comment | Steve Woods

Touting for trade

21/02/2017 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Some time ago in a meeting with Bristol Waste, the council-owned company responsible for cleaning the city’s streets and emptying residents’ bins, it was revealed that the company wanted to try and find commercial customers for its services.

Evidence has emerged that the company has now started seeking business customers for its collection services.

Bristol Waste employees have started handing out flyers like the one below to local shops, businesses, voluntary and community sector organisations in the Easton area of the city, all of which are responsible for making their own waste disposal arrangements (and which can be fined by the city council if these are found not be exist or be suitable. Ed.).

My informant from whom I acquired the flyer told me that Bristol Waste is trialling this scheme in Easton. This presumably follows the same line of thinking as that for the Stapleton Road waste trial (posts passim), which is generally along the lines of “if it works in Easton, we can get it to work anywhere in the city“.

Update: Bristol Waste was contacted for a comment and replied as follows:

We are speaking to businesses in a number of locations across the city including Stapleton Road, Bedminster & Avonmouth in this first phase of our commercial roll-out. The service will be available city-wide.

In addition, the Bristol Waste website has a dedicated commercial page.
Hail to(o) the Chief?

14/02/2017 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

Besides his less endearing qualities of bullying, sexism and xenophobia, the 45th President of the United States of America is believed by some not to be very bright either, an opinion which is reinforced by the presence of a glaring typographical error in the text on his official inauguration portrait, which must at some time have passed across his desk for approval (or even been written by him. Ed.).

Proof readers and the eagle-eyed will no doubt spot it immediately, unlike POTUS did.

However, orthography and proof reading may be the least of President Typo’s worries at present.
After fake news, fake translation

11/02/2017 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

Fake news (also called misinformation or lies. Ed.) is a term that has come to prominence recently, even though its dissemination is a far older phenomenon.

The goods and services which could be classed as fake have now been joined by another – “fake translation“. Kenya’s Nairobi News reports that a tour guide at the Serengeti National Park in neighbouring Tanzania has been arrested after incorrectly translating a tourist’s comments about the country and its people from English into Swahili.

The guide is said to have been arrested on unspecified charges on Thursday on the orders of Tanzanian Tourism Minister Jumanne Mghembe.

In an undated video clip, the tour guide translates what an English-speaking woman is saying and instead of conveying the original message’s meaning, decides to skew the visitor’s kind remarks about country completely.

An example is given below.

Visitor: “Hi. My visit to Tanzania has been beautiful and gorgeous. The people are fabulously wonderful and friendly. Greetings are always jambo. I am happy to be here. The land is beautiful, the animals are wonderful.

Tour guide: You Tanzanians complain/cry a lot about hunger. Everyday you cry about hunger when you have flowers at home. Why don’t you boil the flowers and drink [them]. It is not good to cry/complain about hunger.

The minister may have ordered the unnamed guide’s arrest as he felt the guide was either mocking the tourist or mimicking President John Magufuli, as some of the guide’s remarks echoed those used by the president at a rally last month when he called on people to stop complaining about hunger.

Tanzania is popular with tourists due to its wildlife and stunning scenery and markets itself as “The Soul of Africa“.
The shortest suicide note in history?

01/02/2017 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

Labour MP Gerald Kaufman is credited with coining the phrase “the longest suicide note in history” to describe his party’s 1983 election manifesto.

Entitled “The New Hope for Britain“, the manifesto called amongst other things for unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation for the rich, abolition of the House of Lords and the re-nationalisation of recently privatised industries such as British Telecom and British Aerospace.

In that election, Labour’s vote fell by more than 3 million compared with 1979, with the party’s representation in the House of Commons declined from 261 to 209, whilst Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government enjoyed a 4% swing, buoyed up a wave of jingoistic fervour engendered by the conflict in the Falklands/Malvinas.

Yesterday, the House of Commons started consideration of what could be termed “the shortest suicide note in history“. Commonly known as the “Brexit Bill“, its full title is the “European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill 2017“. Its purpose is grant the Prime Minister power to notify the European Union of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU following last year’s disastrous and divisive referendum called by the then Prime Minister David Cameron, who foolishly put the interests of his divided party above those of the country.

The full text of the Bill as presented is set out below.

A BILL TO

Confer power on the Prime Minister to notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.

Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

Power to notify withdrawal from the EU
(1)The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.

(2)This section has effect despite any provision made by or under the European Communities Act 1972 or any other enactment.

