Taunton Terror Trials - End Game?

The "incompetence or malice?" issue should finally be resolved in Taunton next week.

Let us be confident that the judges will do their jobs properly and establish who's who in the world of Somerset Terror, with no more evasion, distraction, distortion or spin.

Incredible as it may sound (especially to the regulars down at the Dog & Duck who have had experience), the story this time is that the Forces of Excellence were in fact the victims of bullying. Yep, that's right, same as perpetrators, but in reverse!

Now this may sound like a sick joke, but let us remember that an acknowledged "culture of bullying" was one of the building blocks of Excellence as Somerset knows it. Also, a lot of people now have experience of living under Excellence. They will know that it is has been standard management practice for anyone who asks unhelpful questions to be branded a "bully".

However, up until now, that has been a purely internal procedure. To the outside world, dissenters have always been presented as "Organizational Terrorists", at least since Venice. This implies some sort of subversive underground movement, rather than a display of jackbooted authority. And it's pretty obvious why - imagine headlines in the Sun:

Mouse Terrorises Cat!; or

Somerset Worm Scares Birds!

Anyone who wants the full background to the sordid little saga could do worse than check out Hansard. (P.S. - nice to see someone standing up for a political opponent for a change!)

As for next week, everyone at the D&D says:

Good Luck Paul!

Still Sapping Somerset

If Bullying is the hallmark of Excellence in Somerset, then surely SAP must be its pinnacle. An enterprise-wide solution (aka "a Problem in Disguise") costing tens of millions of pounds, being managed by a foreign body, is held up as the ultimate achievement of the Excellence Years (2003-2009).

So it was a bit of a disappointment to be joined by someone claiming to be a "School Bursar" when we were discussing it down at the Dog & Duck last night.

A growing number of regulars work for organisations who are owed money by SAP but have not been paid, ("it's getting silly!" is the sort of facile statement we are having to put up with from ignorant yokels who do contracting or whatever for the Council).

'You think you've got problems,' said the Bursar, 'schools haven't been able to reconcile SIMS to SAP since the beginning of the year!'

'Huh?' chorused the ignorant yokels.

'What's that got to do with how I'm supposed to pay my wages tomorrow?' yelled some lout from the bar.

'What's a SIM?' asked Daffer.

'SIMS' the Bursar corrected him. 'It's the schools' management system, what we do our accounts on.'

Now, if Albert Einstein were still with us, he would have understood immediately. But for the rest of us, this poor Bursar chappie had to spell it out before we would allow him to go back to drowning his sorrows at the bar.

It seems that the County spends most of our money (hundreds of millions a year, in fact) through schools, and the schools all do their own budgeting. Now, due to the SAP débâcle, none of them can check that they've got it right this year, and if they haven't .... well they won't find out about it until it's too late anyway.

None of which will explain how SAP's creditors are supposed to pay their wages this week ... :-(

A farewell to Excellence?

It has been pointed out to us that without Bullying we may also have to say au revoir (sorry, that should read “adieu”, get it right Duck!) to our old friend Excellence.

As for whatever it was that would have lain “Beyond Excellence”, well without the Bully Boys to tell us we’ve reached it, that will return to the realms of Scientific Impossibility. (Hey! Maybe that will speed Albert Einstein’s return from the Loony Bin! Ed.)

You see, as we have hinted in the past (but not properly explained – yet), there is an inextricable link between Excellence and Bullying in Somerset. It’s to do with these people from London and Brussels and places like that, who send little men called “inspectors” to Somerset. We’ll get Carla to explain how it works – next time she is in Somerset.

Meanwhile, we just hope that the new members will realise that the ignorant yokels won’t even notice if they shed the plus, or even a star or two. In fact, if it means more resources for libraries, PMCs, roads, achievement, care, etc. …. then we may actually welcome it!

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!]

Somerset to Launch Space Mission!

The trouble with eye-catching headlines is that there's always someone who will read the underlying article.

Take this one, that we have already commented on. Rather appropriate to re-visit the topic on the day that most of South Somerset ground to a halt due to uncleared snow - YET AGAIN!

Remember how Daffer Jones asked for a calculator a few days back? He was looking at this press release, and started going on about how he'd found the most idiotic claim ever to come out of SCC's £4million per year spin machine ... "an absolute whopper!"

"Look," said Daff, "go on the SCC website, and find statistics."

"OK," I said.

"Right, and so what is the surface area of Somerset?"

"Well, it says here 3,452 square kilometres, but that's the 2001 figure, it's probably grown since Jonesy arrived."

