Cyclists in and around Aberdeen got rather excited when it was first revealed they would have the opportunity to ride the pristine tarmac of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route before its opening to vehicular traffic (after which bikes will be banned from it).
But to demonstrate that the road’s sponsor, Transport Scotland, comprises a bunch of pillocks, they have turned a terrific PR opportunity into an absolute shambles. How? By banning bikes, or at least the riders’ own bikes.
Yup, in another “I don’t believe it” moment, the imbeciles in charge of the event have decided that cyclists will be bussed to the road and then loaned a bike so that “cyclists of all levels can (sic) wiz, wobble or weave on the closed road, promoting active travel and greener transport”. Frankly, I’d rather ‘wiz’ on Transport Scotland!
“Before you say anything nasty about someone, just pause for a second and browse through some really good adjectives in your head” (Ian Martin).
The move led to the online road cyclists’ website and forum, road.cc, to question “Is this the worst cycling event EVER?”. I pretty much think so…
Sadly, it won’t happen, but…
It’s a thing that we should not let pass So, perhaps, we should set off en masse Like at Kinder Scout When the walkers strode out And took part in a large-scale trespass!
The dunny’s done-in (or “Wor netty’s knackered, but you should see the size of the rhubarb!”)
Short and sweet this week ‘cos I’m not proud of it. (Haha! Of course I am, and it’s anapestically correct as well).
A ditty inspired by a friend’s lavatorial break down:
A. A. Milne thought he knew what to do When he found that he’d broken his loo. He just said: “Oh, f**k it!” And peed in a bucket, But what happened to Winnie the Pooh?
Despite being a Graun-reading, socially liberal ‘bit-of-a-leftie’ I chuckled at Management’s recent despairing exhortation:
“Do you always have to be an unreconstructed 1970s northern male?”
Me? A wannabe Gene Hunt?
Gene Hunt: I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to. Sam Tyler: An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding? Gene Hunt: You make that sound like a bad thing.
Really? I think not! But not quite renaissance man either, although I have had a bit of a soft spot for Longfella’s poetry ever since he performed his 2013 poem ‘This is the Place‘ at last year’s vigil in remembrance of the Manchester Arena bombing.
In fact, Longfella (aka Tony Walsh and now surely the de facto northern laureate having gently nudged Roger McGough aside) has written more generally in praise of the north in his poem ‘Up ‘ere‘ and there is nothing of the unreconstructed northern male about it (actually, the poem is explicitly about the north-west). In it, he writes in a rather overblown way:
“… and some things run right through us just like sticks of Blackpool rock; Courage, kindness, humour, hope. Sometimes … it’s all we’ve got.“
I suppose that’s the price of his declamatory style and can be forgiven, but now, be honest, does an unreconstructed 1970s northern male quote Tennyson and Tony Walsh in his blog posts? Nay, missus! Nay, nay and thrice nay! So, now that’s out of the way, any chance of a brew, luv?
I was ‘put before the beak’ a few weeks ago by an HR zealot that didn’t like the fact that I had challenged some weasel words spoken by a senior member of staff at an ‘all-programme’ meeting.
The zealot’s recollection of the event was intriguing as, when I challenged it, she had then to acknowledge she hadn’t even been there, but was simply parroting the words of a ‘leader’ that couldn’t, it appears, accept challenge!
It seems that in her little world it is an HR violation for scientists to be questioning; that is, of course, the antithesis of the way that science works in the real world (and if it operated according to her rules then we would still be living in the Dark Ages).
As an aside, I work in an organisation whose management culture across the piece seems to “overemphasize control, as opposed to fostering creativity, to meet their goals”. Neither our HR zealot nor the organisation’s leadership recognise this despite the motherhood and apple pie vision they propound to the world.
More recently, my domestic ‘Management’ had an exchange with the HR bods at her place of work (not the same as mine) when she questioned a decision about staffing levels in her department.
Their HR team’s response to her enquiry demonstrated a risible grasp of the facts coupled to an heroic level of condescension.
So, is it any wonder that folk who carry out the real business of an organisation have simultaneously to suspend both belief and disbelief at the inept administration of their organisation by idiots in HR and out-of-touch management from senior leadership teams?
I’m sure that many of my colleagues would agree with Peter Drucker’s view that:
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
Oh well, at least it has inspired this..
It’s a pity, and truly bizarre, That the most vacuous people by far In our places of work Are the pillocks that lurk In the ‘abode of the damned’ that’s HR!
When I started out in fisheries research, one of the issues that I was involved in concerned the possible impact of the Shetland fishery for sandeel, a so-called ‘forage fish’, on the then current breeding failures of seabirds around the islands.
It was clear that a shortage of young sandeel, as food for the chicks, was to blame for their failure to fledge. Meanwhile, the fishery data strongly implied that the reason for the shortage of young sandeel was not the fishery, but natural environmental effects in the egg, larval and ‘pre-recruit’ stages of the fish.
