Life On The Road

But now, Bob has finally realised the Vietnam War has finished, and has probably run out of money. Hence his recent announcement that he'd be recording a voice set for the TomTom Satnav system(!), in what the BBC carefully described as his ..raspy, nasally tones, - god help us - and recently he's produced some "paintings" which are reportedly selling for 6 figures! You can catch the exhibition in London if you really want to, but unless your appreciation of art ends at Painting By Numbers, give it a miss. The gallery President allegedly stated that "This is an incredible opportunity for viewing this powerful body of work which gives an insight into the artist's soul". Oh dear.. And by all accounts he did the drawings between '89 and '92 and has now got round to colouring them in.

Bob has actually taking the piss for years, with a long, introspective break in between - presumably to discover himself - and he's picking up where he left off, taking, as they say, a new career direction. The only good thing about his new venture in art is that we don't have to listen to him sing, but don't tell him I said that; he may just decide to combine the two.

So why the need for a bailout this time? The centre was originally costed at UKP355million and was to be part-funded by the private sector, but of course now that the Recession is upon us, that same private sector is no longer in a position to do that. Rather than lose face, our government has dived in (into our pockets) to save the day and has come up with this rescue plan. The Gazette goes on to state that "the Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, said creating a permanent media centre in the borough would create jobs".. Really? For whom? Okay, so there'd naturally be job creation while the White Elephant was being built, but afterwards? Mr Pipe has obviously not been following the rapid decline and headcount-reduction programmes of the News Industry, and surely the high-profile move of a shedload of BBC people to Manchester must be telling him that cheap though the East End is, it ain't as cheap as Up North! The move has apparently even prompted the Lib Dems to suggest that "..it may be time to scale back": not that Nu Labour ever listens to other parties.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough, this sum represents part of a UKP 460million package to keep the Olympic building project on track: how much more can the UK taxpayer stand, and is the poisoned chalice of the Olympics really worth it? Comments please!

My only hope is that the pressures of office don't destroy Obama - he has a lot to give and with the right support I'm sure he can succeed. My only question now is, "where is Britain's Barack Obama"? We have a pale imitation of a democracy in this country and right now Britain is not being led so much as pushed forward by a sickly government that's loved by no-one but itself. Is there an Obama for us, or do we have to endure the existing status quo? Like the band of the same name we seemed to be doomed to continually hear the same old same old, with just a slight variation in content.

Personally I'm fed up with it and now that the US has proved that it can replace mediocre government with a strong hand it won't be long before the demand for "actions rather than words" becomes a noise that those in power cannot ignore. Like Obama's supporters, I pray that day will come in my lifetime.

So now we have a £4million white elephant that's appropriately coloured white: I wonder if that was a conscious decision on the part of the designer? As far as I can tell this worthless monstrosity serves no other purpose other than to cover a pedestrian crossing. It certainly doesn't enhance a now very shabby Railway Station frontage and I have to question the motives behind spending an amount of money that could have paid for a new school, hospital facilities (dare I say dentistry?) or yet more police to herd the rampant drunks that give Woking such a bad reputation? If on the other hand this latter-day folly was meant purely as an ego-booster then the expenditure will have been well worth it and Mr Morgan has every right to wear that smug and rather inappropriate smile. And £5000 for Prince Charles' visit? What must HRH have thought, considering his previous "monstrous carbuncle" comments? At least the building he was referring to at the time had some real purpose, unlike the canopy which in desperation I'm labelling a very expensive street light. The best we can hope for now is that the people responsible will be elected out of office the next time around!

Words © me, image via Woking News and Mail Online.

..Mr Morgan took ultimate responsibility for the blunders this week. When asked about the possibility of disciplinary action against the team in charge of the project he said: “This isn’t about somebody not acting diligently. “We’ve had a good look at who’s done what and whether anyone has acted inappropriately. I’m satisfied that nobody has acted inappropriately but we didn’t have the lines of communication we should have.”

Ah, the old, "no-one's responsible" statement again. So with that in mind I've written to the paper (online) who've duly published my comment but with a "report inappropriate content" option. I've also sent links off to Private Eye Magazine who will no doubt have a field day with civic inefficiency on this scale.

Read all about it here and while you're doing that I'll just keep paying my UKP180 a month Council Tax, and if you want to know what an "oversight" looks like, here you go (via Woking News and Mail):

Some of the additional costs run up by the project were: Allowance for extension of time — UKP240,000. Extra cost for diversion of services — UKP52,000. Additional builders’ work in connection including hand digging around services — UKP57,000. Testing inverters to maintain solar panels grant — UKP16,000. Delays caused by Network Rail — £4,000. Arrangements for visit by Prince Charles — UKP5,000. Extending construction to Chertsey Road — UKP15,000.