"Sod that," growled Daffer, "now look at what they said about the 'excellent', 'dedicated', 'fantastic' and 'amazing' job they did on the snow."

“We’ve treated in excess of 40,000 sq km with salt in the last week." I read.

"Right," said Daffer, handing me the calculator, "and what's 40,000 divided by 3,452?"

"er, 11 point five eight seven four eight five five one ..."

"all right, all right," Daffer interrupted, "so to any normal person that means they claimed to have coated the whole county in salt twelve times that week, OK?"

"Yeah ... so?"

"That's the ENTIRE SURFACE AREA of the county, TWELVE TIMES OVER, you idiots, not just the A & B roads, but ALL the roads, plus all the fields, the moors, the forests, EVERYTHING. TWELVE TIMES OVER!"

"Bloody Hell, Daff, you're right, that includes all the countryside and everything ..." I said, finally realising what he was on about.

"And all the gardens and driveways too ..." said Pat helpfully.

"Not to mention all the hills and beaches," said someone else.

"And even the Salt Marshes!" added the landlord, shaking his head in wonderment. He normally keeps out of these things but was now finally beginning to comprehend the enormity of the, er, lie(?).

"That's right," said Daff, "and twelve times over, and in just one week."

Who needs Albert Einstein when you've got a sailor with "O" Level maths at the bar?

Smug in Somerset

Ha! Everyone else is going to have an increase in their Council Tax of 3.5%, but not here in Somerset.

That's because we have an "Excellent" council that announced more than half a billion pounds worth of savings in the second half of last year.

Down at the Dog & Duck we await the arrival of our Council Tax bills with quiet confidence this year, despite having spent all our money on christmas presents to help the economy.

Here in Somerset we call it "the Excellence dividend".

Excellent Savings!

As promised, here is the Official Dog & Duck Summary of all the savings we’ve noticed the Council announcing since we started taking an interest (less than six months ago). In fact, just today, here they are at it AGAIN!!

By our reckoning, before long they will be paying us to live here!

Unfortunately, like the Council, we are having problems with our auditor.

Audit Report

Our auditor, Albert Einstein, is currently in no position to issue any sort of coherent report on this summary. This is entirely his own fault, for insisting on trying to comply with trivial and irrelevant rules such as: the Laws of Nature, Logic, the Law of Gravy, Prudence (whoever she is), and others that we can’t pronounce. Let alone spell.

Before we pressed the “publish post” button on the blog, he was heard muttering something like “Nein, Nein Dumbkopf! You are double counting, and it does not vork like zat anyvay!”

However, every single one of these numbers has been taken from the Council’s own website, or from reputable sources like the TV. We have actually taken care not to do double counting (e.g. procurement savings started off being only £140,000,000 and then got raised to £150,000,000 so we put in £140,000,000 and £10,000,000, NOT £140,000,000 and £150,000,000, which would have given us a far better figure, but would have been double counting).

As a matter of fact, WE were the ones that suggested that the Council originally raised the procurement figure from £140m to £150m because they realised that even if 150+17 does not come to 200, at least it comes closer than 140+17.

Daffer, who happens to have “O” Level Maths, even suggested helpfully that 150+17 might be 167, and that this (using technical terms such as “one significant figure” and “rounding”) was the same as 200.

At this, Albert just flew off the handle yelling “Illogical, illogical! Nein … vorse than illogical, WRONG!”

Anyway, the point is, there is a deadline that was set 2,000 years ago and cannot be changed. Christmas is nearly upon us and all we know is that the Council has been going on and on about saving hundreds of millions of pounds, without bothering with explanations. This is an important time of year for household budgets. People need to have some idea of what all these big numbers mean for their Council Tax, so they know how much they have left to spend on presents.

These are special circumstances and we have done our best. OK?

Excellent Complaints Management

One thing that has long taxed the (limited) intellectual resources of the Dog n' Duck is how the Forces of Excellence are able to claim that they get so few complaints. However over the weekend a CHUM agent was so incensed by the censorship issue that they leaked us a copy of this spreadsheet. It is self explanatory, and just reinforces what we suspected all along!

Public Apology to communities team

A group claiming to represent people of Gypsy/Roma heritage recently contacted the Dog n’ Duck. They told us that the Somerset “Gypsy & Traveller Team” was in no way Excellent, and was, in fact, "doing a fe**ing good job”.

We promised to publicise this, and to link to a story about Somerset on a “Romany” website that they told us about …. but due to distractions around bullying and censorship it got overlooked. And in a display of utter incompetence (it wasn’t me, it was the Dog!) we have now lost the link.