Actually, we used a semi-annual catch at age analysis and seasonal research vessel survey indices of abundance (a form of fishery-independent catch per unit effort)
Lengthy discussions with the British Trust for Ornithology and professional marine ornithologists from academia and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology concluded this was the most credible perspective.
Unfortunately, that was not good enough for the RSPB:
So, the RSPB sought instead to destroy the professional reputation of my first boss (a true gentleman) and to damage my, ahem, fledgling career at the same time.
Long story short: later work by a consortium-funded research fellow showed that we were right; something only grudgingly accepted by the RSPB.
We then went on to develop a ground-breaking management regime for the fishery in which we provided data and annual assessments, but devolved management of the fishery to the local fisherman’s association and environmental groups. We would only intervene on management decisions if the local groups couldn’t develop a mutually acceptable plan (we never did have to intervene!).
The RSPB, of course, never ‘corrected’ itself to its million-plus members and never apologised for traducing my boss’s name and reputation or that of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association.
Slight diversion: Many years later, a policy push was instigated to compel warring aquaculture and wild-salmon angling interests to agree between themselves a management regime of some sort. It was touted by a here-today-gone-tomorrow senior policy official as a ‘first’ in Scottish fisheries management. In fact, he told a ‘porky’ because he ignored what we had achieved more than two decades earlier at Shetland (and our initiative actually worked).
(That’s the sort of behaviour that you get with greasy-pole-climbing yes-men who need to to validate themselves in the eyes of their political masters).
So, what was it that started me on this historical ‘avian and piscatorial’ polemic? It is simply that I took a childish and immature delight this week in the irony of reading that a pair of RSPB workers had killed a protected osprey chick when trying to ring it in its nest.
Here’s the limerick:
When I read it I thought “What the heck!”, It seemed no-one had bothered to check Which part you pick When tagging a chick: ‘COS IT’S THE LEG THAT YOU RING, NOT ITS NECK!
(“Yes”, I know the chick fell from its nest and didn’t have its neck wrung – but it’s a limerick not a news report!)
The problem with narcissistic sociopaths is that when they concoct risible explanations for their faux pas they expect the world to believe them. In truth, despite their brass necks, they just demonstrate their complete idiocy.
Which brings us to Donald Trump, who this week expects us to believe that he merely ‘mis-spoke’ when favouring Vladimir Putin’s assurances of ‘doing no wrong’ over the hard evidence provided by American intelligence analysts that Russia did, indeed, meddle in the election that brought Trump to power.
It is no surprise, then, that bipartisan political opinion in the States is that he has now brought the office of the American President into disrepute (as if he hadn’t already)!
“Calling out to idiot America”
Indeed, the Graun reports that:
John Brennan, CIA director under Obama, said Trump’s conduct was “nothing short of treasonous” and more than amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors” – the benchmark for impeachment. “Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.”
“In the pocket of Putin” they say? Hmmm! For any conspiracy theorists out there, the Russians have a word for when they hold compromising information on a person; it’s ‘kompromat‘ (just saying!)
Arnold Schwarzenegger called the imbecilic President “a little wet noodle” which has helped greatly with this week’s ALAW. The OddSocks Theatre Company also helped (the ‘encore’ to its production of The Tempest that I saw last week was a terrific rendition of Green Day’s American Idiot in honour of Trump’s visit to the UK – brilliant!).
Or ‘imbecile’ as the Graun reported.
So, with a little help from Arnie, OddSocks and the Green Day gang, I give you…
The truth, when you come to consider it, Is that Trump’s a political illiterate. And Putin’s wee poodle, That “little wet noodle”, Is truly an American Idiot.
Fake noodle, fake President. Wet noodle, Trump. Same difference!
It’s taken 18 months for my visits to the English Lake District to coincide with the sort of fine weather that has now enabled me to ‘cash-in’ a birthday present from 18 months ago.
You can read here about the earlier gift of an ‘introductory flight’ in an autogyro (gyrocopter), and this week it took off.
The Magni M-16 Tandem Trainer that I flew in.
The booking arrangements via the ‘mature’ flight instructor were rather chaotic and didn’t inspire much confidence, but once in the cockpit, his 46 years as a pilot took over and the flight, in difficult downdrafts, was a dream.
Pre-flight checks.Flying high (well, at 500 feet anyway).
There was too much low-flying RAF traffic for us to traverse the Lake District completely, but we flew down Ullswater to view the Helvellyn range then crossed to the Eden valley and Pennines beyond before returning to the airstrip a grassy field.
Take-off optional…… landing mandatory!
It would cost about £6k to qualify as a gyrocopter pilot and would, I think, be money well spent if my colour vision was up to scratch. Unfortunately, as a mild deutan, I’d certainly fail the required medical. The Ishihara test for colour blindness and I have a long and incongruous history!
You see 74, I see 21!
Fortunately, I can always be a passenger!
Top gun!
