Jobsworths again

There are those out there who will hold to a rule no matter what, they cannot see outside it nor can they ever even contemplate that as with many rules there are exceptions. For some reason or other, they tend to be attracted to working for the state... Then again perhaps that's not such a surprise, private industry and businesses (unless working for the state) have to be flexible, it's good public relations after all.
Telegraph.

The mother of a terminally-ill boy is fighting against being fined for taking him out of school for what could be his last holiday.
Maxine Ingrouille-Kidd has been threatened with a fine of up to £120 and possible prosecution if she takes her son Curtis out of school during term time.
Doctors have given Curtis, 13, who is a blind quadriplegic and has cerebral palsy, just a few years to live and warned he may only survive until his late teens.
“My son is 14 in October and this may well be his last holiday,” the mother-of-three said.
“He is never going to have a career, he is going to spend the rest of his life with us looking after him.

The family have my deepest sympathy, it must be heartbreaking for them, yet there will be a lot of moments to treasure too.
In this instance though I simply cannot see a reason for the school to object, Curtis is after all in a terminal condition and unless someone comes up with a miracle cure (unlikely) then he won't even make it to take exams, never mind find a useful niche in society. Whilst I can in part see some reasons for keeping kids in school during term times, mostly I wonder against the mentality that believes that going away for a couple of weeks in term time will make a difference to their education. It's probably more to do with it being inconvenient to the school or teacher.
To be honest I believe that Curtis' mother simply ought to take him and then ignore the fine and if summoned to a magistrate opt for a trial by jury as I do not believe that there is a jury in the UK who would convict. Not in this instance anyway.

Protecting their own

There have been various hospital scandals around, North Stafford springs to mind, there was the MRSA scandal in my own neck of the woods and only the other day Maidstone Hospital who had the MRSA scandal shut down its gastro-keyhole surgery department because it couldn't guarantee the safety of its patients after the op.
In every case there's been some sort of attempt at a cover up and in the worst cases rather than clean up their act, they've a tendency to go after the whistleblower.
Mail.

A cardiologist sacked after blowing the whistle on shocking NHS failures was cleared of any wrongdoing yesterday – after a 13-year battle thought to have cost the taxpayer £10million.
Dr Raj Mattu, a leading heart surgeon, endured more than a decade of extraordinary bullying by his NHS bosses.
He was sacked after he exposed the fact that two patients had died in dangerously overcrowded bays at his hospital.
Instead of listening to his concerns over the shocking standards of care on the wards, bosses first suspended, then sacked him and then spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money pursuing him through an employment tribunal.
They also submitted more than 200 false allegations about him to the General Medical Council – all of which, he says, were rejected.
Dr Mattu wrote to the head of the NHS Sir David Nicholson – dubbed the Man with No Shame – about his treatment and the appalling care at the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry, but received no reply.
Now, after the 13-year ‘David and Goliath’ battle, a tribunal yesterday found the surgeon had been unfairly dismissed.

This sadly is how things are done in the NHS, because managers back up managers and anyone rocking the boat is hounded out by the managerial clique running the place be they a doctor or a porter. They see it as faults = getting sued and in these days of no win no fee I sort of can see how the mentality developed. Though what I can;'t see is why they don't try to improve the problem rather than attempting to dismiss or sideline the whistleblower with false claims. Improving the bays would surely have cost a lot less than £10 million you'd think?
They very fact that they hounded this man through his career and into illness speaks volumes of the arrogance 'can do no wrong' attitude of the people running the HNS. Despite costing the NHS £10 million you can bet the next whistleblower will be treated in the exact same way in order to stop them lifting the lid on bad practices.
NHS the envy of the world? Don't make me laugh.

Jobsworths

The world is a weird place, give someone a modicum of power and a few rules to hide behind and  common sense just goes out the window. Sure humans are territorial, but you'd think if a crime had been committed then a rule would not be supplied to tell someone to their fasce that due to the Data Protection Act you can't tell them who stole your property...
Express.

