Tag Archive: Walsall Council


More recycling nonsense.

Last week I recycled old Sunday Roast material as I hadn’t anything new to say. And it got me thinking. In those pieces of old, I spoke of recycling when it first became a fad in my locality a few years back.

Before the present recycle collections, our local council used to issue us with a small box for recycling virtually nothing, while the rest went into the large green waste bin. Any recycling like plastic bottles, we had to take to collection points.

However, I applauded Walsall Council when they told us to use the huge green bins in order to recycle … well, just about anything. We were also issued with smaller grey bins for what little you couldn’t recycle.

May 26 - Waste Bins (C) Antony N Britt

There they are. In the larger green ones, as I say, the list was endless and Walsall was hailed as being at the forefront of environmentally friendly. Until last year.

Suddenly, us residents were doing it wrong. No longer was it okay to put in all of the previously indicated items. No, we had a compressed list of 20 suitable ones.

May 26 - Recycle Leaflet

Actually telling people would have been a good idea but these leaflets only went out after bins were left uncollected and jobsworth inspectors came along with their clipboards and put stickers on to say you’d done it wrong.

In hindsight, if things were not done correctly, then at least the council should have held their hands up and said they’d made a mistake with their previous guidelines.

Walsall Council own own up to something like that? Nah, that would go against the divine right mentality in the God complexes of those who run our council.

And another false way of helping the environment.

I’m always seeing products in my supermarket which have cheaper and supposedly, environmentally friendly refill packs.

May 26 - Refill Packs (C) Antony N Britt

Yes, just like that. Horlicks bedtime drink and sweetener. These usually come in plastic tubs or jars, as shown. I’m told this will save the environment. Really? You see, I can recycle the jars, however, not the refill packaging. So how is that better?

Also, it is supposedly costing me less as these refills are a few pence cheaper and I can save the money by just emptying the contents into the old jar.

Yeah, right, have you ever tried to pour a refill into an old jar? Take the sweetener. No matter how careful you open the plastic packet, as soon as you attempt to pour, most of it goes over the side and creates a white cloud akin to an Icelandic volcano. Therefore, my fifty pence saving is no longer still in my pocket, it is in a squidgy mess being mopped up with a paper towel from my kitchen surface. A kitchen towel, I will add, I cannot recycle.

Now something I can recycle …

Look. This is the scene in my front porch, as I speak.

May 26 - Pizza Menus (C) Antony N Britt

Tell me, just how many pizzas do these fast food places expect me to be able to eat?

And what else is being recycled at the minute?

The FA has announced yet another new football kit to fleece the parents of every kid who wants to wear it. However, I can see their thinking on this one.

May 26 - New England Kit

The new kit is identical to the successful one used by Germany all these years. Therefore, by pretending to be Germany, the England football team can now hope to recycle a little of our European neighbours triumphs.

And on the subject of football …

Well, loosely connected to football … and very loosely connected to recycling …

Father of former England stars, Gary and Phil Neville, has been arrested.

May 26 - Gary and Phil Neville

Yes, there are the brothers but what on earth was their grandfather thinking when he named their dad, Neville?

Neville Neville? Recycling names takes a bizarre twist.

And recycling old, tired faces.

Karaoke talent show, X-Factor has long been guilty of recycling the same old garbage. However, they are now recycling judges well past their use-by date.

Sharon Osbourne is to return to the show at the cost of £1.5million.

April 22 explosion Sharon

There she is, in a recycled pic I posted last year when I blew her up.

It’s ironic. Sharon Osbourne, a person with absolutely no showbiz talent, judging a showbiz talent show.

That wraps up my recycling for this week.

Hope you have a better week than I’ve been having lately but for now, I’m off to the bottle bank to avoid being told off by my local council

Cheers.

Nick

Dirty Deeds at the Council House.

I’m talking as though this is exclusive to my own town of Walsall, but I guess we are probably not alone.

Jan 13 - Walsall Council

Like many places, Walsall is facing hard times. High levels of unemployment, cuts to council services and most of the shops are shut because it’s too expensive to park in the town. Plus, nobody has any money. Nobody except our ruling councillors, that is.

The greedy sods, elected by the people of Walsall, this week stuck two fingers up to the residents by voting themselves a whopping big pay-rise. This is at the same time that hardworking council staff face their own cutbacks, many of whom have had wage reductions.

Sheriff of Nottingham Walsall, leader Mike Bird gets an increase of £4,500 a year while Sir Guy of Gisborn (deputy Adrian Andrew), gets an astounding £9k rise. Talk about robbing from the poor.

