Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles. Dostoievski.
In praise of Bradford Council – honestly!
Not the inept clowncillors or highly paid, useless, pension-protecting senior-management, but the footsoldiers.
Namely, Joanna in Box Office who recovered unused vouchers for my Mum this week with wonderful efficiency and then details of a discounted carer’s scheme. To the theatre we go!
And to the park keepers of the majestic Harold Park, a beautiful experience.
Back at Muppet Hall, the Government installed an inspector to oversee the failing Childrens’ Services as the token CEO and Hapless hid behind carefully drafted PR crap. History will judge them both.
Hopeless
Boris must be delighted following this announcement. The Sunday Times reported Sir Keir Starmer intends to publish a 14,000-word “mission statement” to Labour members. Read and weep?
Ghost Town
A Facebook thread last weekend pointed out more reasons why Bradford’s expensive bid for the City of Culture 2025 is a joke.
Nearby Halifax was alive, with a music event at the magnificent Piece Hall including Manic Street Preachers and The Kaiser Chiefs. For future events see here.
I noticed the North Leeds Food Festival whilst Manchester held a music festival in Heaton Park. The writer mentioned other recent festivals in Falkirk, Margate and Portsmouth.
There isn’t a magic formula, the solution to the slow death of our city-centre is obvious. Hand the culture budget to professionals working in live entertainment with the remit to bring the city to life.
Stop the constant drip-feed of overpriced (most providers double their costs when it is a local council paying directly), off the shelf, bland and “safe” events that have been the hallmark of that department and offer the cash that gets wasted on them as bursary’s (sic) to professional promoters and grassroots arts organisations based in and around the city.
Somewhere
Recently I heard from my old mate Michael Adams.
Just reading Clive James’s “Latest Readings” and thought you’d enjoy. On Osbert Lancaster’s novel “Draynflete Revealed” pages 69/70.
“The point of Drayneflete’s history is that it isn’t up to much. It started off as a crossroads of secondary importance and since then, steadily throughout the centuries, one architectural excrescence after another has been added to its agglomeration of mediocrity.
But the capital joke of the narration is that every step of this long saga of vandalism is presented as if by a spokesman for the current town council, scraping with quiet desperation for any trace of historic interest.
The book has the effect of a PR brochure that doesn’t know how implausible it is when claiming status and dignity for the kind of progress which is really the gradual destruction of all value. When a hideous new cinema gets built, it is quietly hailed as a brilliant example of the modern style”.
Fireworks
In response to growing public anger at the year-round assault on the senses by fireworks, the Council responded by urging people to be “considerate”. What planet do they live on?
Appealing to the sensibilities of morons is typical; a leaflet suggests anyone seeking support should call the phenomenally useless “101”.
I tried this the other night after watching a helmetless retard creating havoc on a quad bike in peak-time traffic. Although I secretly hoped he found a sturdy lamppost and did not need any of Boris’s new NHS kitty, I tried 101.
“We are experiencing a high volume of calls” said a weary sounding voice “the average waiting time is 12 minutes!”
Hypocrisy
This week an inquest opened into the deaths of four young lads killed when the car they were in hit a tree during a pursuit by police. Meanwhile, Bradford Council continues to refuse to hold an inquest into the recent child sexual health exploitation report.
All lives matter, don’t they?
A National Shame
Grenfell: The Untold Story is a numbing experience but a must-watch nonetheless. The dignity demonstrated by those most affected by this greed-driven tragedy is humbling, failed on so many levels.
The fallout continues and now impacts thousands more innocents plunged into a financial nightmare with unsaleable properties.
In The Yorkshire Post at the weekend was a quote from Andrew Milnes, Business Principal, The Mortgage Advice Bureau, Bingley: “…at least 60 percent of all the flats in Leeds city centre are said to be unmortgageable.”
It is tempting to blame Governments for everything from the morning rain to a bad pint but here they have been woeful in their response. It may not have happened on Boris’s watch but the establishment failed and continues to fail innocents.
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