Monday Moan 49

Anyone got more money than sense?

A not-overly impressive picture appears one day on a wall. It is proclaimed as a work by ‘Banksy’ – the most well-publicised graffiti-merchant (sorry, street-artist) around. It is unsigned. Then it disappears, together with the wall on which is was painted, before re-appearing some time later at an auction, where it was expected to be sold for something in the region of £1 million.

Nobody knows for certain that it was painted by ‘Banksy’. Nobody knows who ‘owned’ it. Nobody knows who took it.  The auction was organised after it was ‘agreed’ that it would be sold to an American bidder for £900,000 unless a higher bid was made.  The cry went up (from the auction house amongst others) for Britain to get its act together and pay the money needed to keep the painting in this country.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I can’t help feeling that the world has gone mad.  This just seems crazy on so many levels. It’s not fantastic art. It seems like a con in so many ways. The BBC and other media have done their best to drum up interest – why?  And when did vandalising by spray-painting graffiti in a public place, where perpetrators would be fined if they could be identified, turn into street-art, where the perpetrators would be lauded as artistic royalty?

But, in the spirit of the day, I am prepared to get my spray can out and produce a rather mundane, clichéd picture on a wall near you for a mere fraction of the amount being fleeced for this ‘Banksy’ from people who should know better.  I’m not a greedy man, so shall we say £100,000?

Saving 'your’ money?

My local Council has produced a glossy handout for every household in its area asking residents to “Stop throwing your money away”.  Like many others, I am sure, I was intrigued to read on and find out how I could save some money.

Unfortunately, the headline appears to have only a tenuous link to any money-saving possibility for residents.

It seems that ‘our area’ (unidentified) has been found to be one of the lowest performing in all of the district in terms of recycling.  This, incidentally, despite the evidence of overflowing recycling boxes on our pavements on each collection day.  OK, must be all the other roads in the district that are under-performing.

The story continues; the Council collects the recycled items and sells them. This money helps to pay for the collection of the material. Material that could be recycled but is instead just thrown away is sent to landfill – which costs the Council money. So, anyone not recycling is throwing money away.  

It’s a long-winded explanation that, in the end, offers no real incentive to residents to recycle more items beyond an implied suggestion that if more waste could be sold then perhaps our Council Taxes might be lower.  Implied is the word – no direct link, no promise that money saved will not be spent on something of no benefit to the mass of residents.

If you want people to change their behaviour then some kind of incentive would help.  But if that is too difficult to administer then at least be a little more honest in your communications with residents.  And maybe recognise that low levels of recyclable materials left out for collection may not mean that we don’t care. It may be that we care so much we have already changed our buying habits and no longer purchase things that need to be recycled – like newspapers (read online instead), or fruit and vegetables in unnecessary packaging (choosing fresh produce and placing in reusable bags or single paper bags rather than polystyrene or cardboard cartons wrapped in plastic).

  

Hard to know who most deserves our scorn?

Once again the media is full of stories about politicians who appear to be forever on the lookout for opportunities to line their pockets whilst already being paid large amounts of public money to do their jobs.  This time it’s a Tory MP, two Labour Lords and an Ulster Unionist Lord, but in truth the party labels mean nothing here. It’s a behavioural thing that crosses party lines.

It’s too early to say whether what these people have done wrong is really serious or not – the full details have not been revealed.  All of them are protesting their innocence, saying that they believe what they have done is within the rules.  There will be an investigation at the end of which they will discover whether or not they are right and have been unfairly cast as villains, or they are wrong and must face the consequences.

What we do know, of course, is that the ‘evidence’ of their wrongdoings has been provided by the very media that set each of them up in sting operations designed to catch them out by offering them inducements.  The BBC, the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph each set out to create stories, rather than uncover existing stories.  So there’s a fine line being walked by them as well as the politicians.  At least two of the ‘victims’ of the stings are claiming that the day after the interviews that appear to show them breaching lobbying rules, they contacted the people who were trying to sting them to say that they had reconsidered their positions and now no longer wanted to pursue their discussions.  We shall see if this is true, but if it is then we have, of course, been given a doctored version of events rather than the full picture.

It’s a tricky one:-

(a)  do we accept the view of The Independent that this is “a welcome reminder of the value of an unfettered media”; or

(b)  do we see this as another example of the media creating and manipulating the news, rather than reporting events that are happening independently of their own promptings?

Julian Assange – is he still here?

The news that Julian Assange is still here in the UK came as something of a surprise to me – out of sight, out of mind, I suppose. 

Now we hear that Ricardo Patino, an Ecuadorean Minister, is to visit Assange in London soon and that he has offered (offered rather than asked for?) a meeting with William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

Had I given it any thought I might have imagined that he had been spirited away by the authorities once the press furore had quietened down after the initial excitement of him giving press conferences from the safety of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. But of course, that will not happen, and whenever he is moved or chooses to move we will be subjected to wall-to-wall coverage of everything that follows, whether he manages to escape to his Ecuadorean bolt-hole or he is arrested and sent to Sweden to face sexual offences charges.

Bet you can’t wait.......