STAFF at a GPs’ surgery have refused to name a mother who brazenly stole an expensive pram – for “data protection reasons”.
Police hunting the crook have been reduced to trying to trace her by releasing a CCTV image, despite the fact that her name is well known to employees at the practice.
The woman turned up at the surgery with her own child in a cheap pram.
But she left with the infant in mother-of-two Hayley Skidmore’s £300 pushchair, a limited-edition black Maclaren buggy.
When police arrived surgery workers immediately recognised the thief on CCTV.
But in a move branded “ridiculous” yesterday, they refused to tell officers the woman’s name saying it would break data protection and patient confidentiality laws.
Miss Skidmore, 26, of Cadbury Heath, Bristol, who was at the Cadbury Heath Health Centre on February 5 with her son Lewis, aged one, said: “I think it’s vile that a mother could do that to another mother. I’m still in shock about it.
“The manager told me she had been told not to reveal the name because of the Data Protection Act. I don’t understand it. Obviously the woman who stole my pram was there for an appointment but giving her name to police would have nothing to do with her private medical information – it’s about a crime.
“She should be prosecuted. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with something like that.”

I'm pretty sure the Data Protection Act is only to prevent access to confidential records, not prevent identification of a theft on the premises. However it does appear that the staff are using a ruling to prevent the police carrying out their duties by simply giving them a name. I don't believe the patients records will need viewing, simply a means to find the thief rather than rely on video evidence.
However interpretation of the Act and its consequences does appear to give jobsworths a whole new level of power to play with and refusing to cooperate is a hallmark of a jobsworth in action. Never mind common sense, rules is rules and my interpretation of them makes me a little tin god, or so I believe they think.
I suspect the police will find the woman, it may be too late to save the buggy of course, it might have been sold on. Yet they could have had it sorted within hours, not days or weeks.
Yet because a manager decides that a name, is covered by the Act, rather than the record, someone has to suffer.
Welcome to the UK....

Jobsworths uber alles

There are those out there without a spark of humanity, whose adherence to petty rules and regulations forms their raison d'etre and to whom an exception has to be authorised from on high.
Such is the life of a Department of Work and Pensions civil servant who applied the letter of the law to a poppy seller.
Express.

A VETERAN soldier has lost his jobseeker’s allowance – because he was selling poppies instead of “actively seeking work”.
The decision to take away the benefit from father-of-four Stephen Taylor, 60, who served in Cyprus, Kenya and Northern Ireland, caused outrage last night.
He admitted when he signed on at his local Jobcentre that he had spent 24 hours over a two-week period selling poppies to raise charity funds for veterans.
His honesty was rewarded by staff deeming he was in breach of rules governing benefit payments and his £71.20-a-week allowance was withdrawn.
The former pub manager has been out of work for a year and has now missed out on four weekly payments for selling the poppies outside an Asda store in Bury, Greater Manchester, in the run-up to Remembrance Day.

This is the mindset of those who work for the state, all must be declared and penalties will be given for breaches of the rules no matter what you're doing. It wasn't as if Mr Taylor was even earning money, as he was selling poppies, technically he wasn't actively seeking work so the Dept of  Work and Pensions penalised him for doing a good deed and having the temerity to honestly admit to them what he was doing. Had he just sat in his house with his feet up, no problem, down the pub (assuming he can afford too) no problem, shopping, no problem. Sell poppies for a very worthy cause down comes the wrath of the state...

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “We make it clear to people what the rules are and that they risk losing their benefits if they don’t play by them. Sanctions are only used as a last resort.

Sounds like they were used as a first resort here and no doubt someone in the Debt feels particularly smug about putting the boot into a veteran soldier.
In other news, Trafford Council landed a £300,000 bill because a bunch of asylum seekers were dumped on them by the Home Office.
Makes you wonder just where the priorities of the government in the UK are, doesn't it?

Jobsworths

The idiocy that happens in councils gets a pretty wide audience. Mostly to do with their sticking rigidly to the letter of a regulation rather than say use common sense...
Mail.

A coastal village can now boast a new attraction - the country's smallest parking space.
The tiny gap in between two sets of double yellow lines measures in at just nine inches wide, just big enough to fit the wheels of a bicycle.
Residents of Burry Port, Carmarthenshire have now gone to town with the gaffe - mocking officials who left the space by parking toy cars in the spot.
However, Carmarthshire Council bosses have revealed there is a real reason why workmen didn't fill in the space.
One set of yellow lines are on a public road owned by the local authority, while the others are on a private road which leads to the local GP surgery.

