One of my favourites on the box this afternoon.
I much prefer the Warren Beatty version (1978) which contains the following quote:
“The likelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong”
Courtesy of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077663/quotes
The minutes of a meeting of the Babergh District Council Overview & Scrutiny (Stewardship) Committee held in 
the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Corks Lane, Hadleigh on 14th June record:
It was resolved that Mr B Riley be elected vice-chairman of the committee for the ensuing year.
This is a step on the greasy staircase- the important thing is to remember that I am elected to represent the people not to be led by the
Council Officers.
Do I need to change the corporate motto to “Memento Mori” or perhaps “Respice post te! Hominem te memento!”
In ancient Rome, the words “Memento Mori” are believed to have been used on the occasions when a Roman general was parading through the streets during a victory triumph. Standing behind the victorious general was his slave, who was tasked to remind the general that, though his highness was at his peak today, tomorrow he could fall or be more likely brought down. The servant conveyed this by telling the general that he should remember, “Memento mori.” It is further possible that the servant said instead, “Respice post te! Hominem te memento!”: “Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man!”, as noted by Tertullian in his Apologeticus.
Sitting at the top table let me get a few matters on the list for future review. The two main ones are:
The latter arose from the use (and possible mis-use) of credit cards in Suffolk County Council. Babergh seemed quite pleased that they didn’t use credit cards – instead we discovered that they use procurement cards which were settled upon receipt of statement – so not involving any “credit”. It really is the case of having to learn a different way of thinking.
Dear Mr. Cameron,
Please find below our suggestion for fixing England ‘s economy.
Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan: You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan. There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire. Ten million job openings – unemployment fixed
2) They MUST buy a new British car. Ten million cars ordered – Car Industry fixed
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage – Housing Crisis fixed
4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university – Crime rate fixed
5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week …..and there’s your money back in duty/tax etc
6) Instead of pfaffing around with the carbon emissions trading scheme that makes us pay for the major polluters, tell them to reduce their pollution emissions by 75% within 5 years or we shut them down.
It can’t get any easier than that!
If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances
Also…let’s put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home. This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks. They’d receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they’d receive money instead of paying it out. They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance. Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell. They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education. Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ’s and legal aid would be free on request. Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens. Each senior could have a PC, a TV radio and daily phone calls. There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.
The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out.
Courtesy of Grumpies of the World Unite http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Am-British/1550918
Kath Grandon and I hold a cheese and wine afternoon soirée for over forty people. The purpose is to celebrate our election and consolidate the sentiments of our supporters. The tone is set by my brief comments to the group as follows:
Thank you for coming here today to share the joy of our victories at the recent District Council elections.
I scored 595 votes up from 381 last time and Kath scored over 500 votes up from 330.
First, a few words about housekeeping. Kath has been appointed to the Development (i.e. Planning).
As the Tesco planning application is being decided on the 6th July you may not ask her for her opinion or which way she intends to vote. This is because she may not indicate that she is prejudicial or has made up her mind before hearing the formal arguments. To do so would bar her from speaking and more importantly from voting at the meeting. Bend her ears by all means – better still send her an e-mail. But there have been at least two attempts to find out how Councillors were disposed to the supermarket application. These P.R. and market research attempts have not as far as I am aware been funded by the Hadleigh Society or their adherents.
Thanks and appreciation goes to our spouses and families for their support and encouragement.
Alice and Roger really pulled the stops out in supporting us. I will never again complain about having to put the dustbin out when it is raining. Alice pushed leaflets and envelopes in the late March weather for me like no one’s business and I know that Roger now has a far greater awareness of Hadleigh South than he ever imagined before.
Thanks also go to those families and friends who had the confidence or desperation to bring us their problems. It hasn’t always been easy and we haven’t always been successful but it is rare that it is given to us to be of use to our community and to be heroes and heroines to our friends and neighbours, And for that I give grateful thanks.
We also have another new boy here today – Peter Burgoyne who we all know as our agent, mentor, guide and friend. A man who knows all about command, control, and co-ordination. Peter roared in as the top candidate in Pinewood displacing a long standing Lib-Dem.
Before I introduce our guest of honour, today’s raffle proceeds (as in previous years) will go to the Royal Anglian regiment. They are our home team and are preparing for another tour of Afghanistan. As can be seen by the letters our efforts of their behalf are much appreciated as are their efforts on our behalf. The raffle prizes are nominal. If you don’t want any of the prizes, please take one anyway and recycle it onwards.
Final thanks go to Jennie Jenkins, our guest of honour. Jennie is leader of our political group at the Council. She is also Head of the Council’s Strategy Committee. Being the Group Leaderene is not an easy job as the councillors cover every spectrum and continuum that you can imagine.
There are those whom I call the aquamarine Tories because their political philosophies are pale, weak and wishy washy. There are those who are One Nation Tories and others who believe in the Divine Right of Kings and wish the clocks could be turned back 300 or 400 years.
There are those who resist change and others who embrace the moving tapestries of our lives.
Jennie manages us and ensures that we are happy to sign up to whatever the Group has decided to do. Herding cats doesn’t even describe her tasks and talents.
We’ve asked Jennie here today to give us a heads up as to where we might be all going Babergh-wise especially after the decisive vote not to merge.
Madam Chairperson…
Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that there are up to 6,000 people in social housing with an income greater than £100,000.
A range of options is now being considered to free up this housing, which ministers say is being kept from those in need. Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, told The Daily Telegraph: “With so many people in housing need languishing on the waiting lists which doubled under Labour, it’s right to consider whether people on £100,000-plus salaries should get their rent subsidised by the taxpayer. Social housing is an expensive and scarce resource which should be targeted on supporting those in real need.”
