15/01/2010Well.. what a few weeks we have had!.. the coldest in a long time.. and it’s much more like how I remembered when I was young and probably colder!
I have to say our local authority has coped rather well with the weather, especially as the length was un expected… its ashamed the Govt didn’t implement the recommendations it got last summer but I guess we have come to expect this dithering on things that really matter and implementing interfering nanny state type rules, to trip us up etc etc… (I could moan about the expiry date on a photo driving license here as the paper ones didn’t expire… but I’ll save that back handed trip up by our govt for another day)
I’d hope the people realise a few things about the clearing of ice or snow / gritting in general… Firstly we aren’t a Scandinavian country that experiences this for months a year, therefore we don’t put the huge resource into it… and if your saying why not… ask yourself would you like to pay for it in higher taxes cause that’s the only way it could happen, and it won’t be just a few pennies and if we did ..but then what about the waste of tax payers’ money over the last decade when it would have clearly not have been necessary
The council has basically gritted the main roads, by doing this its meant that life carries on as near to normal as possible.. ie your shop gets restocked by the supplier but we have to cope on the local estate roads with snow… now just think if we had played this a different way this year say in the first few days we gritted everything (not possible due to lack of man power but we are being hypothetical here) we would have run out of salt/grit half way through the cold spell and after such a point we wouldn’t have gritted anything.. Therefore even your local shop that you could probably walk to that’s on a main road wouldn’t receive any goods and then soon people wouldn’t even be able to buy bread or milk…. It’s just a thought but I’d rather struggle on the local roads and have the main ones clear so life continues as best as possible…
We haven’t even considered pavements yet.. They aren’t like roads and they would need to be treated differently. If you were expecting the Authority to grit them, they would have to do it manually and by walking, not like the roads you couldn’t use “gritters”.. it would be totally un practical for them to do.. just think how long it would take to walk round your estate… or into town? Maybe how long it would take to walk into town, but going up and down every side street on the way…. You get the picture! Though I really don’t see why we try an move the onus back onto the resident to clear the pavement outside their house, it would bring back some community spirit and would save us all a bill at the end of the month! The sad thing is at the moment the law is an ass and discriminates against people who do this and actively makes them at fault should there be an accident. However did that get on the statute book I wonder!!
Anyhow all that aside, hopefully we will have a big enough rest bite to restock before we get any more cold weather, I suspect a bit more later this month or in Feb… and in all honesty I think we may be seeing a few more winters like this… I wouldn’t be surprised if we are on the way back to proper old style winters.. and that’s the reason I’m goanna be buying me a Ranger Rover (late 90s pre the govts wicked £400 retrospective car tax) soon (don’t worry I do have some off road intentions too…)… and if the weather gets worse over the next few years then a winch and some snow chains too… 02/12/2009Whilst travelling back from the superstore this afternoon, after buying lunch and heading back to the office, I was pulled for a random stop by the police... they were on a campaign to stop drink driving. Fair enough, though it did waste about 15 mins of my time.
I was surprised they were allowed to randomly stop people and demand a breath test without any suspicion (from watching those road wars progs on sky one they usually have to “smell” alcohol on you first) the office assured me that when they have these campaigns then it’s different! Fair enough though I might be interested enough to check this out.
So it got me thinking, putting my political hat on... ( I wished I had asked the officer... though I am sure I can ask the question through official channels later) how many people do they actually catch breaking the law this way, I could count at least six officers standing on the pavement, and there was probably at least one more in the van. I can’t actually believe that this could be the best possible use of the officer’s time. For a start it was the middle of the day, who’s drinking in the middle of the day!! Surely if they had to do these random (no doubt government initiated / driven by targets) campaign then you would do it at 5-7 am catch people who drank far too much the night before or sometime after 7pm when people actually go to the pub!!
But more importantly surely their time would be better spent on intelligent driven campaigns. I mean stopping someone randomly halfway down a dual carriageway, the % of people you stop coming out a pub is going to be statically low, where as parking sort of strategically outside a pub car park and pulling people who you see coming out would statistically give you a much better result! Or even better go back to good old fashioned policing if you see someone doing something that looks dodgy it probably is... what’s that called oh yeah gut instinct!! I’m sure the actual PCs on the ground miss this and loath all the bureaucratic interference.