Oh those crazy Welsh councils eh?
The thing that gets me is that someone actually had to go out there and decide where one road started and another ended and decided that there was a 9 inch gap between the two sets of lines. Then you have the workmen who actually went ahead and did it anyway...

Still... rules is rules.
Particularly if you work for the government... local or national.

Jobsworths

One of the more irritating aspects of the so called commercialisation of the NHS was the introduction of parking fees at most major hospitals. Take my own local hospital, Medway Maritime, yes there is a problem with the sheer number of people wanting to park there, but that doesn't detract from the problem of people having to shell out a fee if they park at the hospital either for treatment or to visit a sick relative. Reducing the number of spaces for visitors in order to increase the number of staff parking places didn't help either but that's another issue. Unfortunately most hospitals put their parking controls in the hands of private companies and some are over zealous (to say the least)
Express.

A KIDNEY-SWAP patient had 10 parking tickets plastered on her car at a hospital while she was having surgery.
The woman had legitimately parked in a disabled bay and left a note on the windscreen saying she was in for transplant care.
But her Mini was blitzed by an “overzealous” warden at the ­University Hospital of Wales in ­Cardiff with tickets adding up to £300 in fines.
Yesterday the tickets were finally removed from the car after high-profile calls for private firm Vinci Park UK to show compassion. ­
Andrew Davies, Tory leader in the Welsh Assembly, said: “While I understand parking regulations and their enforcement are a necessity, some compassion would not have gone amiss.
“The issuing of 10 tickets is a ­little overzealous, to say the least.
“Everyone using a hospital car park is already under a certain amount of stress and anxiety.”

A tad OTT wouldn't you say?

Now this might be a set up, however the fact that the company or its representative bit just highlights a problem where those seeking treatment are being held over a barrel by those seeking their cash. Hospital visits are not particularly pleasant affairs for many anyway and this sort of thing simply adds to the stress factor.
I suppose you could insist on people using public transport to get to the hospital, though considering just how inconvenient public transport can be at times plus the lengthening of journey times coupled with the price of said transport does not make it a favourable option for many. In my case I can drive to the hospital in ten minutes, were I to go by bus, you're talking about at least an hour there plus an hour back complete with extortionate fares even if I buy a day ticket, it's pretty much the same price as parking for 24 hours at the hospital anyway.
Oh I'm sure there has to be some form of traffic and parking management for hospitals, I'm just not sure that the way it's currently being done is in anyone's best interests.

Can't see, wont see

I always thought that becoming a bus driver indicated a few things, though admittedly until today, one of them was the ability to read or at least observe, which I took as a given. One of the others was the ability to be a complete jobsworth on occasion, at least seems to have survived...
Mail.

A furious housewife was thrown off a bus because she was carrying a pot of white paint.
Anna Porreca, 52, was stunned when the driver told her she was a health and safety risk because the paint was flammable.
But the emulsion paint Mrs Porreca had just bought from a DIY shop was water-based and completely safe.
She said: 'The bus driver saw me getting on and said: 'You can’t come on here with that.
'I asked him why and he said it was to do with health and safety - because it was flammable.
'I’m furious - I checked the tin and it doesn’t say that anywhere.'

It's true enough, any tin of anything even mildly inflammable has to be marked as such, the problems usually only start when people use containers which weren't designed for the purpose after decanting the product into it, hence the recent case of the woman who set fire to herself after decanting petrol into a glass container. Though petrol itself isn't actually flammable as such, but the fumes mixed in an oxygen atmosphere are. So, I could understand a bus driver refusing to allow anyone on with a can of petrol. Paint is another problem though, certain glosses are highly inflammable as they contain certain solvents and spirits, though not all glosses are flammable, yet oddly enough those that are, are marked...

See the little orange square? That means it's flammable...

