Saturday 31 October 2009

Why Does Remembrance Day Always Bring Out The Worst In Some People?

First, we have the now-obligatory 'no shaking of tins! warning from the Charity Commission, despite high street chuggers seemingly allowed free license:
Poppy sellers from the Royal British Legion have been banned from shaking their collection tins in case they are seen as a 'public menace'.

Asking anyone if they want to buy one and even approaching people have also been declared illegal.

Instead volunteers have been told they must remain still and silent or face being removed from their stands or prosecuted.
And as if that wasn't bad enough...
Landlady Bernice Walsh, of The Windmill, in Weald, Kent, told former RAF serviceman David Marchant that people could buy poppies 'somewhere else' when he asked her permission to leave a poppy tray in her pub.
Happily, this has now sparked a boycott of the pub.
Another villager, who did not want to be named, said: 'It's a shame because people in the village want to support her, but she keeps rubbing people up the wrong way.

'We need a pub - it was closed for six months and then she came and everyone was really pleased about it, but immediately she banned dogs and it's a village pub and people lilke to take their dogs in so it's upset an awful lot of people.'
Seriously, why would you open a business like a pub if you have this attitude to the people you depend upon for your living? I just can't understand it...
Miss Walsh also said that she was aware of some villagers boycotting her bar, but said that it was mainly 'old people'.

She added: 'There are customers who are boycotting the pub, but it's the older people who are doing that.'

The mother-of-two said the pub was previously closed down because it was a 'dump' and only a small group of men had drunk there and said that since she took over in July it was more popular with youngsters and women.

She said that the people boycotting her needed to stop the campaign against her, adding: 'They need to stop bad mouthing me.'
They don't need to do anything. They don't need you.

You need them.

4 comments:

Witterings from Witney said...

Julia,

There always will be idiots in this world, whats new?

Why do people have to give the impression that they are 'doing you a favour' when they provide a 'service'?

sobers said...

It always amazes me that some of the grumpiest, most unwelcoming people you could imagine seem to gravitate to the 'hospitality' trade.

If that's being hospitable, I'd hate to see inhospitable!

Anonymous said...

"Dame" Suzi Leather, commissar of charities, is a notorious left-wing extremist, and is clearly badly in need of hemp therapy.

Brian, follower of Deornoth.

JuliaM said...

"Why do people have to give the impression that they are 'doing you a favour' when they provide a 'service'?"

I suspect because they'd rather be doing something else. I'd rather they were doing something else, too..

"It always amazes me that some of the grumpiest, most unwelcoming people you could imagine seem to gravitate to the 'hospitality' trade."

Maybe they don't start out that way?

""Dame" Suzi Leather, commissar of charities, is a notorious left-wing extremist, and is clearly badly in need of hemp therapy."

Oh, agreed. The Charity Commission is not worth the time of day if you have a real problem with a charity, yet seems to be able to meddle in the most trivial of areas.