The Bill’s progress through both houses of Parliament promises to be interesting, as both major parties are still riven by pro- and anti-EU divisions, as the country still is.

Finally, let’s not forget that those critical of the EEC/EC/EU, who came to be called “Eurosceptics“, were complaining even before the ink was dry on the Treaty of Accession, so it would be most unfair – and sense of fairness is allegedly an essential part of the British character – not to allow pro-Europeans (now being termed “Remoaners”. Ed.) an equally long period to express their views, however abhorrent those opposed to the EU, who are now termed “Brexiters“.
Communal bins to go in local pilot

25/09/2016 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Bristol Waste Company, the wholly-owned council company that’s responsible for cleaning the streets, emptying the bins and collecting residents’ recycling (amongst other things. Ed.) is holding a drop-in session next week in Easton as part of the consultation on the pilot project removing communal bins along the Stapleton Road corridor.

The event will be held at Muller Hall, 39 Seymour Road, Bristol, BS5 0UW (map) on Thursday 29th September from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

Bristol Waste would like as many local residents and other interested parties as possible to come and give their views and prospective attendees are asked to confirm they will be coming so sufficient tea, coffee and biscuits can be arranged.

To confirm your attendance or for further details of the event please contact Jessica Tulit, Bristol Waste’s Community Engagement Officer, by emailing Jessica.Tulit [at] bristolwastecompany.co.uk or telephoning 0117 304 9022.

Unfortunately, your correspondent’s attendance is doubtful due to a family bereavement, but he will be there in spirit.

It’s good to see that Bristol Waste is prepared to tackled the problems that communal bins are causing locally after two and a half years of inaction from Bristol City Council, which introduced the 1,280-litre bins some years ago as a response to fly-tipping.

Despite a communal bin consultation (posts passim) last year revealed that the majority of residents believed fly-tipping had not been improved by the introduction of these monster bins: and my own fly-tipping records support this perception; communal bins are implicated in 60-67% of all the fly-tipping I report to the council.

However, despite this evidence, Bristol City Council has not had the courage to remove them, but merely tinkered with the details of their deployment.

In meetings with Bristol Waste, it has been made quite clear to both councillors and local residents that the company is just as fed up as we are with the problems caused by the local communal bins, which don’t just act as a magnet for fly-tipping. Analysis of the contents of the bins has revealed that only one-third is the stuff for which they were intended: the rest is made up of equal parts of recyclable materials and trade waste.

Those recyclable materials can still be recycled, but will attract a lower price due to the contamination to which they are subject in the communal bins.

Traders are supposed to have their own waste disposal contracts appropriate to their businesses. However, lots tend to cut corners – and their costs – by abusing the black communal bins earmarked specifically for use by residents (posts passim).
Stare-struck hack?

17/09/2016 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

Modern British society seems obsessed with celebrity culture: this is no more evident than in the mainstream media; and such is true of Bristol’s (news)paper of (warped) record, the Bristol Post.

It would appear that no sooner does a Z-list non-entity have something to do with the city than the illiterati that constitute the current reporting staff of the Temple Way Ministry of Truth than they are lost for words – or for le mot juste at the very least.

This is evident in a puff piece in today’s online edition featuring some nobody off some dire TV talent show, as per the obligatory screenshot below.

So Bristol Post, is a nobody off the telly looking intently at a show at the Hippodrome or taking part in it? In the immortal words of Private Eye, I think we should be told.
Chronicle exclusive: the vanishing station

04/09/2016 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

For local news Bath, Bristol’s near neighbour, is served by the Bath Chronicle. Like the Bristol Post, the Chronicle is part of the Local World group and shares its close neighbour’s reputation for (lack of) accuracy.

Today’s Bath Chronicle carried an exclusive, but readers had to read the caption under the photograph accompanying the report to realise it.

Bath Spa railway station used to look as shown in the photograph below.

Bath Spa railway station. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Close observation of today’s Bath Chronicle report, especially the photo caption, reveals there is no nowhere for InterCity 125s or any other passenger rolling stock to stop where Bath Spa station once stood.

The site of Bath Spa railway station according to the Bath Chronicle

For the life of me I cannot understand why the Chronicle ignored the disappearance of a major piece of transport infrastructure and had its piece concentrate on delays to train services between the West of England and London Paddington.
Spot the hypocrisy

28/08/2016 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

The right-wing Daily Mail national newspaper group – consisting of the Daily Mail and its sister publication, the Mail on Sunday – is not known for its love of foreigners.