Yes, that one, it can sometimes have extremely flammable on it too, mostly though it's just a sign with no writing on and is required by law on all products that are... well flammable.
Yes, the bus driver may have been acting in ignorance, though it's difficult to see how he's managed it considering that the lady tried to show him that the paint which was an emulsion wasn't flammable.
I suspect what we have is another jobsworth who when pushed into a position he didn't like simply refused to accept the evidence in front of his own eyes and hoped to get away with it.
I expect after the investigation he'll be promoted to his true roll in life, inspector...

Second class citizens

I've heard of Fireman Sam, in pretty much the same way as I'd heard of Bob the Builder, Being around people who have kids does that to you, though my own kids were more fans of Thomas the Tank Engine (The Ringo Starr version) So it did come as a little bit of a surprise to learn that the creator of the character, Fireman Sam, was detained at an airport for questioning why a veiled woman was not checked by security.Perhaps I shouldn't have been, though I suspect that those who did it will be feeling the heat a little, or perhaps not...
Telegraph.

As David Jones arrived at the security gates at Gatwick airport, he was looking forward to getting through swiftly so he could enjoy lunch with his daughters before their flight.
Placing his belongings, including a scarf, into a tray to pass through the X-ray scanner he spotted a Muslim woman in hijab pass through the area without showing her face.
In a light-hearted aside to a security official who had been assisting him, he said: “If I was wearing this scarf over my face, I wonder what would happen.”
The quip proved to be a mistake. After passing through the gates, he was confronted by staff and accused of racism.
As his daughters, who had passed through security, waited in the departure lounge wondering where he was, he was subjected to a one hour stand-off as officials tried to force him to apologise.
Mr Jones, 67, who is the creator of the popular children’s character Fireman Sam, said: “Something like George Orwell’s 1984 now seems to have arrived in Gatwick airport.
"I feel that my rights as an individual have been violated. What I underwent amounts to intimidation and detention. I was humiliated and degraded in full public view.
"I am a 67-year-old pensioner and have lived my life within the law. I do not have even one point on my driving licence.”
He said that when he made his initial remark the security guard had appeared to agree with him, saying: “I know what you mean, but we have our rules, and you aren’t allowed to say that.”
“It was impossible to get her to listen to reason. We were then joined by a second female security guard who stated that she was Muslim and was deeply distressed by my comment.
“I again stated that I had not made a racist remark but purely an observation that we were in a maximum security situation being searched thoroughly whilst a woman with her face covered walked through. I made no reference to race or religion. I did not swear or raise my voice.”

 You know, I've often wondered the same thing myself, there's a damned good reason not to allow anyone in a public place with their face masked religious reasons or not. Yet here we are, a pensioner who made a remark in passing is subjected to an ordeal for simply questioning whether he would have been stopped if he tried to go through an airport with his face covered. As for the "deeply distressed" Muslim, wtf? Get another job if you're that sensitive to criticism, you don't have any right not to be offended by anyone not of your religion in this country, or at least that's the way the rules actually read.
Yet again, the state and their jobsworth underlings are pandering to the so called religion of peace (aka the religion of the perpetually offended)
This has to stop, we are all equal whether Islam believes it or not, if they don't like it, they should go.

The race industry in all its glory

Kids are inquisitive, it's programmed into them, it's how they learn things. Occasionally they'll ask in all innocence the most embarrassing, daft, occasionally rude questions because they simply want to know. They aren't constrained by terms like political correctness or racism and most parents realise this despite the occasional red face that this causes, sadly other parents don't and along with a rigid enforcing of petty rules by schools due to some poorly written legislation can lead to young children being accused of racism and bigotry despite the fact they don't even know what that means and aren't in the first place.
Mail (usual caveats)

The mother of a seven-year-old boy was told to sign a school form admitting he was racist after he asked another pupil about the colour of his skin.
Elliott Dearlove had asked a five-year-old boy in the playground whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’.
His mother, Hayley White, 29, said she received a phone call last month to say her son had been at the centre of a ‘racist incident’.
She was then summoned to a meeting with Elliott, his teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull.

It's the sort of thing a kid would ask, it doesn't make him a racist, not even a future racist, it just meant he was curious enough to ask.

The school had launched an investigation after the younger boy told his mother about Elliott’s comment and she complained.

Wonder if someone is looking out for a payout or is simply one of these people who is perpetually offended at all the racist white people who live in the UK, because we're all racist us whites, we certainly seem to be constantly told that.

