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?

Where has Jonesy Gone?

The latest two TV programmes about Excellence (this one and the BBC effort on "cyber-bullying" a week earlier) show an astonishing shift in Policy. Jonesy, once so prominent in swanking to broadcasters, is nowhere to be seen or heard!

One must assume that the County Council has finally seen the light, and realised that Jonesy is a total liability in the presence of a camera or a microphone. Of course, down at the Dog n' Duck we consider him to be more of a comic genius than a liability, but then, we don't have to explain to the electorate what he has been up to. At least, not with a straight face.

Unfortunately, the Councillors seem to have decided to put themselves in the firing line (well that brave chap, Sam Crabb, has been doing so). This is bad news indeed, because:

(1) Councillor Crabb has an understandable but unfortunate tendency to look embarassed when being made to clutch meaningless trophies or spout idiotically large numbers that not even Albert Einstein can understand. It's hard for the audience to laugh and cringe at the same time;
(2) Councillor Crabb appears not to have been Linguistically Programmed to insert random but relevant phrases into his speech. That is phrases like "we, of course, are a four star (the most you could get before the plus was invented) excellent council as rated by the Audit Commission"; and
(3) The landlord has placed an absolute prohibition on "Political" postings from the Dog n' Duck computer (we even got into trouble for defending the Mogg).

Luckily, before Jonesy was removed from the public eye he showered us with so much bull that we estimate that the Dog n' Duck "explaining Excellence" programme could continue for another 2.75 years purely to clear the backlog. Even if he never said anything to anyone about "Excellence" ever again.

And let's face it - that is hardly likely to happen, is it?

National Anti-Bullying Week (day 2) - diagnosis

This is a serious week, for a serious subject (Organisational Terror, in case you've forgotten). No jokes.

So today, the regulars down at the Dog n' Duck would like to invite you all to examine the inner workings of your mind, to see whether you too are a Potential Organisational Terrorist.

Statistics have shown that POTs are most likely to be:

(1) recent recruits (watch out for Simon & Meic);
(2) newly elected (check out "question 3");
(3) refugees from the private sector (Yikes! That's the whole of IBM); and
(4) used to working in smaller organisations (Phew. IBM ruled out, our £400 million is safe).

As with drugs, young minds are most vulnerable. This is because they suffer from something called "idealism", also known as illusions. Fortunately Somerset County Council has an award-winning inducktrination program that has a proven track record of turning illusions into delusions.

That program uses the techniques of NLP ("Neuro Linguistic Programming" for those of you who are still not familiar with the inner workings of Excellence) to identify an individual's susceptibility to POTism.

What happens is this. To prepare for your journey, you do all that deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, envisioning, and self-realisation stuff. Then you allow your mind to range freely over the Strategic Excellence Agenda and Service Delivery Branding Options and all the rest of it.

At this point, if your mind cannot be cleared of doubts and insists on returning to practicalities, and vernacular expressions such as "that ain't right!", then not only are you an ignorant yokel, but you have a problem.

Sorry, I meant "we" have a problem.

"Our" problem is that you are a Terrorist Outrage waiting to happen. There are two options. Either you can get rid of yourself, or you can read the advice being posted later this week.

Creating Excellence (lesson 69)

It is September 2008, and time to recover our sense of humour, so as to fuel a renewed effort to get to grips with Excellence in Somerset.

Albert is still struggling to reconcile himself to Jonesy’s latest figures, and Daffer’s in a strop about the Spaghetti Monster, so it’s time to introduce Pat, another of the regulars down at the Dog & Duck.

Pat is a Postman (of course), and like Jonesy, likes a bit. He is also like Jonesy in that people make irreverent videos about him on youtube – see here.

Anyway, one morning last summer (actually it was at 10.04 am local time on 25th June 2007, not that this information was leaked from a County Council surveillance unit or anything) Postie Pat was making a delivery at a certain address in Somerset.

According to Pat, the door was opened by a goddess in a negligée, exuding come-hither vibes like one of Jonesy’s office girls. Sadly the spell was quickly broken by an almighty outburst of squawking from inside the house, followed by a high-pitched voice proclaiming:

“As a Four Star the most you can get Excellent Authority with a Positive direction of travel …”

“Don’t worry about that, Pat,” said the goddess, “it’s only my husband.”

“Your HUSBAND?”

“Well, his parrot actually.”

“His p-p-parrot?” Pat stammered.

“Yeah, his parrot, OK? He hears Rupert learning his lines, then he repeats it. It’s what parrots DO, alright?”

“Right, right, so your husband’s an actor is he? Away making a movie somewhere … a long way away … ?” Pat’s voice would have tailed off in a mixture of dwindling hope, now battered with the confusion and bewilderment that follows Excellence everywhere.

“No you idiot, he works at County Hall! He’s Acting Assistant Strategic Director of Strategy. Now are we going to have sex or what?”

According to Pat, after this passion-smothering series of revelations he immediately scarpered; like a postman who’s accidentally gone walkabout in the grounds of a loony bin patrolled by Dobermans. Of course, at the time none of us believed this, or indeed any part of his story.

But we are better informed now, if none the wiser!