The council sent Ms Ballard a letter last week demanding the mum-of-two remove the chair within 14 days, labelling it as “rubbish”.Did this shame her into moving it? Did it make her wonder if perhaps she, a 47 year old jobless single mother reliant on state handouts, had some responsibility not to (further) blight the area around her? Did she look at the neat gardens around her and think maybe they'd rather not live next to a tip?
Reader, it did not:
… the former IT manager pointed out many front yards in the street had rubbish, broken furniture and debris piled high and pavements were covered with litter and dog mess. Ms Ballard called on the council to focus on street cleaning and worse eyesores before targeting on her single chair.Ah, yes. The ‘But everyone else does it even more!’ gambit. Did that work when you were a kid? It didn't when I was. It certainly doesn't work when it can be seen that the houses around her aren't like this, when the 'Daily Mail' photographer comes to call...
And then what else, for today’s attention-seeking child-adult, but go one step further in protest at daddy council’s order?
Debbie Ballard has built a quaint living room scene, complete with potted plants and framed pictures of pets, in the front garden of her Westcliff home after Southend Council asked her to remove an armchair.
Strangers have been turning up at the house in Salisbury Avenue to take photographs.A perfect vignette of a certain section of modern society. Innit?
14 comments:
So. That's what an armchair warrior means!
Feral.
She is just upset that Wisden might prefer Mick Philpott over her as Chavscum of the year, were they to award that sort of thing.
I can understand that some people are ugly, but Debbie Ballard enhances her natural bad looks with a hairstyle that was done by a local graffiti gang and Helen Keller's dress sense.
At least the winos in the Tube have the dignity to put their hands out for a contribution, and the gypsies have the acumen to bring babes in arms as a marketing technique. Debbie Ballard just gets her handouts as a form of sinecure, for which she is unrepentant.
Hark, ye, at how she represents the outside of her home! Are you strong enough to confront what must go on inside Debbie Ballard's house - or her head?
Neighbour Milena Chirwa said: 'Is crazy - I going to take a photo of what she's done there. I send my friend in Warsaw, say, is not Africa, is England, this how manager live
Twenty Rothmans.
You are an idiot. I suppose you are the most perfect person in the world with no issues and you do your very best to help the poor and needy? No? Thought not.
When the crappy councils and MPs and indeed government do everything right by people, THEN they can dictate to people.
Feral.
Dear Feral,
thank you for that carefully thought out response.
It might have escaped your attention that higher band taxpayers do quite a bit for the ferals (as we call them in Oz). We pay their giros, after all.
Perhaps you could share with us your thoughts were you living next to someone like Miss Ballard. You might find yourself at ease in such a situation - those of us who were brought up eating with a knife and fork might disagree.
But you're right. I am imperfect, and I have problems - will I have enough to retire on, how I'll handle a meeting on Monday - problems which Miss Ballard, and presumably you - will not face.
Moreover, I am an idiot, having made very many mistakes, which, with the benefit of hindsight, no rational person would have made.
However, I come from an excellent, loving family, had a superb education, am tall and good-looking and have a little money which I would prefer to keep from the likes of you, with your clip-on, polyester bow tie and clip-on, polyester life.
There's overreaction, mountains out of mole hills and then there's Deborah Ballard's front garden.
A quaint living room scene? Nah just some classless garden tat!
I have a chair in my garden. It is called "PATIO FURNITURE" here.... the woman needs some imagination.
And, "Feral", you are a dip-shit.
Feral
Does Debbie Ballard fit your definition of poor and needy?
I am afraid that she is a closer fit to my definition of a lazy feckless waster who unless she gets exactly what she wants will try to make everything a mess for everyone, but of course we are all allowed to have an opinion.
I do note that she is another one who has satellite TV paid for by the hard working taxpayers.
Feral,
A good test to distinguish gaudy impositions from Art is the degree to which taxpayers resist their funding.
There's a little bit of me that admires her method of sticking two fingers up at her detractors - even if they do have a valid point.
Did this shame her into moving it? Did it make her wonder if perhaps she, a 47 year old jobless single mother reliant on state hand-outs, had some responsibility not to (further) blight the area around her? Did she look at the neat gardens around her and think maybe they’d rather not live next to a tip?
Theodore Dalrymple on dependency:
“He may well have lived his entire life at others’ expense, such that every mouthful of food he has ever eaten, every shirt he has ever worn, every television he has ever watched, has been provided by others. Even if he were to recognise this, he would not be grateful, for dependency does not promote gratitude. On the contrary, he would simply feel that the subventions were not sufficient to allow him to live as he would have liked.”
Seems relevant somehow.
@Twenty Rothmans.
I quite liked that response, well done.
To be honest though, it is factual that councils exhalt fining/harassing individuals rather than give numbers for free collection recycling centres. It's the bullying attitude I can't stand.
Feral.
And Furor, you're calling ME a dip shit? Pot, kettle, black me old fruit.
@Anonymous:
I agree with every point that Feral made:
I am an idiot
I am imperfect
I have problems (we call them issues in the office)
I am not St Francis of Assisi
Governments at any level should not dictate to people - that's a dictatorship, right?
His inference was that this dirty protest meant something. It does - it means this waster expects us to pay to deal with her refuse, and that that is her right.
I disagree with this vehemently, to the extent that I became enraged with Feral - for which I apologise.
With the benefit of hindsight, I see that Feral is not someone to be loathed, but rather pitied. I withdraw my suggestion that he was brought up without being taught how to use cutlery unreservedly.
That it was probably plastic is neither here nor there.
"Are you strong enough to confront what must go on inside Debbie Ballard's house - or her head?"
*shudders* No!
"There's a little bit of me that admires her method of sticking two fingers up at her detractors..."
If it was harming no-one else, fine. But I wouldn't want to look at it every morning...
"Seems relevant somehow."
Very sadly so...
"That it was probably plastic is neither here nor there."
Heh!
Ahhhhh.
@Twenty Rothmans.
I see that you have realised I have seen into your hardened soul.
I look forward to our debates.
Feral.
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