Karl Turner, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, last night insisted that the school and Hull City Council had a statutory duty to take racism seriously.
‘However, having spoken to Hayley, I’m satisfied that her seven-year-old son, Elliott, was not being racist in his remarks but just inquisitive,’ he said.
‘It seems the matter has been taken out of all proportion and common sense seems to have gone completely out of the window.’

Yep, got it in one, so obvious even a Labour MP can see it, schools should take racism seriously just as they should tell anyone who makes a ridiculous accusation to get a life and stop bothering them.

In a statement, Griffin Primary head teacher Janet Adamson said the school had acted ‘in accordance with the council’s guidance for schools on the reporting of racist incidents’.
Vanessa Harvey-Samuel, head of localities and learning at Hull City Council, said: ‘There is a statutory duty to report any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’

Ah, so it's all about perception and following the rules in a jobsworth manner to the point of accusing an inquisitive, curious 7 year old a racist because the mother of another child is so sensitive that they perceive anything said to their kid is potentially racist. Except no-one except the idiots teaching at the school and the parent of the child involved seems to think this was racist in any way.
Good on his mother for not signing the form.

Most natural thing in the world

This is about breastfeeding, although the title is actually about being offended in someone else's name, which seems to be the most natural thing in the world for busybodies and jobsworths.
Express.

A MOTHER was banned from breast-feeding her baby in public by civic centre bosses over claims it would cause “uproar” among Muslim visitors.
Emma Mitchell, 32, was preparing to feed her four-month-old son Aaron when a receptionist warned her it was a “multicultural building” and that she should use the nearby public toilets instead.
Furious Emma then had a stand-off with a manager at Oldham Civic Centre before being offered an empty room under supervision.
She said: “It was just awful. I felt humiliated, intimidated and guilty through the whole thing.
“We all live in Oldham and use this building and what I was doing was one of the most natural things a mum can do. I shouldn’t be made to feel it was wrong just because it’s not in someone’s culture.”
The incident occurred last Friday while Emma was visiting the town’s Citizens Advice Bureau.
When Aaron started crying, she asked if she could use an empty corner of the room to breast-feed him in, offering to face the wall.
But the receptionist told her it wasn’t allowed as “some gentlemen had complained in the past” and suggested she use the public toilets nearby. Emma said: “You wouldn’t eat your dinner in the toilets, so why should my son? She rang the manager who said ‘You absolutely can’t do that here’.”
A member of the complaints department then took her to a small room. Emma’s friend Michelle Booth, 38, who was with her, said: “They were implying breast-feeding was offensive to Muslim sensibilities. It’s political correctness gone mad.”

No doubt breastfeeding is offensive to some Muslims, God knows they get offended with just about everything else, but it's not about Muslims either, I've seen old women complain in cafe's about breastfeeding mums.
Granted not everyone likes to see a woman in full view feeding her kids via the breast, but, it's something that is encouraged and not something that should cause over officious jobsworths to step in and say use the toilets. Whilst I do have some sympathy for private businesses in a sort of my gaff my rules sort of way, if an area is designated as public access, then you take the risk of some woman needing to feed a hungry baby.
So it strikes me as being offended in someone's name seems to be the most natural thing in the world for some people.
Not me though, I'm offended about a lot of things, just not in anyone but my own name, it's part of being a real grown up. If people can't cope with real life as it's lived, perhaps they'd be better off living where it isn't permitted, rather than complaining to a receptionist.
As for the receptionist...
Words fail.

You couldn't make it up.

I'm an engineer, I've done some daft things in my time going against the prevailing wisdom, following orders from the boss to the letter (and not the spirit) but I've always managed to avoid making a complete laughing stock of myself.

BBC.

Council bosses have admitted scoring an "own goal" after a fence was built through the middle of football goalposts in a park in York.

The new fencing was installed at a cost of £6,000 on playing fields in Heworth.
It was erected before £37,000 worth of new play equipment is phased in at the park over the next few weeks.
Dave Meigh, City of York Council's head of parks and open spaces, said: "We recognise that the failure to relocate the goalposts is a real own goal."
It has left local people who use the park to play football confused.
Mr Meigh said the council had asked the contractors to "resolve the issue as a matter of urgency and can only apologise for the error".