However we would like to apologise for the delay in bringing it up, and to confirm our belief that this story on the Council’s own website is in fact true.

And, before you ask, no - we are not “only saying it” because they don’t mention Excellence.

Not even once!

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?

Earth to Kershaw ...

Perhaps it was naïve, but we did expect to see some mention of investments in the latest Agenda of the Excellent Audit Committee. Down at the Dog & Duck we reckon that a cock-up of Icelandic proportions deserves at least a teeny-weeny little mention.

Under Reports, however, there is a thing called "Risk Management Update".

"Ach sooo! Zey vill haff hidden it here!" Said Albert Einstein confidently (Al's an Accountant, remember, so he knows about this stuff).

Anyway, we clicked away on the Dog & Duck computer, and lo and behold .... nothing. We found all sorts of Excellence, and discovered that SCC has lots of people called "Risk Management Champions", and plenty of other fancy talk and coloured matrices (hey! we can do colour too - look: ICELAND IRELAND ENGLAND).

But on the subject of investments or bank deposits or the like - a truly deafening silence.

However, let it not be said that Roger & Co. have passed up an opportunity to rub our noses in it. For this is the moment they chose to unveil something called the SCC Risk Management Standard, describing it as "a new addition to the Risk Management Toolkit"....

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, counties like Leicestershire have what they call "a prudent investment policy". And in February of this year, North West Leicestershire District Council took £6.5 million out of Icelandic banks, because they thought it wasn't safe.

Now, what was Roger doing back in February 2008? Oh yes, I remember! He was feeding spaghetti to a pirate that had boarded Spaceship Somerset and was forcing everyone worship his monster.

Excellent News from Sheffield!

It looks like yet another Council was not too busy waffling on about Excellence to do one of those risk assessment things.

Sheffield had £12 million in Iceland, but moved it out a year ago because they thought it was not safe. That would have been around the time Alan was in Venice, going on about getting rid of Organisational Terrorists.

As for me - it looks like I have to eat my words about Northern Councils!

Roger’s Risk Assessment

Apparently not all Local Authorities are stupid. Like Somerset, East Northamptonshire Council had a load of cash stashed away in Iceland. Then they did this thing called “a risk management assessment of what was going on.” As a result their Leader was able to say "That means we didn't lose any money.”

What was Roger doing at the time? Oh yes, I remember. He was acting the part of Corporate Director of Resources, which involved

1) faffing about with groundbreaking initiatives;
1a) an enormous paycheck;
2) babbling on about Excellence;
2a) an even bigger paycheck;
3) authorising payments of £140,000;
3a) an absolutely gi-normous paycheck; and
4) Heaven only knows what else
(possibly involving brown envelopes full of £50 notes).

Then of course there was this §151 business. A little bird (naughty little bird!) told me that Roger’s Risk Assessment went something like this:

Christ! There’s all this shit going down in Taunton, and here’s poor little me acting as a §151 officer! And then there are all those things I am supposed to be §151ing. But Alan glares at me just for thinking it. And I can see him thinking and wondering if I’m an Organisational Terrorist and snarling something in my direction about how its time we had a permanent Corporate Director and did I really want to risk seeing the job “advertised externally”? And that is a risk I am not prepared to take so I better just shut up and who needs a business case anyway? So as Alan says I better focus on the big picture and important things like how to write big words in small spaces, like the words “Twenty-Five Million, One Hundred and Forty Thousand Pounds only” in that tiny little space on a Somerset County Council cheque. And if I use a biro there’s less risk to the Council that someone will alter the cheque when it gets lost. And that’s about all of §151 that any actor can take.

Anyway the Guardians and Verifiers of Excellence have also thrown millions away. So Somerset County Council were not the only ones who were too busy with Excellence to bother with “a risk management assessment of what was going on.”

And if that is Excellence, then God help Somerset when Jonesy & Co. drag us beyond it!

Somerset's Darkest Days

I try not to blog when my sense of humour has failed. But today, today has to become an exception.

First, a rumour that Mr. Buchanan may be innocent. There is however no confirmation of this on the Council's website. In any normal Local Authority, the news that a leading Councillor has been cleared by the Standards Board would be something to celebrate. In Somerset's darkest days we wonder whether it will even be reported. Give it time? Maybe.

But as they say in the land of Excellence, "let's park that one". It has been trumped.

There is no easy way to say this. Somerset County Council invested £25 million of our money in Icelandic banks.

In confirming this figure, the Leader of the Council is alleged by the BBC to have said "...the money represented 2.5% of the overall portfolio..." and "...the authority had always tried to be prudent and spread investments..."

