Here’s Some ‘Plain English’ For You…

…stop acting like a crazy, attention-seeking old harridan:

The English professor asked for a toasted multi-grain bagel but became angry when a staff member asked her: ‘Do you want butter or cheese?’

Wow, she must have the shortest fuse in the world! She also hasn’t learned that it’s not wise to insult or harangue the people serving you food and drink…

Prof Rosenthal, that stuff on the top of your next coffee? Might not be froth, you know…

Prof Rosenthal, who also declines to use Starbucks terms such as ‘grande’ for a medium drink, said: ‘I just wanted a multi-grain bagel. I refused to say “without butter or cheese”. ‘

How do you expect the poor sod serving you to know, then? Do Starbucks have to hire telepaths?

‘When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want. ‘

If I don’t want cheese, or pickles, I do have to tell them that, since that’s how the burger comes…

‘Linguistically, it’s stupid and I’m a stickler for correct English.’

No, you’re an attention-seeking old cow who likes to grandstand in restaurants while everyone slowly backs away, trying not to make eye contact with the crazy woman.

Not a good advert for your university, either, I’d have thought…

She said the cashier at the branch in New York would not serve her until she answered the question.

‘I yelled, “I want my multi-grain bagel” ,’ she added.

I’d have given it to you, love. At maximum velocity and with great accuracy. Pity I never went into retail, isn’t it?

Prof Rosenthal, who is in her 60s, told the New York Post she would not back down, so the store manager called police, who ordered her to leave. ‘It was very humiliating to be thrown out – all I did was ask for a bagel,’ she added.

No, that wasn’t ‘all you did’, was it? You abused some poor corporate drone who I expect makes a tenth of what the taxpayers pay to keep you in expensive coffee.

For someone apparently keen on semantic purity, you’ve got a real way of deflecting any responsibility for your own behaviour…

And because Prof Rosenthal’s blind spot isn’t exactly unknown among wackademics, here’s someone eager to capitalise on it:

Marie Clair, of the Plain English Campaign, said: ‘She sounds like a plain English champion.

‘We need more people with the confidence to fight back against language that doesn’t help them.’

What, against the frontline troops of the evil corporate machine, the poor bloody barista? Get a life, Marie!

One Starbucks employee said Prof Rosenthal was at fault for refusing to answer a ‘reasonable question’.

Indeed she was.

If she really wants to ‘stand up for the English language’, as she claimed, here’s the way to do it.

The People? Who Cares What They Think?

It seems it isn't just county councils that have a downer on successful businesses. London trusts are getting in on the act:

Thousands of people have signed a petition against the closure of a market’s food stalls.

Owners of Greenwich Market plan to slash the number of hot food stalls from 12 to five or six, and relocate them to the George II cafe area.

8,400 to be precise, but they expect that number to rise to 10,000. That's a pretty large chunk of the (presumably) voting population. Who could afford to ignore tha...

Oh:

...Greenwich Hospital property manager Jane Rowson said people had misunderstood the plans.

She said: “I think a lot of people who’ve signed the petition have been completely misled and think we’re closing down the food market.”

Ms Rowson added that shops and crafts stalls supported the move and said: “I’m not worried by those signatures.”

I wonder if Greenwich councillors are going to be quite so sanguine?

So, what's this all in aid of?

Food sellers say they were encouraged to come to Greenwich two years ago in a bid to create a place similar to London’s Borough Market.

But since the market management company changed hands, so the plans have also altered, with the aim of making it focused more on arts and crafts.

Hmmm, so they want to force out proven profitable businesses to take a flyer on people being just as keen, if not more, on arts and crafts instead? In the middle of a recession?

What you don't seem to understand, sweetie, is that even in a recession, people will still eat. But buy painting and knitted tea cosies and feather earrings?

Not so much...

We Can Can't Do Business Here...

A skateboard and sports equipment shop is pulling out of Colchester, claiming unhelpful council officials have driven it away.

And this isn’t a little struggling business that is hanging on a knife-edge, either.

