SomerBlogging on ...

... despite Alan's precipitate departure following the change of little government?

We had kind of expected things to settle down a bit. You know? But then someone showed us this new blog.

It's one of the "Political" ones, and we would not normally want to comment, but the peculiar thing is that the Party has changed (all the previous ones were to do with the ancien régime and we suspected that some or all were fakes ...).

The other peculiar thing is that we have read through it several times and cannot figure out if it is genuine or a hoax!

As you may recall, we are always alert to the possibility of fakes ....

Any enlightenment would be welcome. On this, or indeed, any other matter!

Videos – Don't Panic!

Whoever drew up the Human Rights Act obviously had no regard for the needs of people who have spent the whole week in County Hall, reading extraordinary emails then going around in circles and banging their heads against the wall in despair.

Otherwise there would be an additional “right”, namely to a bit of light relief at the weekends, watching the latest video about their tormentors on YouTube.

This weekend, when Les Miserables click on their favourites to have another look at Ian Liddell Grainger’s famous video about their plight, they will see the words … "This video has been (censored)"

The same applies to all the others as well. Even the most innocuous ones (the ones that we liked best, incidentally).

Luckily the legendary County Hall Underground Movement (CHUM) was tipped off in advance. Hey! Maybe by Simon? That would be in keeping with the Matt Finnegan / Tony Parrish tradition.

Anyway, as a result someone was able to download most of the videos before C-day, and re-post them on another site (presumably offshore) called vimeo.com.

Here is our selection.

First, there is everyone’s favourite – the firing squad in a quarry (subtitled: “why no-one waved a red flag about the issue ").

Then there is the one about chaotic innovation … which includes the infamous words that inspired the folks down the Dog n’ Duck to start taking an interest.

We also like Bugs Bunny & the Jackass.

Some of the others can be found there as well, but as you know, we don’t do Sex or Politics down at the Dog n’ Duck. We are “strictly business”.

So … your weekend has been saved!

CENSORED!

Down at the Dog n' Duck we are all hoping that Jonesy has gone to the same place as those disappearing videos on YouTube.

(NB - don't despair! A few days ago we noticed that someone had made a little collection of some of the videos and has posted them on another site - we are checking our browser's "history" to find out where, and will post the link when we find it. At the time Daffer Jones said something must be up. His voyages have taken him to many places where there is censorship, so he picked up on the vibe before the rest of us.)

Let us be clear: we did NOT approve of the videos. At least, not all of them.

But some were very topical. Especially the one with the firing squad in the quarry. I remember when Jonesy ordered that execution - we were all delighted. She was a real bitch.

However, one does have to wonder how much of our money the Council is spending on censorship. Presumably they will see it as money well spent, since without censorship there would be no Excellence.

Would there?

Cyber-bullying (3) - can't get the staff?

I have to say it is a bit rotten of the County Council to accuse Mogg of making it hard for them to recruit staff, even claiming that candidates for senior posts have withdrawn their applications because of him.

You see, this sounds suspiciously like the makings of a splendid excuse for having incompetent staff, and I think it is unfair on the two latest senior appointees, both of whom seem to be doing a very good job in difficult circumstances.

Between them they have whipped the legal system into line, and brought the BBC firmly on board. This puts ITV on the back foot with their focus on sleazy CEOs and dodgy tactics.

How's that for a triumph of Excellence over expectation?

Cyber-bullying – an outsider’s view

Weird or what? No sooner have we crawled out from under the shield of National Anti-Bullying Week than one of the Somerbloggers comes under the cosh from the County Council and the BBC!

He was an obvious target, I suppose, on account of using his real name. But is ILG (aka “Mogg”) really behind all those blogs and videos? He is certainly not one of the regulars down at the Dog n’ Duck. In fact the landlord is adamant that he has never set foot in the place, saying, “We doesn’t allow Politicians in ‘ere, and you lot would be as well as to remember that!”

Talking of Politicians, one of the Councillors said on TV yesterday that “we only have one detractor”. Hah! Reminds me of when they thought that everything must be OK ‘cos they’d only had three complaints in a year! (We may examine that in more detail at some point.)

