Sunday 7 November 2010

(Don't) Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree...

...unless you want Southend Council to put your council tax up!
The council says it is having to spend thousands of pounds removing yellow ribbons from trees around Southend.
What!?

Who are they employing to remove them, then? Supermodels?
Mark Flewitt, cabinet member for planning and transport said: “What these campaigners are doing is no better then graffiti around this town.”
It might be, but for the fact that you can't remove graffiti with a snip of a pair of scissors, you cretin...

Mind you, if anyone knows about wasting money, it's Mark Flewitt!
“It has been getting worse over the past few weeks and it is a waste of time and money.

“I do not have an exact figure but...”
Oh, let me guess. You're going to pluck one out of your nether regions thin air?
“...it is costing thousands of pounds of extra work for our parks team who should be looking after our parks and not doing this.”
I fail to see how it's causing 'extra' work. Just issue all your staff with scissors and, when they are on their usual walking around work (that is what they do, isn't it?) they can remove any they see. Job done!
At the moment it is not affecting how the parks are being looked after, but if it carries on then it will.
Oh, really? Why? What will change?

Nothing, I suspect. Comments, as ever, are illuminating...

8 comments:

Gareth said...

Oh, what fun.

I used to work for southends park teams, and can confirm that i was paid somewhere in the region of the minimum wage - i do believe less than 6 pounds - and managed to clean up *the whole of the cliff front on southend* of litter in a whole day for about £50. That was picking up litter and allsorts. Had the good public of southend seen fit to helpfully attach the litter round trees at eye level, i have no doubt i could have done twice the area with aforementioned scissors to help me.

What IS costing them thousands of pounds of extra money is the homeless man with hepititis and allsorts of other goodies who the police wont touch anymore, who shits on the pavement and wanks off in the bus shelters in broad daylight laughing his evil laugh, but is left free to roam, and shit, as he pleases.

Whats the yellow ribbon for? maybe its a spontaneous health and safety thing - the public kindly helping one another not to bump into trees? The same way the good public put huge battalions of flowers in their own hanging baskets to make them obvious even to folks with only one lonely olfactory channel to sense the world with which YOUR COUNCIL BANNED, costing THOUSANDS OF POUNDS of wasted tax payers money. And thats the good sort of taxpayers money, that you haven't got hold of yet, that people can spend how they joly well please.

Clarissa said...

Don't be silly Julia, the council can't issue scissors to its workforce without also sending them on the appropriate H&S course - and that is the bit that costs the money.

Lynne said...

Expect a ban on the sale of yellow ribbon to anyone who looks like a convicted prisoner's squeeze/love-child.

Rob said...

I agree with him. Nazi Germany started with the tieing of yellow ribbons around trees.

Woodman fondle your ax said...

Pretty straightforward, with one of two reasons:

1) the ribbons are too tight and are hurting the trees. They need to be either slackened off or removed, which frankly is easier. Instructions could be issued with reference to slip knots to avoid this potential catastrophe in future.

2) The yellow ribbons do nothing but irritate powerful grown men. Consequently it's fun to ban things that are so pressing (or choking). in fact, it's fun to ban things anyway as it keeps the bansturbators happy and puts their name in the papers. They can then double the pleasure gained by quietly bansturbating while reading their own name.

JuliaM said...

"What IS costing them thousands of pounds of extra money is the homeless man with hepititis and allsorts of other goodies who the police wont touch anymore, who shits on the pavement and wanks off in the bus shelters in broad daylight laughing his evil laugh, but is left free to roam, and shit, as he pleases."

Clearly, I've not been around to see him! Long may it continue...

*shudder*

"Whats the yellow ribbon for?"

It appears to be the protest group objecting to all the tree felling going on. The council is upset - this isn't their idea of the 'Big Society' :)

"...the council can't issue scissors to its workforce without also sending them on the appropriate H&S course..."

True enough! Someone might run with them, and who knows where that would lead!

"They can then double the pleasure gained by quietly bansturbating while reading their own name."

That conjures up a very disturbing image!

banned said...

Our local students are in the habit of climbing up a statue and leaving a traffic cone on its head. The council wastes thousands fencing off the statue and hiring a cherry picker to remove the cone wich promptly gets replaced the following night. Most of us wonder why they bother, if it's elfinsafety why not just glue the thing there permenantly?

Greencoat said...

'Our local students are in the habit of climbing up a statue and leaving a traffic cone on its head.'

Why don't the Council boys hide up, wait until the stewdent is atop the statue, and then turn a power-hose on the prat?

I'd pay to see that.