“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy
More murky goings on at City Hall last week with two stories in the local rag on the same day which tended to suggest a lack of coherent policy from hopeless Hapless Hinchcliffe and her merry band.
Protests continue against the ridiculous plan to build a new waste incinerator down the Aire Valley across the road from several sporting fields populated by rare breeds – people who move – but contrast this.
The other side of town a church has been refused permission for a biomass boiler on the grounds of…you guessed it…air pollution.
Unfortunately, the really dangerous gases being emitted regularly into the district tend to come from City Hall.
Real Social Media
News here of an exciting development in man’s evolution.
A middle-aged visionary has launched an offline service called ‘pub’, which allows friends to interact in a building.
The Daily Mash published this ground-breaking piece offering hope to all who may have lost it.
The Youngest Population In The Country – With Nothing To See
Bradford’s premier entertainments venue – yes it really is – St George’s Hall has been closed for over a year now as the halfwits at City Hall offer yet more evidence they could not run a church panto.
The re-opening date was originally said to be early 2017, but this was later pushed back to late 2017, then again to early 2018.
The estimated cost of the project, which has been given a £1.5m Heritage Lottery grant, has also increased from £4m to £5.4m so far, with a further increase still understood to be possible.
Not only can they not get close to an agreed timetable but how has the cost increased by 35%? And what about this from the woeful Councillor Ferriby, Labour’s portfolio holder for culture, trees-chopping and bin collecting.
St George’s Hall was a “wonderful asset for this district” but as it was a historic building, it required detailed surveys and very specialist work. You don’t say!
Meanwhile, our only hope of a decent sized entertainments venue for Hapless’s oft vaunted young population – the Odeon – is in the gift of Lottery money and private finance, albeit seeking far less than it takes to not build a bridge.
Read on…
In Another Land
I’ve commented on this before but plans to build a new “garden bridge” over the Thames appear to have hit a financial brick wall.
If anybody can explain to me how a project that looks doomed to the bin can have cost the taxpayer almost £50m and won’t actually happen I am all ears. Someone, somewhere is taking the piss and with it a lot of our money.
All in it together!
Concreting Bradford – More
Inevitably the developers won the day and the dump trucks and excavators have now erased the beautiful part of Idle Moor many fought hard to preserve.
Of more concern for the wider district should be the idiotic adherence to a plan that will create carnage going forward. How they can justify the need for over 42,000 new houses no sensible person has yet to explain.
The developers have the elected fools by the nuts and, as I have said before, will cherry-pick where and what they build.
‘Owzat?
The new cricket season is upon us once again and to say the game has major challenges is a massive understatement. In fairness, the issues that cricket faces are common to most grassroots sports these days.
Anything that requires getting off your arse seems beyond most; consequently, participation levels are plummeting. Only radical change has anything but a chance to re-engineer a game that future generations might wish to play in sufficient numbers.
Whilst most local administrators are well-meaning, decent people, it is not unfair to suggest they often lack dynamism and vision. However, this is too complex for tinkering around the edges praying it will be “allright on the night”.
The brutal reality is that there are too many clubs, too few players and an ever diminishing band of volunteers, crucial to keep clubs alive, pay the bills and cope with the never-ending administrative burden.
Moves to create premier league structures have, if anything, widened the gulf between the strong and the weak. Ironically, they have also increased travel times flying in the face of what league cricketers are telling administrators they do not want.
There are also too many leagues for any pyramid structure to cope with, the product of generations of inward-thinking and tin-pot empire building. Clubs from Bradford play in no less than six different leagues which is staggeringly complex and ultimately doomed.
Money continues to change hands under the counter as if clubs were beneficiaries of Sky TV money, yet they moan that there are not enough grants to go around to keep facilities up to date.
Worse than average players have switched clubs this winter lured by “talent” money; it is laughable.
As with life, the strong will look the other way, tempted to believe these issues are not their own, arrogant and naive in the extreme. Left untreated though, a bad toenail will cost a leg; we really are all in this together.
There is no easy solution and none without pain; clubs will have to be bold. Some will merge but some will dither and end up with no option but cashing in their chips.
My sense is too may will plod on, stiff upper lip and all that, marching into a storm.
One Hundred Years Ago
Wonderful tales this week about “Coppin’ on” at Shipley Glen and a tale from the now defunct Eccleshill Cricket Club concerning a crap hired gun. Sound familiar?
Treegate
A neighbour with a clear sense of humour sent me this story earlier in the week. Once again we remain in the leafy shadows of Leeds?
Mad Cow?
Dining at the excellent White Hart at Pool the other evening I viewed the burgers with some relish. The waiter asked me if I wanted a normal burger or a Wagyu burger.
When I asked what was a Wagyu he informed me that they treat the cows like humans rather than cows. I sniffed my diet coke for early signs of date rape and looked at him inquisitively.
The animals are kept indoors for most of their lives…giving them beer to drink is meant to increase their appetite in the hot summer months, while they may be massaged to alleviate muscle problems arising from limited space and exercise.
“You mean they get the cow a DFS sofa, 60 inch widescreen and a box set of the X-Factor?” I asked though this seemed lost on the earnest young lad. “Give me the usual one that shits where it wants and doesn’t give a toss about a runny nose!”
Whinging Old Bastards
I saw this on the Facebook page of the same name but look away now if you are sensitive.
Have a great Easter.
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