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| wooden acting at its very best |
One of the interesting things about writing a blog is that you get challenged about your viewpoint. The Barnet Bugle are always poised on the sidelines to toot and question the blog or add some explanatory material. The Bugle has the patina of long use, far longer than Mr Mustard has been around and so Mr Mustard tries to be wise and stop, listen and think ( has Mr Mustard ever written that about a council meeting? - no. )
As readers of the previous post will know Mr Mustard was not amused to be sent a letter accusing him of leaving his recycling boxes or his wheelie bins ( the letter was most unclear ) continually on the pavement. What rot. Anyway The Bugle pointed out to Mr Mustard that on the council website there is a short video of Cllr Harper waxing lyrical about the extension of the recycling scheme to plastic bottles. The link is here. The video will also appear in the body of this post a little further down but there are one or two items on the webpage that Mr Mustard would like to mention first.
Residents have been provided with a black box and a blue box to fill with household materials and place out on the kerbside for collection. So the council's own website says to place the boxes out on the kerbside so why are letters being sent to residents telling them they are committing an offence under the Highways Act 1980. Could the answer be incompetence or ignorance? It is a deeply unimpressive piece of work by whoever wrote that page of the website. The page was last modified by redacted a waste and sustainability officer. Oh dear.
Why would you put your mobile phone in the black box for recycling when you can sell it or give it directly to charity. This page may help you; that gives you the address for Help the Aged for instance and there are other charities that take them ( other charities are welcome to advertise themselves in the comments box ).
The collection crew sort your black box items into compartments on one side of the recycling collection vehicle and the blue box materials are sorted into compartments on the other side. The person who wrote this sentence has never watched a collection of recycling. Each crew member works one side of the lorry, the side that is next to the pavement they have picked up from.
Don't get hung up on which item goes into which box. Mr Mustard used to fuss over this and then one day when he had two half full boxes the operative simply tipped one into the other and took it to the van.
Three quarters of the way down the page it says kerbsite not kerbside. Does anyone proofread the website?
And now to the main event, the YouTube video of Cllr Harper in October 2008 when he was Cabinet Member for Environment & Transport:
It would be a bit unfair of Mr Mustard to say "don't give up the day job" for two reasons.
1. Unlike other cabinet members & councillors he hasn't had training as an actor, and
2. He doesn't have a day job.
that assumes of course that his declaration here is correct.
How does the poor boy manage on his surely modest allowances as a councillor? Well take a look at answer 9 in the council's list of FOI answers that have been published. So currently he trousers £38,026 a year and in the year 2009/10 he was getting £36,090. Not bad for spending a few evenings in the town hall saying "aye" to everything that comes your way from a cabinet colleague.
Now let us look at the video again. It's continuity error time.
12s in. Pictures of recycling boxes on the pavement.
19s. A wheelie bin on the pavement and the lid is not closed as it should be. Foxes will be in there later. One would have thought the cabinet member would have told his neighbours about these failings.
44s. Harper says "collected at kerbside" Oh dear.
1.30s Those shoes should have been in a plastic bag to protect them Cllr Harper. You could probably have resoled them, the heels looked OK.
1.44s The commentator says "to save space on the kerbside"
Can we please recycle some of our councillors, senior officers and consultants?
Yours frugally
Mr Mustard
Oh my, I may have to download this clip for my viewing pleasure, late at night ... but of course poor Andrew has himself been recycled, hasn't he, no longer deputy leader, so bye bye to that allowance. This is probably why he is wearing the soles of his shoes down so badly, as seen in the recycling box, poor old love.
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