“Every old dog has the sun shine on it’s ass at least once in it’s life.” Captain Phil Harris, Cornelia Marie, Deadliest Catch.
Dave And Dave’s Big Society.
Most will not have noticed the proposals contained in Bradford Council’s 2016-17 budget (must get a life!) that could have a calamitous effect on many local sports clubs in particular.
Tucked away on page 73(3F4) is a proposal to remove small business rate relief which applies to all not-for-profit organisations like, for instance, local sports clubs.
Now I readily accept that we will all have to pay more for things we have taken for granted for generations. Blame who you like, but you cannot spend what you do not have.
This is not a party political agenda; I don’t believe Big Dave gives a stuff about the North but nor do I have any faith in Little Dave, leader of our Council here.
However, caught in the maelstrom are organisations like voluntary sports clubs which are a huge net benefit to society. Strip away this crucial part of the so called Big Society and what are you left with?
The Council state (p24) that they spend £70m a year in the voluntary sector with “…organisations ranging from large national providers of services to small, local community groups…”
The proposed savings here amount to £190k per annum. I would suggest that if you are going to cut then you cut the bloated national organisations not those embedded in local communities.
This also demonstrates the massive disconnect between elite sport – awash with cash – and the grassroots. A very average Premier League footballer will earn this amount in a month.
And consider this for joined up thinking? The council believes there is a shortage of 18 cricket grounds in Bradford and claim this will rise to 25 in seven years due to population growth – see The English Cricket Board’s Big Dumb Idea.
So how does a policy that will directly threaten the existence of many cricket clubs, struggling on at the moment without the munificence of the ECB mandarins, square with the Council’s long-term “strategy” assuming they ever had one?
Frankly, as each week of my life passes by I never cease to be amazed by the ever increasing idiocy of those in some form of power. Have your say via the following link.
The Ever Bigger Society.
As a view on the current battle against childhood obesity, which voluntary clubs do so much to counter, BBC 3’s I Know What You Weighed Last Summer is pretty depressing fare.
We are the fattest nation in Europe if you disregard a few small islands they let us play football against just so we can win a few games.
This “boot camp” for kids actually took place last summer in Bradford but draws on kids from all over the country lest you believe it’s all Bradford’s fault again!
The £4,000 cost per kid is paid for either privately or by local authorities but I was left with the sense that this was a temporary fix at best and an expensive one too.
You have to ask yourself why we have kids barely into their teens weighing around twenty stones.
You might take the view that the camp is at least a starting point – for those that can afford it – but five weeks against a lifetime of a complicated cocktail of factors is like locking a junkie up for a weekend.
The tutoring is delivered by a bunch of energetic students, all very committed, but perhaps lacking the authority and maturity of adulthood to rise above the sense that they are more mates than mentors.
Telling too are the interviews with parents, from across the social spectrum, but all clearly of the view that they have done what they can. Frankly, most appear in denial but as a committed bachelor what do I know about hand-rearing?
As ever with this genre, there is also a suspicion of giggles behind the camera as the lens lingers on the fat parent of the fat kid – twas ever thus – and the viewer is treated to long shots of the hapless mother’s tattoo collection.
Oven chips laid out on the pet dog’s plate confirm this whilst you are also left thinking that the poor kid was named after the dog too. Being a fat kid is bad enough but carrying the additional baggage of a name from Dogs Monthly cannot help.
As one mother whines about her struggles the viewer is also treated to a photo of the younger child munching on Walkers’s Cheese & Onion with several cans of Dr Peppers in the background.
“‘Nuffin’ I can do!”
The programme ends with the weekly two-mile run (or walk in many cases) and as one victim fell over the finish line, jubilation apart, you sensed those jogging bottoms would be on the way to the charity shop.
These are complicated issues, make no mistake, and the factors of influence have been embedded over several generations.
One popular burger chain – with a very large legal department – started doing business here just over forty years ago. In the same year I last played for my primary school’s football team and spent the summer drooling over the new cricket bats in the kit room.
Today, that same chain has over 1,200 outlets, my old school pitch has not seen a match for years and cricket is but a pipedream.
Long term problems need long term solutions and you cannot help but feel that, once free from camp, these kids will slip back into their old ways simply because this is the easiest option.
