There are no corners of our private lives that Nanny does not want to stick her wizened old features into.
Our eating habits, smoking habits, drug taking habits, drinking habits and ethnic origins have all been looked into by Nanny. Now comes, not unsurprisingly, our sexual orientation.
What the fark has that got to do with her?
Well, absolutely nothing at all. However, Nanny (or rather Nanny's chums) sees it differently.
Organisations applying for grants from the new Arts Council will now have to state how many of their board members are bisexual, gay, lesbian or "not known".
The council has said it needs to know about the sexuality of applicants, in order to understand who its audience are and where the funding is going.
No it doesn't!
Whatever someone's particular sexual tastes does not affect what they like/dislike wrt art...even if you are CEO of Formula One.
Audrey Roy, the director of grants said:
"We see diversity as broader than race, ethnicity, faith and disability."
Knobhead!
Taking that to its logical conclusion means that Nanny will also be asking us about our height, weight, hair colour, ties we wear etc.
All of these add to the individual.
Were Nanny to really want to see/understand the true diversity of those under her charge, she would have to know all of the above and more.
Ms Roy said that it is not compulsory for applicants to fill in the new section.
Yet, rather ironically, the form advises people to do so.
What is the use of this?
The council claims that all details concerning sexuality will be for Government purposes only, and will not affect decisions in allocating funding.
Will they apply the same high quality data security procedures that HMRC did to the 25 million personal data records that it lost last year?
Now here is where it becomes rather interesting, the Department of Culture Media and Sport claims that Nanny actually doesn't want this data:
"We appreciate that as a responsible public body they need to monitor their overall grant-making programmes.
But it is absolutely not the case that sexual orientation monitoring is a government requirement."
Someone is lying!
This best way to screw this up is to fill the form in with gibberish, such as revealing a taste for pandas.
The way to resist a bureaucratic dictatorship is to overload it with garbage.
Ken said:
ReplyDelete"This best way to screw this up is to fill the form in with gibberish, such as revealing a taste for pandas."
Do you have a recipe?
Grant
I have noticed the increase in the number of forms that now ask one to supply details of race, age group, gender, disabilities and employment status.
ReplyDeleteI believe these are mainly organisations that have taken Nanny's funding and she dictates that this information is necessary.
Many education providers seek such information. I have recently had a run in with one that represents professional book keepers, my argument was that, they state they offer examinations and membership to all without discrimination. My point was that, if this is the case, why do they need to check it as, if they were doing it in the first place no question could ever arise.
I just declined to provide such information. I am now waiting to see if they try to insist I provide all these PC details.
Recently I was at my local NHS hospital, I was told that I was not permitted to see the doctor until I completed the ethnic origin questionaire. I said that I would not see the doctor then and got up to go and advised the receptionist that I would be contacting my MP. The woman behind the desk then called me back and said I could see the doctor after all. I asked why she had made all the fuss then, I was accused of being confrontational and a racist!! Isn't it always the way that Nanny shouts racist to get people to comply with her diktats.....I think few take being called a racist now very seriously as it is so often used....A bit like the boy who cried wolf.
Grant
ReplyDeleteLet the records state:
1 I have never knowingly eaten a panda
2 I have not had "sex" with a panda
I hope this clears up the confusion:)
Ken
I hate to break this to the Arts Council, those doyens of good taste and aestheticism, but they are not going to learn much about their audience by shoe-horning the sexuality options into four categories one of which is "unknown".
ReplyDeleteIf they care to commission me I will happily knock up a list of sexual preferences for them to use instead, based upon many years of practical but often unwilling field research.
As for poor old Tonk being bullied at the hospital, those medical receptionists are a special breed. Rather than make a fuss just write "indigenous islander - unprotected species" right across the form and if challenged you can then accuse them of being racist for not including it as a category in the first place and Nanny for genocide.