Despite widespread criticism, the ruling Conservative (in it for themselves) party proposed this outrageous motion. It was widely condemned by other groups and had the opposing Labour party not abstained from the vote, it would not have been passed.

Good going, Labour. When elected, you are given a vote in council and you should be duty-bound to use it. Not these useless bunch of cretins. Basically, Labour played their faces, pretended to say they were against the motion, but did not vote against it. They abstained. Now, they too will benefit from the rise. Nice for them. Well done. Two main parties in Walsall. One failed the people due to their own greed, the other failed by doing nothing about it. Which is worse?

And on the big stage …

There’s a big fuss about benefit reform at the minute. Yes, the system does need an overhaul but seeing the likes of Iain Duncan Smith with his holier than thou attitude, makes my skin crawl.

Iain Duncan Smith, a man so bad at his job when leader of the Conservative party a few years back, his own MPs got shot of him. Now he’s there again in a position of power, sending sick people back to work while telling us the poor can survive on £70-per-week. This is the parasite who spent £39 on a breakfast … then claimed it all back in expenses.

June 24 Iain Duncan Smith

Hope he chokes on his hash brown, next time.

Is this really the best headline a national newspaper could find?

There must really have been nothing going on in the news that day.

Jealous lover, Rob Davey shaved his girlfriend’s prized shih-tzu when he thought she’d been lying to him. He has now, rightly been fined heavily and had his punishment. But this … a major headline?

Okay, I know it’s really not funny, but I can’t help laughing at it. Come on, it’s not like the thing was injured. It’s a bloody dog. And why the hell did the paper black the dog’s eyes out; was it to protect its identity? I think you’d know if you saw it shivering in the street while trying to pee up a lamppost.

Still, I must show some sympathy. Imagine having your canine rights infringed like that. What a bad owner. A right little shi-tzu.

Heroes to Zeros …

Now that I’ve got the political tosspots and stupidity out the way, let’s have some music talk.

When I speak of heroes, one of my greatest has to be David Bowie. From my teenage years, I had the lot. Every new release, then collecting the back catalogue, all of them on vinyl. Heck, I even had the Deram stuff complete with the Laughing Gnome.

So it was with great trepidation that I clicked You Tube to listen to Where Are We Now, his first release in ten years. Well, my fears were not unfounded. David, you’ve done bugger all decent since 1983 (bar a couple of tracks here and there), and this is no different. It’s dire.

Jan 13 - David Bowie, Where Are We Now

Now I know the bandwagon are going to be wetting themselves but the guy is fallible, and has been during all the time I speak of. Yeah, I know it’s good to have new stuff. I often criticise those living in the past but in this case, I think I’ll stick to Aladdin Sane and a bit of Cracked Actor.

And another hero … but this one going out with a bang.

I was really saddened to hear about Wilko Johnson and the fact he’s been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I can listen to those early Dr Feelgood tracks and still want to lose myself in the intoxication of jumping around the room. I finally saw him and his band a couple of years ago and it was some experience. Wilko has opted not to have any treatment but while he is still able, plans to do a farewell tour this year.

Jan 13 - Wilko Johnson

Don’t know if I could go. Bit emotional and I’m sure there are fans far more devoted than me who deserve the tickets to see him play. But … what an performer.

And scraping the bottom of the barrel of music …

A few weeks ago I reported that One Direction karaoke singer, Harry Styles, was dating the beautiful Taylor Swift. Well, it now seems old Harry has blown it and he and Taylor have split up.

What a plonker. I mean, who would want to blow Taylor Swift?

Jan 13 - Taylor Swift

Don’t answer that.

Farewell for this week …

I’m off to register myself as standing to be a local councilor. Don’t want the job but at least this time next year, I can award myself a massive pay rise after doing bugger all to deserve one.

Cheers.

 

Nick

Highlights of 2012

December 30 - 2012

What I thought I’d do this week is what many publications or television programs put out this time of year. We’re going to have a nostalgic look back at some of the pieces which I’ve roasted about during 2012. Or to put it another way – recycle a load of crap because I can’t be arsed to write a proper blog this week.

With that in mind …

January.

Ha! There was no January. I only started this site February 1. However, as I’ve pointed out on a number of occasions, the Sunday Roast ran for three years on Myspace. The decline of that site was the reason I decided to set up my own, but I am always thankful for Myspace,  even if it is now a total bag of shite.

June 10 Myspace

February.

Okay, this has to be one of my favourites, straight from the off.

Poor Roger Medwell. Imagine the scenario. You spend 55 years working for British Aerospace and on retiring as a director, they give you this …

Feb 12 roger-painting

Smile, Roger, smile. Stop gritting those teeth. You didn’t want a new surround sound system, anyway.