Estimates of the indirect annual costs of obesity on society are circa £27bn and ballooning – sorry – whilst the direct costs to the NHS are estimated to be in excess of £6bn, some 5% of the total budget.
We live in an era of low activity levels, poor diets and laissez faire parenting aided and abetted by a Government in fear of ever upsetting the food industry; solving this will take some effort.
The Death Of The Lads Mag
A lot has been written recently about the death of this format with FHM the last to go. Some spout a victory for feminism, some the rise of the smartphone and many could not give a stuff.
A radio debate claimed that the world population of 5bn now owns almost the same number of mobile phones, half of these being smartphones. It seems that now you can knock one out over an air-brushed minger from Moldovia at the twitch of a finger.
Once again, today’s youth are being denied the opportunity to develop basic skills such as the ability to obtain contraband (a dirty mag) and successfully smuggle this past authority (your mum).
Frankly, the mags were glossy rubbish advertising things out of the reach of most “lads” pockets and similarly laden with pictures of equally improbable women. Good for killing time at the dentists but little else.
We’re All Doomed!
The headline blared out “Snow Coming!” We’re all doomed…cue the storming of the supermarkets and a weekend trapped at home, hunkered down in front of the tv, Deadliest Catch and Gold Rush on repeat.
The Council was busy gathering it’s last few buckets of sand that the Labour Executive had smuggled back from their all-expenses jolly to Bridlington in the summer – all for one, one for all – soon the roads would be submerged in ice.
As life was clearly coming to a rapid and frozen end, I decided if I were to be stranded where better than The Scruffy?
Surprisingly, I was comforted by the sight of Big Al and nephew Little Matt. They were in earnest debate as to the EU Referendum, ISIS and City’s chances against Bury next week but still, a stool was slid across and I caught bartender Mike’s eye.
We considered our last meals as the end of the world was approaching but salt & vinegar or plain was not a great choice. What would we do if we had fifteen minutes left?
A comforting cuddle in the cellar with Our Jackie? A quick dash across the top shelf maybe? Or a final, late application to be accepted into ‘Nob ‘Ed Korna and die with dignity?
The skies darkened, cloudier than the ale, as we made our last wishes and awaited our fates, comforted by good company, soothing ales and another weather forecast that was a complete load of bollocks.
Catch & Crush!
Sat at the traffic lights the other day an all too common sequence of events commenced. Alongside me came a red Corsa, huge exhaust throbbing as if popped with Viagra for Vauxhalls.
Ignoring the queue and overlapping us all, Lump ‘Ed and his mob displayed their contempt for the law-abiding majority of us.
Soon, a VW Golf – full of similarly challenged occupants – also appeared and seemed unaware that we drive on the left hand side of the road here in the UK, though I do not think I can blame the migrant crisis here.
I can partially understand why ****wits like these seem to feel the need to queue jump; after all they were clearly last in the queue when brains were being dished out.
Off they sped – colour blind too – uncaring as to the ridiculous danger they were creating.
Now you can sit there and accept you are frankly powerless to do very much at all. Of course, you can muse as to the benefits of vaporising the two cars if only you had borrowed James Bond’s Aston Martin that morning.
I decided to ring the Police because, if we don’t, then any remote chance of catching idiots like these disappears completely and then they do know we are powerless.
Equally, smug politicians claim crime figures are falling which we all know is bollocks.
We are naturally cynical towards the Police these days, perhaps after years of seeing this kind of crime escalate with apparent impunity and increasingly horrific consequences.
It does not take stellar detective work to go figure that the kid barely parted from his X-Box sat in the expensive car in certain areas of the city will not have made a quick fortune from computer programming based on a First from Oxford.
Their inability to understand the basic rudiments of the Highway Code should also suggest that they should still be clinging to the wheel of the X-Box and not a £30k killing machine.
So imagine my surprise to be contacted by the Police the day after to say they were on to it and knew where the car was. It may not be a “result” but it gives you hope that we do not have to suffer low-lifes who scar our society.
Doing nothing is not an option because, as far as this big issue is concerned, we really are all in it together.
Have a great weekend and dob a nob ‘ed if you can.
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