But on the whole I am still uncomfortable with this method of policing as it targets the law abiding public, and doesn’t help with the perception that it’s easier to increase overall statistics by persecuting the regular guy for some civil wrongdoing, particularly the motorist, rather than focusing on real crime.
17/02/2009heard of a company called De La Rue?? in one of my past jobs worked with a company that sold them motors, and I knew they made cash machines and the like... but more recently I found out they also print money...
http://investors.delarue.com/dlr/fininfo/shareinfo/charts/
Now does there share price go up because of speculation of business to come, or is it because they are doing more business at the moment??? one only wonders!! 18/01/2009Today I have been bitten by the nanny sate, BIG TIME... I was shopping in my (up till now) favourite supermarket.. Sainsbury's (Barnwood) with my youngest sister and a friend (who lives with us) 15+17.. ← not that that should be reliant.. We were purchasing sunday dinners Vegies since I went to the butcher on Friday to get the meat... also we were getting chilli ingredients to make during the week.. so you can imagine the checkout belt..
Potatoes
Sweede
Turnips
Carrots
Herbs to make Stuffing. (all fresh)
Onions
Garlic
Tins of Pulses...
Various beans..
Chopped tomatoes
ribean ← the big one.. I love Ribena....
a few bottles of wine..
Yorkshire Puds..
Horseradish sauce... I picked one of sainsburys own.. wanted to try it out since I don't much like the Coleman's stuff... if its anything like the stuff you get at farmers market it should be great.
some crappy alco pops for a party we were hosting..
Tropicana.. of various sorts.. they had a good deal on that !!!
Any way you get the picture....
The checkout assistant asked for id... when picking up a Retail 10GBP bottle of wine (fair enough) though one knows this doesn't happen in France.. but then they proceeded to ask my sister and her friend.. for ID.. since as sated above neither are actually over 18 they wont have id... at this point they decided not to sell me my food...
I complained to the staff in store but clearly that wasn't enough... I left without any of the food I had wanted to buy and wasted over an hour of my time...
On principle I wasn't prepared to just take the food and not the alcohol..so I went to Morirson's and got everything... they were super helpful I didn't have a GBP for the trolley they lent me a token...
I intend to query Sainsbury's on its policies since I don't believe as they claimed they would be breaking the law to sell me some alcohol because I was there with < 18 yr olds... as they were claiming in store.
What is really irritating for me as a councillor is that supermarkets are trying to restrict the sale of alcohol to those who shouldn't be drinking it but at the same time people like me who look 18 (or less)... but are actually 28... get discriminated against (when in a “crowd”) as they claim.
I bet if some one of 50 with a daughter (I guess sister is a strech at that age diff) of 17 wouldn't be refused... the sale of some alcohol.. and this is the Point...
Rant over... Anyone want to advise me on what to do next...
I see the directive is this labour governments fault...but also locally ours for being so ridged .. even though its not actually law..
I didn't let the manager know that i was a councillor till nearly the end of our discussions.. i am in two minds as to hoping it would make a difference... but it didn't..
I guess what needs now to happen is someone from sainsbursys to appologse and srot it.
15/01/2009Airport runway safety project has made it through full council, a most interesting meeting with the public having to be removed due to constant interruptions to the meeting by one environmentalist, with some of the longer standing councillors commenting that they never have seen that since they had been on the council.
The Good news is that now the council and the Airport can get on with all the technicalities of getting the runway ends cleared. The bone of contention seemed to be that people thought it was an extension of the runway which it isn’t the runway stays the same length we just need some grass at each end as “run off” for the larger jets that land there already. If this didn’t get approved and implemented then there would be a danger in the future that the runway would be reclassified and aircraft that come in currently would be unable to do so...
I’m sure there will be some interesting coverage in the citizen tomorrow!
09/01/2009Ok so I"need" to buy a new TV my Lovely Trinitron 8 ish yrs is starting to go the white fades from a dirty white to a bright white and back again quite annoying...
Anyhow I digress.. You see now if I had been listening to the government I would have gone out and dully done my bit for the country and spent spent spent... because that’s what we need to do... apparently...