This is a little off topic and is just a little addition to my comment yesterday on how to deal with cold callers
ReplyDeletehttp://fp.ignatz.plus.com/btcall.mp3
I'm afraid I recently outed my own sexuality on another blog. I was so damned angry at one of nanny's minions ...
ReplyDeletehttp://wiganbnp.blogspot.com/2008/03/open-letter-to-elliot-brown-wigan-hate.html
It's quite a long read, and you'll need to read at least half - Elliot's second and longest quote - to properly understand it and my anger.
We really have to let these people know how much contempt we have for them. They depend on our fear.
I can't wait for the next questionnaire that asks me my sexuality.
Of course, much as I hate the continual and oft frivolous use of "that's against my human rights", sometimes it is quite useful to push this back in Nanny's face.
ReplyDeleteArticle 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998, see
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/ukpga_19980042_en_3#sch1
covers the right of privacy, a tiny tiny matter, it seems, to Nanny, in her haste to collect our DNA, ID and video us, and all the other roll backs of our personal freedoms and rights (based upon Nanny's continual lies), but one which is pretty bl**dy important to me!!
A few months ago my wife applied for an evening course at our local college, and the whole of the back A4 page had a very personal questionaire such as this post refers to. I told her to cross a line through the lot and write "private information" on it. She still got on that course. Mind you, Nanny got £50 for it, receipt of monies does make Nanny salivate.
Sorry, my last posting had the end of the URL cut off.
ReplyDeleteIt is:
ukpga_19980042_en_3#sch1
Okay, that rules out pandas. Any sheep-worriers on this blog?
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing a BBC radio presenter sounding a bit down in the dumps about her non-existent social life. She claimed there was more chance of her being inseminated by a panda than by a boyfriend.
And what about that American guy last week, caught having sex with a picnic table or the British guy who had sex with a bicycle (does this tell us something)?
Anyway, to avoid falling foul of the discrimination laws, their list of sexual preferences is going to require more than one A4 sheet.
However, regarding constructive solutions: whether the information is compulsory or voluntary, the simple solution is – don’t give it. Problem solved!
I love the presumption that in most cases board members, or anyone else affililiated with an organization, make their sexual preferences so publicly known that "not known" is the last and least preferred option.
ReplyDeleteActually, the least preferred option is the one not even listed: heterosexual. More than a couple of "those," and you can forget about your arts grant.
Oh well, Nanny's always been more enthusiastic about thought control than art anyway.
Mmm, does 'Pigeon Fancying' count as a sexual orientation?
ReplyDeleteI will put transgendered (in process of) person of non determined sexual preference. Previously hetrosexual with tendencies toward men and certain farm animals. Upon sex change will become lesbian, unless I change my mind again and revert to hetrosexual or possibly bisexual, dependng upon how much I fancy the person of whatever sex I am lusting after at that given moment.
ReplyDeleteNow, where is my grant please and where do I sign up to adopt?
Ken said, "The council claims that all details concerning sexuality will be for Government purposes only, and will not affect decisions in allocating funding." [I detect at least two pieces of bullshit in that statement]
ReplyDeleteWhy might the Government want/need information about every individual's sexual preferences?
I assume that its not so that she can provide each of us with a suitable partner or partners, so, of what ultimate value (to us) is Nanny's collection of such data?
Number 6, as the grants concerned only apply to Arts Council members, surely you missed out the important - artistic - factor.
It's not enough just to fuck animals, you need to cut them up(post-fornication, of course) and stick the bits in an aquarium full of formaldehyde, thus qualifying as an artist and qualifying for your grant.
Actually the surest way to a grant and an international reputation would be to have sex with animals inside a vat of formaldehyde on a street corner.
ReplyDeleteYou'd probably end up the toast of New York with an estate just outside Berlin.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteShagging farm animals is a personal lifestyle choice and one that nanny would approve of given her desire to embrace all lifestyles and gender/species specific sexual choices.
Post shagged animals, as you stated, do make for splendid pieces of artistic expresssion, especially when cut up and suspended in emabling fluid; who needs Stubbs, Constable and all those other middle class tossers. Nanny knows art when she sees it and such fantastic pieces of working class expression of angst against the farming system (or something along those lines) must be supported. Mr Hirst, is I am sure a person of bi/homo/undecided sexual persuasion as well as a totally crap 'artist' and as such the perfect recepient of some of nanny's (eg our) tax money in the form of grants.
Ah pietr,
ReplyDeleteyour response suggests that you are clearly a person of great artistic understanding.(While your picture suggests that you may also be a piss-artist!)
Spiv, 'fraid not old chap. It's not worth the paper it's written on because almost every right is qualified by a Section 2:-
ReplyDelete1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Economic well-being? Health and morals? Whose morals?
There must be some reason why it’s not worth the paper it’s written on because the state frequently and flagrantly flouts Article 8 without any fear or expectation of being held to account in the courts.
ReplyDeleteAre you all besotted with sex/
ReplyDeleteWhy cannot a taste for pandas mean that you like them nicely cooked and served up with Brussel sprouts and potatoes?
Or am I getting too old.
cramerj said...
ReplyDelete"Why cannot a taste for pandas mean that you like them nicely cooked and served up with Brussel sprouts and potatoes?"
Ha ha! Anyone remember the old kitkat advert with the performing pandas?
Ken said:
ReplyDelete" Let the records state:
1 I have never knowingly eaten a panda
2 I have not had "sex" with a panda
I hope this clears up the confusion:)"
Well, at first glance I thought it did BUT, after our years of practice following Nannyspeak I soon spotted the true meaning.
For example "Knowingly".
Now there is a nice weasel word to cover everything. I don't suppose B'Liar "knowingly" claimed for his TV Tax on his MP's expenses but so what? If he can duck paying the British Brainwashing Corporation for its remote treatment of the populace why can't I?
So, are we to take it that you have indeed eaten Panda thought, just maybe, you had not "official" idea it was Panda at the time? Or maybe you have knowingly eaten panda but not "a panda" as in a whole panda.
Nannyspeak would suggest that
such might be the case. I think you should come clean!
As for not having ""sex"" with a panda, fair enough, after all they are not exactly known for their sex drive. However by mentioning it and using quote marks one has to wonder why you are making a pre-emptive denial and what sort of relationship you have in fact had with a panda. If not ""sex"" then what?
Insider trading on the Bamboo futures market?
Covert reports on the sexual peccadilloes of people powerful in the world of sport?
Might this be the Clinton form of 'not having sex'?
I think, as loyal readers of this blog, we should be told.
Wouldn't want to read it in the News of the World would we!?
;-)
Grant
Grant
ReplyDeleteI "misspoke", I meant to say I did not have "sex" with that panda;)
Ken
Ken wrote:
ReplyDelete"I "misspoke", I meant to say I did not have "sex" with that panda;)"
Fair enough.
It would be somewhat gross to have some form of emotional or physical relationship with another creature shortly before eating it, so I am pleased to hear that was not the case.
However your implied admission that you did have a relationship of some sort that may have involved physical gratification with a creature that you describe as a Panda is somewhat disconcerting.
That said this may have been and error of identification after a few measures of some Asian brew. Indeed, even sober and in the UK, I have observed that many creatures habituating city centres late at night appear to turn into panda variants as the night progresses, easily identifiable by the appearance of dark rings around the eyes and the apparent ability to sleep deeply wherever they may be in between bouts of eating and drinking.
In fact some years ago I recall seeing something similar at Sunday breakfast in a hotel in Helsinki though on that occasion the panda had clearly been involved in an overnight sex change as well.
It ate a hearty breakfast though ...
Of course re-reading what you wrote I may have got the wrong end of 'the stick'.
I can't be sure that your "misspoke" was a typo for "miss poke" and therefore a rash statement (in the current age) of you heterosexuality (claimed). If I were you I would keep one eye on the street outside your window checking for papparazzi and people wearing NotW badges.
;)
Grant