March.

If you follow my blogs, you’ll know I have a love/hate relationship with my own Walsall Council. I love to bait them, and they hate me for it. So much so, I’m told my site has been blocked, meaning council workers cannot read it while at work.

Anyway, after one of our spats, I trawled through their Twitter feed and came across this picture of their attempts to promote the town.

March 18 Hooker

What exactly are they trying to attract – prostitution? I think the idea was to display a layout for planned improvement. However, all it seemed to show was a damn good place to pick up hookers.

April.

This was a Titanic month. In fact, it was a theme which went on for quite a while. You see, I’ve always had this beef with the film, Titanic. You know, the fact that Rose is safe in the lifeboat but jumps back on board thus endangering Jack. All that, “I jump, you jump,” nonsense. If she’d stayed on the bloody lifeboat, Jack would have had that piece of wood to himself when the ship went down. Not only that, it was bloody well big enough for the both of them.

April 1 Titanic Water 2

Couldn’t she have given him a turn? And then there was his last words to her. “Don’t let go, Rose, don’t you ever let go.”

So what does she do? She bloody let go. Her may not have been dead, just in cold storage for a bit. What a cow.

May.

It was about this time I had loads of people searching for pictures of the dentally challenged when I did a bit about guests with bad teeth on the Jeremy Kyle Show.

Sorry, no dentures today. That was drilled to death in the summer. Go and search the archives.

My favourite piece this month showed the fine line between humour and tragedy, and that newspapers need to have a bloody good copy editor before they send the thing to print.

A note to anybody in the newspaper industry. Always check for inappropriate advertising placement before you run a story above it.

May 6 Headline

June.

This was it, the month when I took the kids on their annual holiday, only for it to piss down all week. As well as getting rained on, I was kept awake with my caravan being ten feet away from a main road. I also faced financial ruin after spending all my cash in amusement arcades because I couldn’t go anywhere due to  the aforementioned rain.

But did it end there? No! Not only did the machines bankrupt me, they wouldn’t pay out on the few occasions I did win.

June 17 Fruit Machine

Yes, IOU £1. That’s the first time I’ve ever been given an IOU from a machine.

July.

And to celebrate his 94th birthday, Nelson Mandela turns into a chameleon.

July 22 Chameleon Mandela

August.

And I can’t believe after many months, some people were still using their search engines to find Jeremy Kyle Teeth and ending up with me.

No – still not going to show any pics but one thing I did comment on was the evolution of man. You see, scientists reckon in a few million years, the human race will have evolved into a higher and lower species.

Millions of years? It’s already happened. Look!

Aug 11 Evolution of Chav

Ascent of man? I bloody hope not.

September.

Bit of a quiet month over here, but not in Haren – Holland after some silly girl posted on Facebook that she was having a party. 4000 people gatecrashed the event causing riots and thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Sept 30 Haren

4000 people! Imagine. That’s 4000 people without a social life.

October.

I spent much of this month traumatised after a good friend of mine, Rich, pointed out that the picture of the smiling Aquafresh family from the 80s, seemed to suggest the mother and father were siblings and their child could be the result of an incestuous relationship.

Oct 21 - Teeth

I’m still receiving counselling.

November.

November – I saw this strange sight.

Nov 25 - Solo Chair in Wolverhampton © Antony N Britt

A single seat for shoppers to sit on. All the others in Wolverhampton Centre appeared to be of a two or three seat variety. However, this one was on its own. A seat for Nobby No Mates.

Only in Wolverhampton.

December.

Two words to sum up December.

December 23 - Bah Humbug!

So that was 2012.

Not sure how long I’m going to go on roasting. Could be time for a break. Like a jar of pickled onions, there’s only so much you can take before things start to repeat. I mean, how much more can I wring out of the Titanic nonsense, or talk about Gothic Girl while going on about people with bad teeth on Jeremy Kyle.

Yes, I certainly think I should leave the latter, alone.

December 30 - Jeremy Kyle Teeth

Cheers.

Nick

Let’s talk about cricket.

No … not that type of cricket. I meant the sport.

Yay! It’s the cricket season and with England currently number one team in the world, I shall take this opportunity to have a rare boast about it.

I know you lot overseas in America and beyond do not understand what cricket is all about. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most people in the UK haven’t a clue, either.

Picture the conversation I had some years back when queried as to why a test match of cricket, lasted more than an hour or so.

‘But, why do they play for so long?’

‘It’s just the amount of time needed to come to a successful conclusion,’ I answered. ‘You know, best team over a five-day period.’

‘Five … days?’

‘Er, yes.’

‘But how can they play for so long each day?’