Mr Khan managed to keep the business going after a fire at the Cowdray Centre in 2006 forced him out of his original unit in the centre’s A Block.
Since then, he and Ms Gooderham have turned the company into the UK’s biggest skate, hockey and extreme sports retailer.

However, they say the company’s growth has been in the face of a mass of petty bureaucracy brought down on them by council officials.

Just fantastic…!

The council tried to force the company to remove a van, painted with the Demon Xtreme logo from its regular spot in Cowdray Avenue, claiming – wrongly, it turned out – it breached byelaws.

Officials also physically removed advertising boards from the roadside, instead of asking the company to move them.

When Mr Khan made enquiries about recycling the busineess’s waste, he was frustrated to be told it would cost him more than £500 in council charges.

Way to go, Colchester! That’s the way to attract business to your area!

I can see why your motto is: “A place where people want to live, work and visit”. If you’d put ‘do business’ in there, you might have wound up being sued by the advertising authorities…

He said: “We have had nothing but obstacles put in our way from the council, with its nonsensical need to adhere rigidly to old byelaws.

“When the threatening letters they sent about our van were ignored, officials busied themselves trying to find some legal precedent to remove it, when we were doing nothing wrong.

“All this has cost us money – cost the taxpayers money, too – all unnecessarily.

“We tire of trying to promote our business to Colchester people in the face of these attempts to ‘clean up’ the town.

“It will soon be exceptionally ‘clean’, if no businesses remain, because of the council’s stupidity.”

And that’s not just his opinion, either:

Mr Khan is the latest in a line of traders who have complained about the council’s tough stance on signs and promotional material.

The Federation of Small Businesses recently threatened to withdraw its backing from the council because of the dispute.

Naturally, the council is staring, wide-eyed, saying ‘What? Us? I don’t understand…’:

Nick Barlow, councillor responsible for business, said the council was in a “no win” situation.

He said: “If we allow leafleting and flyposting, the town would be covered with it and businesses would complain it looked a mess.

“If we don’t allow it, some businesses will still complain.”

Oh god, yes, I know, Nick. It's so hard, isn't it? It's just awful when you are forced, forced, to spend your working life hounding those evil, evil capitalists that do nothing but....errr...pay business rates so the council can...errr...employ people like you to...

You know what? I can hear the Sympathy Bus revving up, getting ready to pull out. Think I'll get aboard it, Nick, if you don't mind.

Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater…

…seems to be a specialty of our legislators. One such example is that of the plan to make car-clamping on private land illegal:

Lynne Featherstone, the Home Office minister, will announce plans to curb the activities of clampers in England and Wales.

Ms Featherstone will say the rules should be brought into line with those in Scotland, where clamping on private land was banned after a judge said it amounted to 'extortion' and 'theft'.

Now, there’s no doubt that unlicensed car-clampers and unscrupulous landowners have brought the practice into disrepute. The local papers are no stranger to complaints from aggrieved motorists genuinely (and sometimes, not so genuinely!) held to ransom by clampers.

Longrider relates a few personal experiences.

But then, if the problem is cowboy clampers and lack of regulation, as Subrosa points out from the Scottish experience, why not regulate them? Why leave the private landowner with no redress from the ‘I’ll park anywhere I like’ brigade?

Ms Featherstone said she wanted to encourage "more proportionate way to deal with parking transactions".

Landowners who wanted to protect their land could erect barriers, she said.

Where it’s possible to, or practical to, yes, I suppose they could.

But that wouldn’t help the car park owner shown on Monday’s ‘One Show’ spot about this; there, a car had parked alongside several parking bays (blocking them). On being ticketed and clamped, the driver had simply removed his personal possessions and abandoned the car! Is someone like that going to respect any other form of enforcement?

Patrick Troy, chief executive of the British Parking Association, said that the Government would have to explain to private landowners how the ban would work.

He said: "If clamping is banned the Government must describe how it would protect landowners' interests where vehicles are parked unlawfully on their land."

Quite.

Once again, legislation is being made on the basis of the few rogues, and hitting the mainly compliant and useful services.

