It's Monday morning folks, and you know that that means don't you?Yes, that right, it's time once again for my prestigious "Prats of The Week" Award.
This week's award goes to...yes, you've a guessed it....a local council!
How terribly predictable.
Isn't it about time that these failed bodies were put out of our misery once and for all, and a totally new system devised for local governance that is efficient, cost effective and accountable?
FYI, re "accountable" see what my local council (Croydon) has been up to with a property developer (CATARENA)
Anyhoo, I digress, the winners this week are two councils Blackburn and Darwen Council, who recently moved to smash a sinister counterfeit note operation that had been uncovered in Blackburn and Darwen.
Tow stores in the the towns had been discovered holding large stocks of counterfeit notes.
Very vigilant of the councils, I hear you say.
Unfortunately, there is one small fly in their oinkment. The notes were five, £10, £20 and £50, and were sold at four for a pound.
So far so good.
But.......The notes had the Queen's head replaced with a variety of pictures including Dr Who, David Beckham, Winnie the Pooh to Elvis and the Beatles.
Ahah!
Can you see the problem here?
Yes, that's right, the notes were novelty notes not counterfeits.
That didn't deter Nanny, her chums in the trading standards department insisted that the cash' could be mistaken for real money; and that it was a breach of the law to re-produce bank notes without the permission of the Bank of England.
The owner of store in Darwen from when they were taken, the Mega Pound Store, said there was no way it could be mistaken for real cash and that the "funny money" had been popular with children.
Quote:
"It's just funny money.
You can easily tell the difference
between these novelty notes and real ones.
We bought them in good faith and
they were a cracking line.
The kids loved them.
It's just political correctness gone mad.
There's no point arguing because
I am not going to get them back.
The guy I bought them from can't understand
why they are illegal."
Trading standards officers are still investigating the source of the notes, and are yet to decide whether to take further action.
Potty!
Surely there are more important issues to address?
Congrats to Blackburn and Darwen Council for their well deserved award!
Why don't they take it a stage further, and ban Monopoly? After all, that, as we all know, is a game that has used 'funny money' for years. I am not going to suggest it to them, they sound as though they are barmy enough to do just that!
ReplyDeleteThey are crazy. There must be far too many people working for trading standards, so much so that they have to justify their jobs
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many of your readers would know that the Bank of England is a *private* bank and not a government institution. Just like the Federal Reserve in the USA. There is a very interesting movie documentary about this (albeit about the illegal US system). Just google "Aaron Russo" and "Freedom to Fascism".
ReplyDeleteAll the points in the documentary are applicable in some way to the UK. The countries really *are* run by a bunch of elite bankers who have all politicians in their pockets!
Oddly enough, my father had this kind of problem in the late 1950s. He was part of an amateur dramatic society who were putting on a play in which bundles of banknotes had to be scattered at one point. The society artist produced some 'fake notes' that would not have fooled anyone close up but at a distance resembled UK bank notes of the time. After the first performance of the play they had a visit from the local police who asked for the notes to be handed over as apparently Bank of England permission had not been sought to use the 'image' of a BoE banknote.
ReplyDeleteNow whilst the trading standards/council have been a bit heavy handed in this case (as is usual nowadays) they appear to only be following laws that have been around for some time relating to the depiction of UK banknotes. It also depends on how 'close' the toy notes were to the real thing, ie if they contained elements of existing currency. For example if they actually said 'Bank of England' on them or had similar designs to real notes on the reverse side (no matter how badly drawn). It's why kids toy money doesn't tend to look too much like the real thing and usually has 'Bank of Toytown' on it so it gets past these laws in the UK and other countries.
I wonder how many of your readers would know that the Bank of England is a *private* bank and not a government institution. Just like the Federal Reserve in the USA. There is a very interesting movie documentary about this (albeit about the illegal US system). Just google "Aaron Russo" and "Freedom to Fascism".
ReplyDeleteAll the points in the documentary are applicable in some way to the UK. The countries really *are* run by a bunch of elite bankers who have all politicians in their pockets
I've seen that and it is excellent.
My name is Sylwia Boguszewska and I am writing MA thesis on the topic of blogging. I'm doing a qualitative research: focus groups in order to unravel the attitudes of Internet users towards blogging and bloggers as well as interviews in order to establish the motivation of the bloggers and their standpoint on blogging.
ReplyDeleteI would deeply appreciate it if you could help me in any way;)
Kind regards,
Sylwia