Ok so the TV I want costs a grand (ish) KDL 40W4500 or poss KDL42W4000 not sure yet...
But I don't have a spare Grand... I do have a credit card though... but that’s expensive and well I don't want to max it out like labour has done with the countries!
Now they have a new idea... ah if we run out of money lets just print some more.... i wonder if the Sony center would take a bunch of laser printed tenners of me? now see how illegal it would be for me to do it... we should be crying out if Labour does this... just look what happens to your currency and inflation (especially if you net import like we do) when you print money!!
But no I am going to be good and wait till I actually can afford one with real cash I actually have saved... a word alien to this administration! 28/12/2008Interesting read on the telegraph about what the bishops have said regarding Labours run in office. particularly its recent policy of spending more to get out of this curent debt crisis. anyone with half a brain can see that spending more will increase debt not reduce it!
The Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, the Bishop of Manchester, condemned Labour for encouraging people to get further into debt. “The Government has acted scandalously. This is not just an economic issue, but a moral one. It’s about what we value,” he said.
“The Government believes that money can answer all of the problems and has encouraged greed and a love of money that the Bible says is the root of all evil. It is morally corrupt because it encourages people to get into a lifestyle of believing they can always get what they want.” 25/12/2008Merry Christmas everyone!.. I've just come back from midnight mass at the cathedral here in Gloucester, one of my fravrioute services at the cathedral throughout the year. After the cathedral some cheese and port, it realy sets up christmas. 02/12/2008Today I had OSM (Overview and Scrutiny) and it was a special meeting, evidence gathering for the Airport. The basic problem is that for the airport to stay as a level 2 airport the run-off at each end of the runway needed to be extended. If this didn't happen then it was quite probable that in a couple of years the CAA would require the Airport to downgrade its "runway length" and the long and short of that would be it could no longer accept the executive jets which would mean a lot of related work and jobs would go. Fortunately the Committee was unanimous in the support of the airport. It was the most interesting meeting I've been to yet, lots of people there speaking for and against. The business leaders and the Airport directors made a very good case for the Airport Runway safety zone. On the against side the arguments were mainly by the environment lobby, though some residents were concerned about extra noise. However with the Airport and both councils putting it on record that the opening hours won't change and the estimate number of extra trips was minimal this shouldn't be too much of an issue.
I think the Airport as time goes on will become more and more important to the economy of the County and will bring direct benefits to the city to, especially as business users fly in and out for business meetings etc. And with the road network getting more and more clogged up I guess flying in and out will start to be a no-brainer. Whilst the Airport has no intention of expanding its commercial carrier type flights, it would be kinda kewl if you get on a small (40-70 seater is all the airport will ever be able to accommodate) jet and hopping over to Ireland or Belgium or similar distanced cities or even just inter British Cities such as Edinburgh, but I think I'm just dreaming at the moment.
With it making it through OSM and now its off to Cabinet, the Airport being successful is just another step towards making Gloucester a Great City! |
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| Survey Name: | whats the best type of bordeaux | | Survey Description: | | | Time Created: | 13/02/2008 01:03 | | Number of Responses: | 1 |  |
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I am Gordon Taylor
I’ve just celebrated my 21st birthday for the seventh time, this year. The photo proves I am still 21(or poss.. younger according to check out girls)!!!
In my spare time I am involved with the local conservative party and I am now a local councillor for the city of Gloucester :-)
I work at one of the local school in the City.. I don't teach.. but keep all the computer systems running.
I've been in Gloucester about 4 ish years. I was brought up in Nottinghamshire, where I went to university and got one of those degree things.... I am technically a Scot since both my parents are from around Mid-Lothian. I’m on my southward Journey.. when I retire and celebrate 29th 21st birthday I hope to have made it as far as Bordeaux, with a wife and a few children, and a large small holding with lots of sheepos and a pigs (not with lipstick on) some Hens and a Horse!!!
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Published, and Promoted by Gordon Taylor 100 Eastern Ave, Gloucester, GL4 4LW on behalf of Me
Disclaimer: Please note the opinions expressed throughout this site are those of the author unless stated otherwise. |
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