Spot the slight problem?

Truly a situation that mobile phones were made for, I mean what the hell were the contractors thinking? Nobody comes out looking that great from this, not the workers, the contracting firm or the council itself for not having any sort of oversight or input.
Made me smile though.

Jobsworths (again)

Step up to the Plate Brent Council in North London who have decided to ban a 13 year tradition of doing an Easter March by the local Christian Churches.

Mail.

Every year the Christians from different churches get together to march a 400-yard route to celebrate Easter.

But this year their Good Friday parade has been banned – because it breaches health and safety laws.

Church leaders say town hall bureaucrats are refusing Christians rights routinely afforded to minority groups, and have vowed to defy them.

Last night Brent Council told the worshippers to walk on the pavement.

A spokesman added: ‘Brent Council was not contacted about the march until around a week ago. 

‘There is a strict legal procedure we have to follow to issue a traffic order closing roads so people can march in the highway, which includes advertising and consultation, and this takes about five weeks. 

‘We are very sorry to say there is now not enough time for us to legally facilitate this march.’

I'm sorry, but the not enough time to facilitate the march doesn't cut the mustard with me, the churches have been doing it for 13 years and I'm fairly sure that the council knows about the parade and where and when it's likely to take place. Can you imagine the furore if the GLC decided on health and safety grounds to ban the Notting Hill carnival in August because no-one had asked them about it? Not going to happen is it? This is just a piece of posturing by Brent to discriminate against Christians after all if they can hold and promote a massive Diwali festival as well as asking local mosques about Eid so they can promote that festival too...

Brent Council hosts a Diwali street celebration every year. Last November it boasted it had held the biggest Diwali event in the country, after more than 60,000 people turned out. 

And in July last year the council appealed to the Muslim community to notify it of any Eid events so it could promote them free of charge.

If they can recognise those other newer festivals then surely they can recognise Easter and the traditions in Brent that go on around that celebration that oddly enough have gone on for 13 years without until this year interference from the council.
Personally I think this is just a religiously motivated attack against Christians something that I'd bet good money on that Brent would never try against any other religion, I rather expect they'd move heaven and earth if the local Mosques wanted to do a parade at short notice and would allow them to have their way.
I'm still trying to decide whether it's idiocy or malice that defines all these attacks against the indigenous law abiding people of this land, though I'm starting to come down on the side of malice and a deliberate attempt to wind us all up into attacking a scapegoat for all the problems we face, rather than the political classes as they deserve.

Going against (some) human nature

You often read about health and safety gone mad, occasionally from me, but mostly out there in the MSM where because of litigation claims spiralling out of control and people seeing easy money to be had over the slightest thing we are developing a "risk averse" attitude amongst various groups who don't wish to be sued should someone be injured doing their job.

Express.

TWO friends saved a drowning man by ignoring the health and safety advice of the ambulance service and jumping into a freezing canal.

Brave Josh Felvus and Liam Jempson dialled 999 after seeing the man floundering in the icy water as they walked home after a night out.

But when the operator told them to stay on the towpath for their own good, the pair refused.

Mr Felvus, 20, and his 19-year-old friend plunged in and dragged the victim to the bank, just as he was beginning to sink below the surface.

Yesterday both young men spoke modestly as they recalled their heroics on an 8ft-deep feeder canal off the Avon, in Bristol.

Mr Jempson, from Bristol, said: “I just couldn’t watch this man die. It all happened quickly but I knew I had to do something. It’s only afterwards that I realised it could have been dangerous going into the water. The water was freezing and I was in shock afterwards.”

Well done those guys, yes it was dangerous but they saved a life, though if they'd followed "official" advice from the ambulance service they could have stayed safe and watched a man drown.

A spokeswoman for Great Western Ambulance Service said: “We don’t ask anyone to put themselves in danger and try to keep as many people safe as possible.”

