Thursday, 19 November 2015

Wiltshire Council's Farcical Recycling Methods

Today we put out all the shredded paper (which I hasten to add they have collected on previous occasions). It was not collected, instead we get the dustman spending the time he could have put the paper in the paper recycling sticking an officious missive informing us that as 'I am just obeying orders' they do not collect paper that is shredded - this is despite the fact it is paper, the same stuff that is made from trees like the stuff we have not shredded because they were mainly takeaway leaflets and did not have out personal information on them.
This leads me to the following conclusions:
1. The person who drew up Wiltshire Council's recycling policy is a complete moron who spends the time he is either not sitting in his only bodily waste or trying to feed himself wondering just why his bank account details have been hacked for the umpteenth time every year.
2. Somebody at the paper recyclers obviously wants all your sensitive data in an easy to read format - not shredded!
3. Dustman are of the same mind-set as the sort of people who turn up at war-crimes trials and believe that the defence 'I was only obeying orders' will excuse them from anything.
As a result the shredded paper has now gone in the bin - in fact why don't we just put every damn thing in the same bin and then dump the whole lot on the front of Wiltshire's newly refurbished offices in Trowbridge and they can sort it out just the way they like it - peasants!

Thursday, 12 November 2015

On Behalf of Bald Men

Today I went to have my occasional trip to the barbers - I say barbers because that is what I have always called them, hairdressers are for women. Words like stylist, gel and mousse are not something I use ever, neither is a comb to be honest - not since my wedding day nearly sixteen years ago. Grooming products are something I will never use either, soap and a flannel - if I am really dirty its swarfega or a pumice-stone. To be frank I cannot understand why any bloke would spend more than the time it takes to shave five days growth off in front of a mirror.

Back to the trip to the barbers. Needless to say cutting my hair does not take long and I usually have to preplan any conversation to deal with this type of brevity. The usual exchange of 'Grade two all round. Yes do the eyebrows and that looks fine to me' all have to be taken into the conversation equation, so the meaning of life is right out along with the old favourite of 'What the hell is wrong with the world.' Also I have no football related chat to speak of.

I went in and there was already one person in the chair and nobody else. Now it looked as if he was coming to the end of the his time - this is by my standards so I was very wide of the mark on that score. Then it dawned on me why don't barbers offer the same sort of service as you get in the supermarkets? No, not carry to the car - it would be a five items or less type of arrangement for bald men, no chat, a quick once-over with the clippers, wave the mirror around, something for the weekend? Then pay and home and it could be done cheaper because you would get through more people in the same time as you would when dealing with somebody who looked like Cousin It from the Addams Family.