After all, in a world that contains people who can do this…

A taxi driver was arrested after he got behind the wheel of an ambulance answering an emergency call and moved it to make way for his own vehicle.

I thought I’d seen everything, but no:

Officers attended the incident after the ambulance crew reported their vehicle had been driven away from outside an address in Pevensey Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, as they were preparing to take a one-month-old baby to hospital yesterday.

Respect for others property rights is a noble idea, but the balance cannot swing too far the other way; without enforcement and penalties to rein in the likes of these people, we have anarchy…

Helpful Tips For Ecoloons…

Tip One: If you are going to put up professional-looking posters around town to protest the council’s (completely predictable) perfidy, then it’s best to run them through spellcheck first, to avoid the appearance of being illiterate hippies:



Tip Two: If you are going to send your minions out to tie yellow ribbons around remaining trees, then some form of helpful guide might be welcome, in case your minions are morons.

For instance, this is a tree:



And this is not a tree. It's a lamp post:



This has been a public service announcement.

Everyone’s Got The Art Bug!

NickM at ‘Counting Cats…’ regales us with the latest art craze to issue from the fundament (literally!) of the loony progressive arts movement.

Now, it seems a council is getting in on the act:

Piles of dog mess have been spray-painted bright green by a Dorset council to try to shock owners into picking up their pets' waste.

I hate to tell anyone how to suck eggs, but if they are happy to let their dog crap in the street without poop-scooping, they are probably happy to leave it there no matter WHAT colour it is.

Some people just think they’re above that sort of thing, after all.

Poole council took the action after about 200 piles of mess were found in an alley near Poole High School.

Workers are still cleaning mess on the paths but any piles on the grass verges in the area will be painted and, if not removed, cleared up after a week.

‘On the grass verges…’ And you’re painting the poo green?

Is it me, or..?

Opposition councillor Brian Clements said it was a "bizarre thing to do".

Oh, you’re not wrong, Brian.

The Liberal Democrat added: "My first sense would be to catch the people who let their dogs foul and take action against them.

"These council workers should be spending the time finding these people not painting piles of dog poo, it is a very bizarre thing to do."

Ah, but you see, the sort of people that let their dogs crap where they please are often the sort of people who wouldn’t take kindly to a council worker pointing that out.

Much, much easier – and safer! – to trot around with a pot of paint. Less chance of a trip to A&E.

Shaun Robson, head of environmental services, said: "Dog fouling is a real concern for residents of Poole.

"Unfortunately we have a small minority that don't seem to get the message.

"We hope the paint will help highlight the size of the problem and change people's behaviour.

"We do our best to catch people but it is very difficult and we have to think of new ways, like this idea."

Yes, indeed. You have to think of new ways that don’t involve..err… actually catching people….

Now The Righteous Have It In For Sarcasm?

They thwart dastardly supervillains and have saved the world countless times over but macho superheroes now face a determined new foe in the guise of a mild-mannered child psychologist.

Oh, this’ll be a rehash of all the usual Righteous bugbears, I bet…

Professor Sharon Lamb, from the University of Massachusetts in Boston, accuses the new generation of superheroes, exemplified by Robert Downey Junior's playboy millionnaire Iron Man, of being bad role models for young boys.

A millionaire playboy alcoholic who resolves world problems with ultraviolence?

I’m shocked, shocked, that this doesn’t go down well with progressives…

Unlike conventional superheroes such as Superman, who stood for justice, fairness and decency, the modern macho superheroes portray a negative masculinity, characterised by mindless aggression and rampant sexism.

*yawn*

"There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday," she said.

"Today's superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he's aggressive, sarcastic...

Wait, what?

Sarcasm? Sarcasm is verboten now? Since when?

…, and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity," she said

Do they need to?

Isn’t it enough that they actually do good? Does it not count unless they yammer on about it night and day, like…err…Progressive Man?

In contrast, Lamb said the boys could look up to the old-style heroes such as Superman, "because outside of their costumes they were real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities".

Well, Superman was an illegal alien with adoption and identity issues, and a chronic allergy that could prove crippling. Despite this, he held down a responsible job as part of the Fourth Estate.

