10 March (Part 4) - The pub round up
We hadn’t been in the pub long when another group arrived and sat close by.
They too had been for a night at the cesspit © and were, err, a bit loud
shall I say; which was good because we could ear-wig them. They seemed to be
well informed so I went across and asked where they got their info from. “Off
the web” they said so I asked the obvious question. “Bonkers” they said which
was my cue to introduce myself more formally. The start of a new relationship
possibly? As you might expect, those attending council meetings for longer than
me had a few more stories to reveal and contacts to draw on. The name Philip Read
(Northumberland Heath, £9,543) cropped up so I took the opportunity to ask
if they had any idea why he had registered bexley-is-bonkers.com and what he
planned to do with it. They didn’t know Read that well but said he would have
registered it because he is a complete idiot. I suspected as much.
One was some sort of accountant with a schools connection. He was highly
amused by what he said was fact. There was no way Bexley could charge an academy school £68,000,
I think he said, for refuse services because the school had already done a deal with Bromley to
collect their rubbish for a lot less.
Today has been interesting too. There have been at least two complaints to MPs about Bexley’s blatant breaking of
government guidelines on openness. Another to Tuckley on the same matter with some
intriguing extras which I know little of as yet, and a complaint direct to
the mayor about her lack of chairmanship skills. Perhaps someone could set up a
macro to generate one of those after every council meeting. Maybe a form on this
website to auto-generate complaints? I’ll have to think about it.
The fuzz have
advised that Glyn Jones is no longer their Commander in Bexley -
well they should keep their website up to date then! The new man is Dave
Stringer and he is said to be keen to “gain the confidence of all Bexley
residents by listening and responding to their concerns”. Going along with
councils that threaten the arrest of photographers operating in accordance with
government guidelines is a very odd way of going about gaining that respect.
I’ll let you know if I get an apology.
Tomorrow as on all recent days I shall be up and about early to
help a mother use the B11 to get up a hill. We are still waiting for
councillor Fuller to do something but I doubt he can due to an excess of red tape.
But the good news is that ‘man with big camera’ seems to work like a charm on
bus drivers. This morning we broke the two buggy only rule and the driver didn’t
bat an eye-lid. Good job the Leader didn’t have it confiscated last night and councillor Ball saved me from being deposited
in a police cell. Democracy eh? What would we do without it?