£4,000,000 a year on spin, and that is the best they can come up with?

Let's re-spin it.

"2.5%"? That means the Council is sitting on £1,000,000,000 of our money (yes, nine "zeros"). That is more than £5,000 for each household. Why in the name of Alan Jones have they been putting the Council Tax up every year?

"spreading investments"? Iceland makes up 0.003% of the world's population. Somerset's investment represented £100 for every member of that population. An equivalent investment in the banking system of the United Kingdom would amount to £6,500,000,000. If every Council in the UK made a similar investment it would come to £820,000,000,000. The Financial Crisis would be over.

"prudent"? It makes you wonder where they've put the other £975,000,000 that they took from Somerset's Council Tax Payers.

Where was Roger Kershaw when BCCI went tits up? Obviously not learning any lessons. And the country wasn't even a couple of years into a credit crunch at the time (yes, "experts" reckon it started well over a year ago, but Taunton clearly did not notice).

Other councils have also been stupid and have lost money. But I don't care about other councils. They are not cramming Excellence down my throat and bringing Stars to my eyes. They are not fleecing me for the privilege of being subject to their fantasies. And as for the Plus ....

Somerset's War on Terror

Jonesy has repeatedly congratulated himself, at home and abroad, for his success in the War on Organisational Terror.

So who is this “enemy within”? What organisations have they terrorised? What did they do, or say, or write, that terrified their victims?

Even the most incompetent Googler will quickly work out that Organisational Terrorists did not come into being purely to interfere with Jonesy’s delusions of Excellence.

In fact this evil breed has been active since the beginning of time. The second person in history, and the very first woman ever invented, was also the first Organisational Terrorist. She upset the applecart in Eden (NB: the Garden of Eden was officially recognised as the world’s first “Excellent” organisation in the year 6000 B.C.).

Eve threatened to tell God about what she and the Man got up to behind the bike shed, so the Man got rid of her by feeding her to a serpent. It didn’t cost the Garden of Eden £140,000. In fact, it didn’t cost anything – there’s a thought!

More recently another lady, Karen Silkwood, asked all sorts of unhelpful questions. The victim was a Nuclear Technology Organisation. In accordance with the principles of sincerity that underpin Excellence, the Organisation earnestly welcomed these questions. Then she was killed.

As Jonesy said in Venice "It is important to get rid of these people.”

And it’s not just women, or foreigners. In fact the OTs have their own Hall of Shame!

Only £20?

Many people would find it difficult to spend a council’s Information Presentation Budget in a rural county of half a million citizens.

Especially when those citizens are not known for their sophistication. And especially when the amounts involved – were they to be spent on matters of substance - would pretty much pay for a whole Somerset District!

Well, the good news is that our Simon will have plenty of help in spending the £4 million a year Somerset County Council spin budget.

According to information from County Hall, The “Head of Communications” has no less than three “Marketing & Communications Managers”, none of whom are to be confused with the “Communications & Marketing Manager” (spot the difference!).

In addition to this lot, there are two “Access & Communications Managers” who between them deal with “Publications”, “Media”, “Reputation”, and “Branding”.

Now, there may only be six spin managers, but they require an awful lot of support from people with Titles like:

- Events Coordinator
- Media Analyst
- PR Officer
- Communications Officer
- Press Officer
- PR & Communications Officer
- Communications & Media Officer
- Assistant PR, Communications, Media & Press Officer
- etc. etc. (you get the picture, right?)

They are all busy explaining away Jonesy’s words and deeds to the people of $omerset and b€yond. Clearly Excellence is not a product that sells itself!

The bad news is that SCC has flatly refused to fund a new smoking room down at the Dog & Duck, and our annual budget remains at £NIL. We are all disappointed with the lack of cooperation. It seems that on board Jonesy’s ship …

“The spirit of partnership is weaker than the spirit of independence”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice, 2007

… as his Excellency himself once pontificated.

An Excellent team?

A Big Thank You to the Official Alan Jones Blog for introducing the latest member of the Explaining Excellence Team:
http://theofficialalanjonesblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/big-hitters.html

Down at the Dog & Duck we went over Simon’s job description again. Most of it is the usual incomprehensible Excellence bullshit, but amongst the "Main Responsibilities and Duties" we found this hairy old chestnut “To ensure effective working relationships with relevant partners”.

Now, who could be more relevant than the regulars down at the Dog & Duck? And me and Anon are only the spokespersons, remember that there’s a whole team of us down here! We are all looking forward to working with Simon on the difficult task of explaining Excellence to the ignorant people of Somerset.