That's the official line, it has to be, the operator could/would lose their job if they told the lads to jump in and rescue him, but it's also a prevalent attitude in the UK where doing nothing and staying safe is actively encouraged by the state and various private companies in case they are sued. The prevalence of claims for injury adverts on the tv shows how deep this current fad for claiming for every single thing that happens to you that hurts goes, so much so that companies will now spend thousands on training their staff to be careful, putting up guards and generally coming across as more nanny state than the nanny state.
Not that I'm saying that people should put their lives at risk doing every day things, but that we should at least accept that there are some risks worth doing, risking yourself to save a life being one of them, yes those two lads could have been killed, but they weren't they were have a go heroes and a guy is alive because they were willing and able to take a risk.
It just strikes me as very sad that society has gone the way it has where people in authority have to actively discourage risk taking where a life is concerned, a simple don't do anything stupid, not a stay on the towpath should have been enough.
Perhaps it's time to reign back the compensation and risk averse culture in England at least.

My flag is a flag not a religious symbol! update

Seems common sense has prevailed, in this case...

Inside the court 37-year-old Tilehurst man Ronald Peterson was on trial for religiously aggravated harassment. The court heard he went to the partially built mosque in Oxford Road, west Reading, on May 30 to protest over the way its planning application was handled by the borough council.

Peterson, with two other men, draped the St George’s flag on a fence, posed for pictures and chanted “E, E, E.D.L” and “England”.

Witness Urfan Azad, 32, told the court he was in the nearby Reading Tea House and went outside after hearing the chanting.

He said he dialled 999 because he was concerned the situation could escalate, and added: “My concern was the flag needed to be taken off the fence because it might be seen by Muslims as a religious symbol. I felt upset about the whole incident. I’m British myself, I was born in Reading. It’s made me feel a bit socially excluded.”

Now today...

Reading Chronicle.

A MAN arrested after hanging a flag of St George outside a partially built mosque has had the case against him thrown out of court.

District judge Andrew Vickers dismissed the charge of religiously aggravated harassment against Ronald Peterson, from Tilehurst, at Reading Crown Court today (Thursday).

Mr Peterson, 37, a member of the English Defence League (EDL), was arrested on May 30 last year when a witness called the police after seeing him hang the flag on a fence outside the Oxford Road mosque in West Reading and hearing him chant “EDL” and “England”.

Judge Vickers said he did not believe Mr Peterson’s words were threatening, abusive or insulting or that he was motivated by religious hatred, and added: “Was the display of the St George’s flag a challenge to the Islamic faith? I do not find that beyond reasonable doubt.”

Speaking afterwards, Mr Peterson said: “I’m happy but I’m not happy because at the end of the day I shouldn’t have been in court in the first place.”

Well done that judge!

Good news, but it should not have even reached the court, flying the flag of your own country in your own country should never be classed as a crime!
Again it seems as if the law enforcement agencies in this country will fall over backwards to pander to those who cry of racist particularly if it comes from a member of the so called "religion of peace"
And they wonder why groups like the EDL are growing at an incredible rate.

Nuts

Healthy eating, just the ticket for the health Nazi's to try and control your life and it gives jobsworth's great opportunities to tell people off and generally make peoples lives a misery. Problem is with jobsworth's (other than the fact that they are jobsworth's) is that they never know when to stop, never, ever.

Express.

A MOTHER feeding ducks with her two children told yesterday how she was ticked off by a council warden – for giving the birds “unhealthy” white bread.

Lisa Taplin, 34, was told to bring granary or wholemeal bread next time.

The fluorescent vest-clad official said giving ducks white bread was like Mrs Taplin feeding her two sons chips with every meal.

The dance teacher yesterday described the episode as crazy – but her local council defended the official.

It's a duck! not a gourmet specialist, not an endangered species and not normally poisoned by bread. essentially it's a walking, quacking, swimming dustbin. I've got pictures of one of my kids as a toddler being mobbed by ducks anxious to get their beaks into a sandwich. I really fail to see what type of bread they get fed should be an issue. Apparently I'm not the only one.

Naturalist Chris Packham, presenter off the BBC’s Autumn Watch, said: “I wouldn’t stop anyone from feeding birds. We send out the message that wildlife needs our help all the time so it seems a bit churlish to tell people what food to use.”

Still, I suppose we should be grateful that council jobsworth's don't go around fining people for feeding the ducks.

Oh...