Badger Stops Line Painting
I saw this story in the Salisbury Journal – a gang of chimps employed by the Hampshire Council were painting white lines on a road but when they came to a dead badger, instead of removing it they just stopped painting and started again on the other side.
As you might expect from a bunch of unionized and copiously bureaucratized council neanderthals, the story is far more complex than you might imagine, and it is perfectly sensible and right that the badger should be left where it is and the lines not painted – no matter how much extra it will cost to send the primates out again to finish the job.
Mel Kendal, Hampshire County Council executive member for the environment, said: “We would usually liaise with our colleagues at the district council, who dispose of animal carcasses on the highways, to ensure the badger was removed before the white line-painting crew did this stretch of road.
“This appears not to have happened in this case and the white line-painting crew did what they thought was best until arrangements could be made to dispose of the carcass.
“These arrangements have now been made and the gap in the white lines will be filled in, at no extra cost to the council tax-payer.”
Mmmm. I wonder how this will not cost the tax-payer? Any money the council wastes – sorry, spends – is covered by the tax-payer one way or another, so quite how they think they can gloss over that is anyone’s guess. Maybe having to send the crew out again (and closing the roads to do it) will come out of Mel Kendal’s wages?
I particularly like the part about how the “crew did what they thought was best”. Obviously, thinking isn’t the crew’s biggest strength, and it is clear that Hampshire County Council also think that, too (though they can’t say it, of course).