And the gold medal for evasion goes to . . .
Anyone hear Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell on radio this morning explaining why the bill for London 2012 has gone up by the odd £7 billion or so - and rising. My estimate is still that we will end up with a bill of £20 billion plus.
It was a gold medal winning performance of evasion. Getting a straight answer out of her was like trying to nail a blancmange to a puddle. At at the end of her list of excuses and explanations cemented together by meaningless waffle I think we were supposed to be grateful that the Government had done such a brilliant deal and what fantastic value for money we were getting. You could almost believe it would be worth it at more than twice the price - which undoubtedly it will be when all the receipts are collected up from under the mantlepiece clock in Tessa's front room.
Next stage no doubt will be knocking billion pound size chunks off the bill because they are not really to do with the Olympic bid and were things we were going to do in any case, or had to be done whether we had the Olympics or not, or are just being hidden in the hope no one will notice.
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Roger Clarke - Birmingham’s very own Grumpy Old Man on what gets right up his nose.
Be interesting to see what our Tessa does for employment once this financially and morally banrupt bunch are removed from power.I use the word power but really the power has always been with the advisors and spin doctors spawned over the years by successive governments.Lets ask at the next election for a ministry of common sense. All other ministries should have to put proposed ideas to them first prior to dumping them on the nation.Trouble is who do we put in charge of common sense? I`ll just have a quick word with my advisors!
If we had a ministry for common sense and someone who had any to run it we could probably get by with just half a dozen departments of state - like we used to do.
That was in the good old days before we had a cabinet large enough to rival the crowd at a second division match and before the Government and local authorities started to suffer from the delusion that they were plcs.
These days, apart from the fact they confuse Government with wanting to control and interfere in every aspect of our lives, Whitehall and Town Halls around the land are obsessed with bonuses and dividends for the top snouts as they chase targets, cost/value calculations, savings and revenue. The concept of public service and social good went out of the window as soon as the accountants and gravy train suits moved in. Even Kafka would struggle to make sense of it.
Be interested to know your origins Roger,where in the world would you have experienced trying to nail a blancmange to a puddle?
It rates with winding treacle on bobbins and wheeling daylight into dark rooms as Lancastrian pursuits
I've just seached Google for a phrase I remember from childhood.
"What is it?"
"It's a whim-wham for winding treacle on bobbins"
Google came up with only two references for "winding treacle on bobbins".
Both pointed to you.
Do you know the orign of the phrase? (I don't!)
PS just found this: http://www.whim-wham-willow.co.uk/whywhim.htm
This refers to the East Midlands. I'm from Nottingham originally. Not convinced by the "official" definition though.
I have added a bit on treacle winding which you can find on
http://blogs.birminghammail.net/isitjustme/
It seemed easier to open a new thread and see where it takes us