It’s really no wonder the progressives are chuffed to little mint balls with that portrayal…

Today's 'Professional'...

David Akinsanya (television producer and presenter of the Channel 4 series ‘Find Me a Family’) notes the changes that have occurred in the social work system:

I feel lucky to have grown up in care during the 1970s and 1980s. I had been placed there as a baby, and had been labelled "unfosterable" by the time I was 10, so I spent most of my time in a small residential unit and, later, in a community home with 18 teenagers. In those days, being a social worker was more of a calling than a career. Social workers didn't move on and up as often as they do now. My social worker, Jenni Randall, started working with me when I was eight, and when she finally moved on she insisted we remain in touch.

That doesn't sound much like today's social worker. And indeed, David notes this with regret:

The relationship would be frowned upon today; she would be accused of blurring the professional line. But it was this relationship that saved me.

Ah, yes. Today's SS drone - in fact, all public sector workers - must be degree'd up, fluent in current theory, and able to spout impenetrable semi-scientese at the drop of a Burberry cap. And isn't the 'service' better for it?

When I was in borstal I decided to go on the straight and narrow, not for my own sake, but because it upset me to see Jenni travelling to the institution. On one visit I had been beaten up, and Jenni cried when she saw the state of my face. I didn't know that anyone cared about me, but she demonstrated that she did. She remembered my birthdays and helped me in practical ways, too, making sure that I kept hold of the flat I had been allocated so that I would have somewhere to go when I came out.

I doubt anyone today would do that. There's no tick box for it, I expect...

…we must not lose sight of what happens to children once they are removed from their parents. If we are serious about caring for kids whose parents can't or won't do so, then we need to build relationships with them. It is a great shame that many local authorities no longer invest in residential care, which went out of fashion as a result of a string of child-abuse scandals.

Another case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

So far, this government hasn't said anything about their intentions for looked-after children – and with all the talk of cuts this silence is worrying. We need investment in social work so that it can once again have a human face, and so that social workers can nurture and build relationships with these vulnerable children.

And that's something money and resources can't buy.

Combating The 8mph Menace...

It seems that mobility scooters and the slow-moving menace they pose to the populace are in the news again:

A police force facing savage budget cuts has announced a crackdown on the menace of the mobility scooter driver.

Officers have launched a course to combat the scourge of the lawless silver-haired scooter rider as the number of accidents on the roads rise.

/facepalm

Still, we shouldn't be surprised. They have, in the past, been the target of overzealous policing (on the bright side though, there's no windows to smash!).

The Government is facing calls for a nationwide testing and registration scheme for the disability vehicles.

Really? From whom? Not, I hope, from people like Richard Boyd? People with a vested interest in the industry that would flow from such legislation?

Leg-Iron is rather looking forward to the day he gets one, mind you:

"Oh, I am so looking forward to being old. The police are going to deploy stingers and squad bicycles in hot pursuit. Well, they are sooo hard to catch and they tick the boxes so it's inevitable really. When I get one I want it to come with the full Davros styling. If it doesn't, I'll fit it myself. I'll have a Pope hat too and go around screaming "Ex-commun-icate"! Perhaps also a bald wig. "Ex-foli-ate". There's more, as Jimmy Cricket used to say, but I'll save them for later."

Old age is going to be pretty fun after all, I think...

H/T commenter RAB via email

Fair’s Fair….

..we send our hectoring busybodies to other countries to tell them how wrong their laws are, so it’s only right that other countries should get to do the same:

A peace activist from India paid a visit to Dale Farm in Crays Hill to meet travellers facing eviction.

Sound familiar. Didn’t we have a recent US visitor doing the same thing?

Rajagopal from New Delhi, was at the illegal site to talk to families who have been told to leave by Basildon Council.

Rajagopal is the vice chairman of the Gandhi Peace Foundation in India which campaigns for the rights of poor and is inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.

I’m sure Gandhi would be proud to see his country has successfully overcome its many problems, and his descendants are therefore branching out to other countries…