The Mail group has been a consistent campaigner against Britain’s membership of the European Union, whilst in recent years it has consistently whipped up hysteria against migrants coming to Britain and/or the EU and foreigners in general.

As regards migrants, the Daily Mail was heavily criticised at the end of last year when a carton by Stanley McMurtry (“Mac”) linked the European migrant crisis (with a focus on Syria in particular) to terrorist attacks and criticised EU immigration laws for allowing Islamist radicals to gain easy access into the United Kingdom.

The New York Times compared the offending – and offensive – cartoon to Nazi propaganda, whilst Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International stated the following to The Independent:

The Daily Mail’s cartoon is precisely the sort of reckless xenophobia that fuels the self-same fear and hate loved by those responsible for atrocities in Paris, Beirut, Ankara and elsewhere. Now more than ever is the time to stand together in defiance of the perpetrators of violence with all of their victims and reject this disturbing lack of compassion.

Another frequent target for the Mail group’s bile has been Britain’s overseas development aid programme, currently accounting for £12.2 bn. of the government’s budget, about which it has been moaning (although the Mail would call it campaigning. Ed.) for nearly as long as Europe.

According to figures from the government, the UK’s overseas development aid budget accounted for under 0.7% of gross national income in 2015. Today’s Independent reveals that foreign aid accounts for just 1.1% of the UK government’s expenditure.

However, such largesse is anathema to the Mail and Mail on Sunday and the latter has put its latest outpouring of bile against foreign aid on today’s front page, as shown below.

The Mail on Sunday – free xenophobic bigotry for every reader

Was the editor asleep when the front page was put together? Or is editor Georgie Greig blind to the irony of splashing a banner announcing the giving away of a “Free Giant Glossy Wall Map” above an attack on foreign aid. The map giveaway also proudly announces the reverse of the map shows “every flag”. This is presumably so Mail on Sunday readers will be able to identify both the countries and their flags to which foreign aid will no longer be going if it gets its narrow-minded, isolationist way.
Post exclusive! Soccer slump leads to bank branch closures

26/08/2016 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Tech

A strange phenomenon is occurring in Bristol: people not playing football is resulting in the closure of bank branches in the city.

The source of this curious news is the ever (un)reliable Bristol Post, which yesterday carried a story headlined: “Two HSBC banks to shut in Bristol following slump in customers“.

The relevant section is shown in the following screenshot*.

Either football is vital to the survival of HSBC bank branches or there’s a typographical error in the third sentence.

To help readers decide which of the two above alternatives is correct, your correspondent has not noticed that the floors of HSBC bank branches are marked out with white lines to resemble football pitches.

As a final thought and a bit of idle speculation, are more errors creeping in to news reports appearing online due to modern “journalists” working with predictive text options switched on?

* = The article’s copy has since been amended with “footfall” replacing “football” in the third paragraph.
Tidy BS5 in the Post

19/07/2016 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

At the weekend, Cllr. Marg Hickman, the cabinet councillor for neighbourhoods and a great supporter of the Tidy BS campaign, shot the video below at the junction of Perry Street and Stapleton Road – a notorious fly-tipping hotspot which your correspondent has been reporting to Bristol City Council for the best part of two and a half years.

However, Marg also sent the video to the Bristol Post, which used it as the basis for a piece in yesterday’s online edition.

The Post’s report states that Marg also sent the footage and photos to the city council in the hope Bristol Waste, which manages street cleansing and waste collections, will finally begin to get to grips with the problem.

According to the Post a council spokesperson said:

The refuse team emptied the bins this morning, and Bristol Waste Company have two men on Stapleton Road every week day, so they will clear up following attendance from the refuse crew.

One of the street cleansing supervisors has been sent to check the area to make sure everything is clean and tidy.

The council may have sent out a street cleansing supervisor yesterday to check, but one needs to be at that location 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, since your correspondent reported another load of fly-tipping had mysteriously appeared in the same spot overnight.

Although progress on the ground may be slow, the Tidy BS5 campaign seems to be making better headway in the corridors of power since Marg’s intervention prompted Marvin Rees, Bristol’s elected mayor and past resident of Easton, to tweet on the filthy state of Stapleton Road, voicing his commitment to get our streets tidy.

However, Marvin and Marg have a big problem on their hands, as dumping litter and rubbish seem to be endemic throughout the city, not just in deprived BS5. Bristol’s annual Harbour Festival ended on Sunday evening and the Post noted in a separate report that the clean-up from the event is still continuing today, Tuesday.

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