Here’s the limerick:
There was an auld bloke that once copped a Flight in a red gyrocopter An ambulatory Autogyratory Trip with a fly-boy ‘spin doctor’!
Being a sickly child I spent a fair amount of time off school. As my Grandma lived with us, she looked after me on a number of occasions so I got to hear a lot of her favourite music. She liked musicals (South Pacific was played a lot), Frank Ifield (still touring; he even appeared at the Castle Green Hotel in Kendal, my childhood home town, as recently as the 3rd of June this year, aged 80!), The Bachelors (I wasn’t a fan) and The Seekers (who I liked a lot).
Judith Durham who fronted The Seekers has been described by Elton John, as possessing “the purest voice in popular music”. She celebrated her 75th birthday on the 3rd of July this year by releasing a new album although she will not be touring it (I suspect it comprises old, but previously unreleased recordings).
A young Judith Durham, singer and classically trained concert pianist!
I Googled her for old times’ sake and YouTubed The Seekers and revisited their songs. It was interesting to read the BTL comments of the YouTube videos. A number of young folk had chanced upon the recordings and expressed wonderment at never having heard of Durham (or The Seekers) given the power, timbre and clarity of her voice.
Google also held a surprise for me. ‘Durham’ was not Judith’s original surname; it was her mother’s maiden name. The enchanting songstress with a spellbinding voice was christened Judith Cock! No surprise, then, that she changed it. I wish I could have penned a more respectful limerick-as-tribute, but I’m afraid I couldn’t overlook that!
Judith, a singer, became A Seeker of stardom and fame But her surname was ‘Cock’ So it wasn’t a shock When she changed to her mum’s maiden name!
I knew I must be getting on a few years ago when a very much younger colleague told me she had never heard of Telex, but that was not really surprising unlike when a friend, then in her late thirties, told me she had never heard of The Seekers (it’s not the grey hairs that make me feel old, but revelations like that!).
Postscript #1: For the young or ill-informed, ‘Georgy Girl’ was a 1960s film starring James Mason, Lyn Redgrave, Alan Bates and Charlotte Rampling for which The Seekers performed the titular theme song.
Little-known fact #1: The lyrics of the theme song were written by Jim Dale, a Carry On star, whilst the music was penned by Tom Springfield, brother of Dusty, another powerful voice from the sixties.
Little-known fact #2: The film was based on the book ‘Georgy Girl’ written by Margaret Forster which just happens to be my mum’s maiden name.
Postscript #2: When The Seekers disbanded, their manager put together another group, The New Seekers, one of whom’s leads was Eve Graham, a Scottish singer who also turned 75 this year. Management and I saw her perform in Aberdeen in the mid-1980s in her solo show and, although The New Seekers was a successful group, Graham as a solo artist was a revelation. Shamefully, due to a contractual dispute, Graham has never received any royalties from The New Seekers’ hits since 1973 despite sales of 25 million records!
My goodness, it’s been quite warm in Aberdeen this week (relatively speaking!). There’s no real sign of the haar, you see. The haar is a cold east coast sea fog that specialises in turning warm sunny days into a chilling, soul-extracting gloom; a ghostly apparition that rolls in from the sea and whose glacial dankness obliviates life’s vital force as readily as Azkaban’s Dementors.
An Aberdeen fantasy
The haar is an advection fog in which warm, moist air cools as it passes over the North Sea. As the moisture condenses out, a prevailing easterly wind pushes the resultant fog landward and it may even travel a mile or two inland.
When the haar is ‘in’ anyone sashaying eastwards towards the coast is met by a cold wall of fog and instantaneously transported from glorious summer into a dreich, late-autumnal day. But not this week…
Roasting (sort of)!
It could almost be an English summer up here (okay, that’s not quite true) and long may it last.
It is also limerick-inspiring weather, recalling the day when Management and I were wandering the streets of Stratford-upon-Avon during a heatwave. We’d arranged to meet mon frère who, being a lawyer, turned up in a tweed jacket when everyone else was in T-shirts and shorts. A little while later he confessed “I’m beginning to regret the tweed!”.
So, here’s one from the archives…
If a walk in the sun’s what you need The least you can do is to heed The advice that exhorts: “Wear T-shirt and shorts”! Or you’ll end up regretting the tweed.
Meantime, Matthew McConaughey wears herringbone tweed in a Californian summer. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?
Postscript: I spoke too soon 😣
I knew it was too good to be true!
Bonus feature:
Germany’s premature departure from soccer’s World Cup seems to have delighted the sort of folk who take pleasure in the misfortune of others. That appears to include most of England’s football fans whose team usually falls prey to Germany.
My take on it is that the German fans will now understand the air of despair that usually surrounds the English. Moreover, when it all goes belly-up for England later in the tournament, at least it won’t be at the hands of their usual nemesis!
The Germans trudged home all annoyed When their World Cup hopes were destroyed. “Their loss is our gain” Was the English refrain. As they revelled in pure schadenfreude!
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