The Conservatives use the example of Frank Dobson, the Labour MP who was still living in his council house, despite being a Cabinet
minister under Tony Blair and drawing a six-figure salary.
Bob Crow, the militant leader of the RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers), chooses to live in a council house in London despite his pay and perks package as union general secretary totalling more than £140,000. The rent is estimated to be around £150 a week – a figure that would be much higher in the private sector. His spokesman recently said that Mr Crow makes “no apology” for living in social housing.
Under the plans Mr Crow would be among those being asked to move out of social housing.
See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8555223/Rich-to-lose-their-subsidised-council-homes.html
I attend a joint Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils’ workshop to meet the new joint Chief Executive and to share views on ways forward. There was a lot of mixing and shifting around and to begin with I found myself with a friendly group from Mid Suffolk.
I immediately made friends by promoting the needs of our towns over the villages since the former are the main providers of jobs and economic well being. So after a quick fifteen minutes it was time to sum up the discussions and give a report to the remainder of the groups. I volunteered myself as spokesperson, introduced myself to the new CE and after pleasantries about the difficult and challenging tasks the executive was undertaking let fly with both barrels:
First we never want to hear again the words “There is no alternative” because whenever those words are spoken we have learned that there are alternatives but they are being hidden from us.
Second if we are saving all this money (the main reason for the proposed merger of the Councils) then we can abolish car parking charges. They don’t work and their removal would bring life and regeneration into our market towns.
Well I sat down to appreciation if not applause and I have got one of my aspirations onto the agenda and I suspect that it will be a case of watching this space and seeing how many adherents I collect.
A food fight broke out at a Suffolk cafe after enraged customers waited more than an hour for their order – and police sent three squad cars to deal with the messy confrontation. The incident happened on Monday afternoon in The Beach House Cafe and Bistro, Thorpeness, at about 3pm when a table of four customers and two members of staff fell out with each other with fish, ketchup and mushy peas. According to a spokesperson from the restaurant, the customers – a table of four – were warned they would have to wait an hour for their food because it was full. The
spokesperson said: “Two fish and chips and two burgers were taken to the table and one of the male customers started abusing the waiter saying he was greedy and doesn’t know how to run a business.
“He apologised but said he wasn’t going to take that abuse. At that point the whole table joined in. The lady member of staff tried to withdraw the food and it went everywhere. “The male member of staff got mushy peas down his back and ketchup was in the lady member of staff’s hair. Food was all down her white shirt.” The spokeswoman said customers did not have any food spilled on them and were given a full refund.
However, a diner at the next table claimed she saw the female member of staff spill a plate of fish and chips down one of the diner’s backs. She said: “You don’t expect to see this in sleepy Thorpeness. We walked into the courtyard area of the restaurant and sat down and realised there was something going on at the table next to us. “From what I could gather, the people had been waiting for over an hour and were still being asked to pay full price. A female member of staff was saying: ‘If you wanted fast food you should have gone to McDonald’s’.’’
“She put down a plate of fish and then grabbed it back and put it down a customer’s back. The next thing I knew food was flying. It was a big kerfuffle. “The female member of staff had a streak of ketchup down her face and I had to snatch a little girl out of the way who was standing near the table.” The observer’s husband attempted to manage the confrontation but this was not appreciated by staff. She said her husband made a comment to staff and they were both asked to leave. The restaurant’s spokeswoman said staff also asked the table of four to leave. She said: “We were within our rights to do that. If they didn’t want to wait for food they should have gone to Burger King.”
Suffolk police received a call about the incident from one of the diners at 3.45pm, a spokesman confirmed. He said he wanted a refund for his food and was aware it was a civil matter but he wanted police there. Three squad cars attended the incident and spoke to both parties. Neither side made any criminal allegations and the matter was resolved at the scene.
Taken from:
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/thorpeness_police_called_to_food_fight_at_cafe_1_908213
The Economist of May 19th 2011 under the heading “Decoding DSK – What his fall says about transatlantic differences in attitudes to sex, power and the law” has an interesting commentary on US and European attitudes to the Strauss-Kahn affair. How much privacy should public figures enjoy? What are the possible consequences of a culture of silence? Will other misdeeds such as corruption, misuse of public assets and outright theft be hidden?
One fact is beyond doubt. In America a lowly African immigrant hotel chamber maid obtained a swift response from the police to her complaint of sexual assault. Her alleged assailant’s innocence or guilt will be determined by the court. But the authorities did not refrain from arresting the head of the IMF, nor from demanding that he be kept in jail on remand. Could we have expected this in Great Britain or in Continental Europe? The full article may be found on http://www.economist.com/node/18713896
Hot on the heels of DSK comes the revelation in the NY Times on 29th May that Board members at the IMF are not subject to the ethics officer’s oversight. There is one set of ethics guidelines for the rank-and-file staff and another
for the elite executive directors who oversee the organization.
“One of the most depressing things in politics is to be plotted against by inferiors”
Taken from “Off Message” by Bob Marshall-Andrews and published by Profile Books
Just published and available at a substantial discount from Amazon
The farmers are holding their annual show day. The Chamber of Commerce are sharing their space with five enterprises. I am on the stand for as good couple of hours promoting the Chamber and generally chatting to passersby. We are to be dressed in Victorian clothing as our exhibition is based on Hadleigh in 1911 and now. I am wearing a boater and a striped apron – almost time neutral.
At the show I ran across Janine Edgar of Crafty Cooks – which is a pre-school cookery club see www.craftycooks.co.uk. It was early in the day so we exchanged views on positioning and footfall. We also discussed way of interacting with the people of Hadleigh North.
I also meet Kathy Parnham who has just started a woodwind repair business from her home. We discuss ways of our the Chamber might help her but also how she might get her business of the ground by leveraging local contacts.
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