Anyway, we outsiders reckon that, as usual, it is all down to Excellence and to Jonesy’s War on Organisational Terror. What we see happening is this:

(1) Potential Organisational Terrorists are pressurised by this chap called Their Conscience “… to divulge Council information to others …”
(2) Now, ideally they would like to divulge it to someone like their Councillor, the Audit Commission, the Union, the Police or whatever.
(3) However, advice from colleagues and independents such as the Dog n’ Duck is simple: don’t do it! It is a waste of time and will be bad for your health, and that of your family.
(4) Anyone foolish enough to discuss their troubled conscience with “a senior manager” will find this message quickly reinforced. Possibly with a P45.
(5) Meanwhile, everyone in County Hall knows about ILG and Mogg. You mention either of them to inmates and the response is either a smile or a frown or blathering hysteria, never a blank look.
(6) Therefore the POT reaches a compromise with that Conscience bloke.
(7) This involves leaking the information to Mogg.
(8) He then ducks, closes his eyes, and stick his fingers in his ears.

You see, for Organisational Terrorists, leaking to Mogg is the Nuclear Option. It should be a last resort, but the exigencies of Excellence mean that for many it is their only resort.

The net closes in ...

Phew! Only yesterday I posted a link to a document on the internet, and today it has been shredded - allegedly at the request of the Standards Board ... see : http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/4074094

However according to the webstats over 400 people viewed the document before it was censored, including, you will all be glad to know, ME!

And in case you are worried about the fictional work in progress (http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/) this blogger, let me tell you, has a memory like a Supergrass. He can remember, with crystal clear photographic recall, documents that never existed at all. The dots are in good hands!

More to the point, during the months that this extraordinary 32-page document was up on the net, many of us had puzzled over a key question: was it genuine, or was it a fake?

You see, it certainly LOOKED genuine - layout, language, subject matter, etc. However when you read it closely (as I certainly did), the content was so extraordinary that I really did have doubts. Among other things, it showed Roger dropping Jonesy right in the slurry pit. Up to his neck in it he would have been (except that Roger pitched him in head first).

As time passed, I slowly came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, a hoax. The main evidence for this was that every time I drove past County Hall, the Plus Fours continued to flutter from the flag pole. If the document HAD been genuine, I had no doubt, the Plus Fours would have been promptly replaced with Roger's Noodly Appendage. Pour décourager les autres!

Anyway, of course, the fact that they have now gone to all the trouble (and our expense) of getting the thing removed does add considerably to the case for authenticity.

Which leads one to wonder - what actually has been done with Roger's ... wotsits?

Do they mean us?

Oh dear, oh dear - be careful what you blog for! No, Jonesy hasn't quit, but his sense of humour does seem to have failed us, again - see here: http://www.lgcplus.com/InthisweeksLGC/2008/08/chief_threatens_legal_action_over_fake_blog.html

Hurray! More threats from our local hero! Blogs and films under fire ... now, which particular blog does he mean? Could it be one of these?

http://thedragonstear.blogspot.com/
http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/
http://rogerkershawconfesses.blogspot.com/
http://theofficialalanjonesblog.blogspot.com/
(there are others, but I'm squeamish - you'll have to surf for them yourselves)

or is it the one that started it all? http://www.liddellgrainger.org.uk/ian/MOGGTHEBLOGISBACK.html

As for "films" ... I can find these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiklM51QRfU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gCETYnygA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3KzR5AL1cs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuBedgK7_Kw

Whatever, but I cannot believe Blogbuster Jones would want to draw anyone's attention to THIS! http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/4074094 (that really would be cutting his own throat, even if it is just a series of dots - so far ...)

POSTSCRIPT: SORRY FOR THE DUFF LINK. SEE TOMORROW'S BLOG ENTRY FOR FURTHER DETAILS. http://farbeyondexcellence.blogspot.com/2008/08/net-closes-in.html

Anyway, the good news is that Jonesy has given us two new numbers to play with: £17 million (in savings to SCC), and £140 million (in "procurement savings"). I'll get Albert and his calculator on the job, so he can explain these to us.

Somerset’s Mugabe

Thanks to DNA we now know that everyone in the world is related. Three foot pygmies in undiscovered (except by themselves of course) tribes in the Amazon Jungle. Eight foot Africans. 5’10” spotty teenage oiks in Yeovil. You. Me. Jonesy. All the same.

Hitler had the same genes as Moses. Kruger (who would not have believed it of course, seeing as how he insisted until his dying day that the world was flat) was related to Mandela. Sorry Nelson. Fact.

The scientists also say that it only takes 10,000 years for people to evolve from white to black (and vice versa), so this is not as fanciful as it may seem …

… and I sometimes wonder what would happen if Mugabe were in charge of Somerset ...

Inflation would be 43.3%
The Police would get a good deal
Morgan would be reported to the Standards Board for being a pirate
The County Farms would be sold off
All Robert’s cronies would get cracking jobs
Anyone he didn’t like would be threatened then sacked
If the wrong people were elected he would cut off ….

… Yikes! What about Bloggers?