‘They go in for lunch and tea.’ I replied, then put hands across my ears to drown out the laughing. I was then asked to explain the rules. Easy.

Cricket, is a straightforward game played by two teams on a field. One team – out, the other one – in. The team that’s out, tries to get the team that’s in … out. When a player of the team who’s in, gets out, then another player comes in. This happens until all of the team who are in – are out. Then the team that was out, goes in and the team that was in, go out and tries to get the team in … out again. This goes on until both sets of players have been in and out twice, including those, not out. Simple really.

You have bowlers who can spin their balls all day long while others prefer to pound them with speed. Some will turn their googlies while slip fielders stand with open legs waiting for the batsmen to give the bowler’s balls a little tickle. There is also a variation on this unorthodox delivery which goes by the name of bowling a Chinaman.

Nooooo! That’s not what I meant. It’s just a phrase which came about due to the ethnicity of the bowler who first used the method. Sorry about that. Anyway, there are boundaries however in cricket, but one must not overstep them while touching the balls. Bowlers can rub and polish their balls, but are not allowed to scratch them to excess or they will face the wrath of an umpire.

The batsmen can use all sorts of stroke play to despatch their balls. This includes hooking them, cutting them past a fine leg or even sending them through the covers. These covers, are in fact, a fielding position and not the covers that are placed on the pitch overnight. You couldn’t have them on the field while play was underway because that would just be silly.

And talking of silly … Silly mid-off and silly mid-on, are in fact fielding positions and not a reference to the assorted headgear worn by the players.

And on the subject of gear, players are advised to wear protection in the form of helmets, pads and a box to protect the nether regions, just in case a delivery gets though and the batsmen get a little bit more than a slight tickle.

Ouch! I felt that.

And this week’s search terms …

Yes. It’s an ongoing theme – the weird things some people are searching for on Google, then ending up with me. Still the most popular is Jeremy Kyle Teeth followed by that bloody film that I wont even mention. You know, the one about some ship sinking. Well it stops … here! No more.

However, in looking at my stats, I found what has to be the number one now in terms of the oddest search used which resulted in somebody getting to me. It was this … روز فى فيلم تايتنك

???

Okay … Strange, and now I was curious. I mean, what could this possibly be in order to lead some folk to me? So … Cut and paste the phrase, do an image search. Let’s see what we’ve got.

Arrrgghh!

Anchorman II?

Dear God! As if the first one wasn’t bad enough, they’ve only gone and made a sequel.

Anchorman was one of the few films this particular OCD guy was not able to see through to the bitter end. My obsessiveness usually means I have to grit my teeth and plod on, no matter how bad. However, even I gave up on the first film. Badly written bilge, with not one funny line.

The legend continues? Not in this household.

Fashion Disaster Alert!

Karaoke singer, Cheryl Cole tried to take centre stage at the Cannes Film festival this week by wearing a dress that matched the red carpet, perfectly.

Yes, very clever, but do you realise it looks as if you are wearing a huge red foot? Also, even though the paparazzi were ejaculating themselves to death at the outfit, you’d look bloody stupid wearing it on a cricket pitch or anything else that’s not red.

Talking of Karaoke singers …

Nob, Will.i.am, invited criticism this week for carrying the Olympic torch all the while, tweeting away to the social networking site.

As ever, full of his own importance, the star tapped away at how excited he was, but failed to notice he’d misspelled the name of the the town, Taunton, he was running through. Silly Billy has also confessed that despite being a superstar in the music business, he can’t actually sing.

Nooooo! Next you’ll be telling me Robert Mugabe is a murderer.

Still. I suppose he’s just a normal guy at the end of the day, caught up in all the passion of the event. An every day Joe. I mean – Will.i.am? Nothing at all pretentious about calling yourself that.

The truce is over.

Last week, I promised my local Walsall Council to leave them alone after they re-tweeted something for me. I said a week, or until they did something stupid. Well, it’s been about twelve days, so they did well in the end.

I read, yesterday, work on the playground lido pool at the local arboretum has been delayed, despite the work being announced last year. It now won’t be ready until the end of August. Does this mean it is going to be a building site all through summer?

I took that photo today and as you can see in this heatwave, it would be really good to have the water pool for the kids to use. As it happens, it is empty but never mind, come September as the summer is over, the council promise it will be rebuilt and working. Not only that, another couple of months later, you’ll be able to ice-skate on it.

Walsall Council … You have excelled yourselves this time.

It’s blooming hot out there.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to pour myself a glass of juice and settle down to watch the cricket. See you in a week. Literally if I’m watching cricket.

Cheers

Nick

%d bloggers like this: