (despite the efforts of certain other SomerBloggers) as one of the regulars cut down a birch tree this week, and the stuff was glugging out of the stump like one of Jonesy's [CENSORED].

However, even if the forest bureaucrats' idiotic 5 tonnes per quarter rule didn't mean that people are forced to cut down trees at the wrong time of the year, we would still be quietly confident that the SAP was rising all around us.

And nowhere more so than in Taunton. Even if it is costing hundreds of PMCs.

We know this from an American visitor to the Dog & Duck, who was asking about Organisational Terrorists and Institutional Chauvinists and the Spirit of Partnership being weaker than the Spirit of Independence.

We were gobsmacked, I can tell you! But it seems that Bull is a two-way street, and that Jonesy delivered Somerset's revenge to a bewildered audience in Washington DC only last month!

Anyway, apart from repeating all our old favourites about his war on Terror and Chauvinistic neighbours and uncooperative Districts, Jonesy also told the Yanks that the SAP would definitely rise on time this year.

Sort of like King Canute in reverse.

Unbelievably, he also provided us with YET ANOTHER figure for savings from the SouthWest One adventure!!! This time it is £191,000,000 (still over £1,000 per taxpayer, but still not adding up to £17,000,000 + 140,000,000).

There was also the usual world class torrent of transformation and reframing, and even the question "what's beyond excellence?" Apparantly, at this point some guy yelled out from the back of the Hall, "It's the Dog & Duck blog, Stupid, everyone knows that!"

See the complete Washington DC show here.

[NB if the Forces of Excellence get to it before you and have the thing removed from public view (like they did with 'American Bull in Somerset'), then email the Dog and Duck for a copy. Free of Charge as ever!]

The Peat Moors Centre (£25,000)

You have to understand the Dog & Duck to realise why it has taken a while to get around to this one.

You see, we are just a bunch of ordinary Somerset folk, all ages, sizes and trades: teachers, grandparents, parents, former schoolkids etc.

Which is why hearing that the County Council was going to close the Peat Moors Centre (PMC) in order to save £25,000 (6th item on the list in the linked document) came like a kick in the stomach / bollocks / kidneys / all of the above.

Even now – months later, talk of the PMC causes choking throats and swollen eyes.

Many of the regulars have kids who used to love going to the place on school trips. Some of them are young enough to have actually done it themselves – they still talk about getting airsick as the bus bounced along the road from the A39 to the PMC (a definite candidate for the worst maintained public road in the South West).

Even outsiders like Carla Young were appalled, saying “but you’re lucky to have the moors, you should be celebrating them, not closing the place down!”

Is there ANY good news at all in this sorry, sorry tale? Well, the only thing we can think of is that it provides an alternative currency, or yardstick against which to judge the sordid mess they’ve got us into.

A few examples ... If 1 PMC = £25,000, then that makes:

The cost of Jonesy’s mistress? 6 PMCs

The cost of Jonesy’s post? 7 PMCs

The cost of marketing Excellence? 160 PMCs

The cost of ICElandish Excellence? 1,000 PMCs

It’s enough to make grown men vomit.

So it WAS all lies :-(

Doom & Gloom at the Dog & Duck.

In fact it's been quiet ever since the Council Tax bills arrived. Far from the cuts we were confidently expecting, they have actually put the tax UP for the fiscal year just starting.

This, despite the fact that they spent the second half of last year swanking about how they had been making savings of £2,889 per taxpayer (and that was before the Americans started making out that the savings from their little adventure were going to be pretty much double what Jonesy originally claimed). And despite the admission last October that they were sitting on a cash mountain of more than £5,000 per taxpayer.

Unable, perhaps, to break the habit of 5 years (or however long it is since Jonesy arrived), they even had the cheek to CONGRATULATE themselves for putting the Council Tax up, of the grounds that it was only by a few percentage points above inflation!

I suppose they couldn't help themselves - it's all that NLP (stuff to do with programming the mind - brought in to create Excellence).

Of course, we wouldn't mind if they were proposing to spend our money on matters of substance. Services for example. But those are being actually CUT.

All in all, it's more than our house style (cheap-and-cheerful, happy-go-lucky) can cope with for the time being.

So while we are trying to adapt to the changed circumstances, why not have a look at this delightfully silly little video about the Duck & Dog?