Barry puts lid on my bin collection misery
A NEW year brings financial discomfort, political insecurity and one of the worst natural disasters in our history, the earthquake in Haiti.
But I've some good news which I hope doesn't sound too flippant given how much bad news there is out there. I finally got my bins emptied. Once the road conditions in my area improved after the snow I set out to do battle with my local council since my neighbours and I had gone five weeks without a bin collection. Even when the roads were quite clear they still hadn't made it our length, so where were they?
I rang up the relevant department on the day they hadn't come after five weeks and got a young lady who assured me it was all in hand and they were coming the following day and yes they would take all the extra bagged stuff which couldn't go into the bin. They would also take our blue bins. So I rang all the neighbours and told them to get their rubbish out and their blue bins which are for paper and plastics. And we waited……and waited. Not a sign of the bin lorry or the men in blue.
Next day I lifted the phone again to the council, this time I was transferred to a male voice – I think he said his name was Barry – and no, we were not forgotten. Problem was the bin lorry earmarked to do our collection had skidded on ice on another road and was going to have to be rescued by a crane. Barry and I had a long conversation during which he stressed how important we were to the council even though we do live in the back of beyond. I didn't ask him what those binmen did all day while their lorry was being rescued. Were they assigned other duties? But I did ask if they could make up the time by coming our way on the Saturday or Sunday? Barry spluttered a bit at that. He didn't actually say the public sector doesn't work weekends but I got the drift. What about a bit of overtime? No, they couldn't afford to pay overtime either. I understand that but when men can't work because their lorry is being rescued does that not count as hours they could make up some other time? After all it's the sort of thing they do in the private sector.
I tried another tack. Couldn't the townies do without their collection for a week and let us have their collectors? That wouldn't work either said Barry. That means their service would get left behind. But our's was five weeks behind, didn't that count anywhere at the town hall?
I informed him I would ring him every day until the bins were collected on our road. That, he declared, was my privilege and he would be happy to talk to me anytime. I suppose councils now send their staff to how-to-be-polite to the public lessons.
I appreciated Barry's civility and told him so but I also asked him for advice on what we could do when the rats moved in on the bags left by the bins. It was still cold, the rats, just like the birds, would be hungry and desperate. I could hear his intake of breath.
No doubt Barry had a million other tasks to do rather than waste time talking to a mad woman from the sticks who would be breathing down his neck, albeit very politely, every day unless he did something drastic.
Well, the good news is that on the third day before I could lift the phone to ring my new friend at the council, the binmen arrived with one lorry and chucked the contents of both bins in. Never mind that I spend some time sorting my refuse into the relevant bins which would normally be collected on different days and in different lorries. What they do with it after they get to the depot is their affair. It was off my driveway and that was an end to it. Except it wasn't. They'd left one plastic bag behind. Still, I didn't get mad. Life's too short.
And the end of this little episode is that Barry rang back that day to make sure our bins had been collected. Himself took the call as I wasn't about. As someone who dislikes public servants with a passion and who had also been hopping mad at the delays in picking up the bins, I just hoped he was polite. You never get anywhere these days by being belligerent.
***
Banks don't want calendar girls this year
Have you noticed how the banks – yes those organisations which are awash with taxpayers' money, even paying themselves mega bonuses on the back of the credit crunch – have stopped issuing calendars to their customers in the New Year? I always depended on getting mine, after all it saved me having to buy one. But not a sign. I had to be content with one from the man who delivers my coal, a charming little thing with a farmyard picture on the front and which has one of those old fashioned pockets in it for keeping letters. My coalman doesn't have a plush home or a glitzy yacht but he obviously appreciates my custom. Banks on the other hand seem to spend a lot of time thinking up ways to charge us more for our custom. Soon they're going to stop us issuing cheques and, of course, they'd prefer us to do internet banking which is cheaper for them.
All this huffing and puffing from politicians – from President Obama down – about what they will do to the banks if they don't behave is all just so much hot air. The last straw for me was the loss of the calendar and the fact that Fred the Shred who brought Royal Bank of Scotland to its knees, has managed to find himself another well paid job to add to his 350,000 annual pension. Failed bankers never die, they just keep getting richer.
***
Mo lied to get top Ulster post
I don't suppose we'll ever know how Mo Mowlam's cancerous tumour affected her decision making when she was our Secretary of State. My abiding memory of her was her shaking hands with Martin McGuinness whom she referred to as `babe', an expression that caused outrage amongst those families who had lost loved ones in the Troubles. It was revealed this week Mo lied about her condition telling Tony Blair her tumour was benign in order to get a cabinet post. In that she showed a ruthlessness typical of so many new Labour women. Many will see her as having put personal ambition before the needs of a province which was on its knees. We had a right to know her true condition which was diagnosed in 1996 shortly before the election which swept Labour into power. Unfortunately for us we were assigned an extremely sick woman to take charge at a time when the IRA's killing machine was still active. Tony thought she was up to the job yet her doctors knew her condition would affect her cognitive behaviour and judgement. Nowadays anyone applying for an important job would have to produce information on any medical conditions backed up by a doctor's report. Let's hope this also applies to politicians.
***
Drunk on rhetoric but short on solutions
As drunk young men and women continue to fall down in the gutters outside the nation's pubs and clubs politicians flounder around with daft ideas on how they hope to get the problem under control. The man who tried to save the life of our own famous drunk the late George Best, Professor Roger Williams describes the efforts of the Government thus: `their policy is little more than a ragbag of public relations stunts and meaningless dodges'. He goes further to describe the Tories efforts as `toothless'. The Professor who is Director of the Institute for Hepatology at University College, London estimates that 25 per cent of hospital admissions are alcohol related while at least 40,000 deaths a year are due to alcoholism. Where are the health and safety brigade in all this? Councils have been known to cut down chestnut trees lest someone is injured by a falling `cheezer'. Yet Labour's generous licensing laws are contributing to a major health problem which is leading to injury and death. I suppose the fact that the Government earns a lot of tax revenue from the drink industry has nothing to do with it?
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Monday 13 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