With a salary of £70K (50% of £140K as Albert Einstein pointed out), and an annual budget of £4 million, we could really face up to The Challenge.

As you may remember, Al is a famous mathematician who is currently struggling with Jonesian Paradigms.

Then there is Pat, the famous philanderer, who always rings twice. Pat has been able to explain things about Jonesy that the rest of us would never have thought of. (Trailer!: Without Pat, Anon would never have been able to work out what Jonesy got up to in the bar one night after a hard day at the BT conference that got Mr. Buchanan into so much trouble … http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/)

And don’t forget Daffer, the famous sailor, who will help us to understand Jonesy’s nautical illusions. Being myopic, Daffer is also well placed to understand key concepts such as Jonesian Loyalty, which are the crucial building blocks of Excellence.

Anyway, in the spirit of partnership, we have asked Simon if he could spare some of his £4million to build us an outdoor smoking room down at the Dog & Duck, where Daffer can smoke his pipe. He needs it to calm down, poor chap – it is stressful sharing a surname with Alan.

Grumbling Ducks (2)

Just checked my email and guess what, a County Council service I have been using (the only one, I think) is going to be curtailed, because "the powers that be" are getting tight with funding.

In the pre-Excellence days, of course, this would have just run off with a shrug.

However, nowadays County is spending £4million a year on presentation (roughly £20 per household), and who knows how much on staff brainwashing, statisticians, Excellence consultants, additional legal fees, IBM etc. There is even a rumour that every household in Somerset had to chip in nearly £1 each just to pay off one of the Chief Executive's lady friends in time for the Excellence inspection.

So in that context, this Duck feels ever so slightly aggrieved. In the old days he may even have been naïve enough to consider complaining! (A sure fire way to get the offending service cut completely.)

But now all we have is the blog, and it is time to re-focus on our core business, which is to examine and to try to unravel the thing called "Excellence".

This has been a miserable little post, so here's a film to cheer you up. An excellent (small "e"), short, management training video all about something SCC seems to have signed up to in order to deal with complaints. It is called the "it could be worse" programme : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl_WPggs1cw

Don't you just love that phrase "delegitimise complaints"? I'm sure we'll hear more of it! What a useful management tool. Money well spent Jonesy!

Excellent Economics!

Now, I may be really stupid or something, but at first I couldn’t quite understand how a project saving £1.7 million per year over 10 years would save £200 million in total. You see, being a simpleton, I thought Jonesy was saying 1.7 x 10 = 200.

Luckily me mate Albert Einstein is an accountant, and he explained it all to us last night, down at the Dog & Duck. He started by droning on about this thing called economics, and inflation and discounting and investment returns and opportunity costs and all that sort of stuff.

Huh? We stare at Al as if he’s dropped in from another planet.

“Look,” says Al, “a regular cash flow of £1.7 million per year, with a compound return of 43.3% over a ten year period, would give you £200 million.”

“Cut it OUT Al!” says I. “Give it to us straight. You know, like Jonesy says, in a way that real people can understand!”

“OK,” says Al. “How much is your house worth?”

“Well,” says I, “last year it was valued at £200,000.”

“OK,” says Al. “Now get this, if Jonesy’s economic forecast is correct, by the end of the SCC/IBM contract your house will be worth £7.3 million!”

And as the Spaghetti Monster is my witness, Your Honour, that is how I came to put the deposit on a Lear Jet.

Plus Fours

Hurray! Another bit of literature from the County Council arrived in the letter box today, shedding light on what Jonesy meant by "Beyond Excellence".

To be honest, I thought this whole "Beyond Excellence" nonsense was just a smokescreen. I suspected (quite wrongly, as it happens) that Jonesy was trying to confuse us even more, so as to distract attention from the IBM saga. And the various other sagas.

But no, it seems that the County Council has genuinely managed to improve on its four stars ("the most you can get", as they never tired of telling us). They have now been given a "plus", and to celebrate this have decided to invest in a new flag.

Unfortunately, it seems that the plus is to be placed in front of the stars. The obvious thing would have been to put the plus after the stars, as in "4+". That would at least have made sense to primary school kids and their parents and teachers.

This is what Jonesy (Chief Executive of Somerset County Council) said to his new Head of Communications ("Spin Doctor" to you and me) earlier in the summer: "... we must be careful not to let this 'internal speak' flow over into the language which we use both to describe success and to get our messages across to people ... We are interested in the real things that real people use to judge ..."

Real people? A bit of googling soon led me to the conclusion that Plus Fours are only really of interest to geriatric golfers!