Hoorah!My own council of Brighton have won this week's prestigious, and internationally renowned, "Prats of The Week" Award!
Huzzah!
For why?
Well loyal readers, in this era of austerity (courtesy of Broon's years' of largess), one would have thought that local councils would be looking at ways to save money.
Not in Brighton!
Our "beloved" council, a couple of months ago, splurged £25K on a "state-of-the-art machine" near Surrenden Park in London Road.
Now can you guess what this machine does?
Yes, that's right, it counts bicycles and displays the number that pass on an LED display.
Why do we need to count bicycles?
Who the fark knows or cares?
Aside from that obvious point, there is one other wee problem.
Can you guess what that is children?
Yes, that's right, it doesn't work!
Seemingly, in addition to counting and displaying the number of bicycles, it also mistakenly counts and displays motor vehicles (eg ambulances, minibuses and cars) as bicycles.
Brighton and Hove Council, well deserving Prats of The Week!
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Brighton is fairly typical of those daft councils contaminated by leftwing backroom staff.
ReplyDeleteBrighton is certainly a rainbow area; Pink, Green and Red;-)
Just of a matter of interest; Why does Brighton council think it is important to know how many bikes go past a particular point and just what will they use that information for?
25000K for a machine; surely, if it is that important to them, they could put a hi-viz drone out there, with a clipboard, to count the bikes.....
Hi-Viz; just laugh at it.
Note to Black Sea;
You were right; dispite my best efforts, 3000 units a month was unsustainable but, it was fun trying.
Tonk,
ReplyDeleteYou haven't really given it a fair shot, have you? I mean, you haven't been at it for a full month yet. As your tolerance level rises, who knows what miracles might await you?
But watch out for the DTs.
Management consultants can make a lot of money by thinking up catchy phrases and then selling them to anyone who wants to buy them.
ReplyDeleteOne such phrase which did the rounds a few years ago with local and central government was: “If you're not measuring it, you're not managing it”. That triggered an obsession with measuring things and managing things, so measuring the number of bicycles which go past in a day or the number of times the sun rises and sets in a week, could well be the after effects of that catch phrase.
I once knew a management consultant who was into that line of business. There were so many tricks of the trade he used. One was to write a book, or better still, several books. The books could be rubbish but that didn't matter. Image was everything, so when he went for the interview for the talk, having written three books gave him an advantage over some other consultant who'd only written one book.
Then he could be introduced: “This is Captain Blessington-Smythe. He's the author of several books, and a renowned expert on {some topic no-one's ever heard of}. And he has kindly found time in his busy schedule to be with us today …”.
As for the books; he never seemed to sell them to anyone other than the people at the talk. He'd use some scam like: 'Because you're all very special to me, I've decided to give you a large discount on my latest book, and Susan over there will be taking your money at the end of this talk' (Cue warm and inviting smile from Susan).
It was a positive-feedback loop so that at the next interview he could point out how popular his latest book was and why he was therefore thinking of writing another book.
NB Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Way back in the past (1950 ish) I can remember cardiff council used boy scouts or 'students' to count traffic - effective and cheap too.
ReplyDeleteAlbert Einstein - "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
ReplyDeleteFortunately for the people of Brighton (and many other places in UK)- the Local Authority is cleverer than that.
If they are counting them today be sure they will find some way of charging them tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteTypical of the ways local authorities waste money on nonsense, then claim there is none when something really important needs doing that might actually be of some benefit to their council tax payers!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: A pity someone didn't shove your consultant's books where the sun doesn't shine!
To be honest your Lordship, I thought it was all very impressive. If I were a management consultant working for myself (where you stand or fall, live or starve, based on your own merits with no safety net) I'd probably play by exactly the same rules. I'd just try and sell something more useful than catch phrases. In particular, I'd try to be a bit more socially responsible than standing up at a council away day and saying: “If you're not measuring it, you're not managing it”.
ReplyDeleteBut it's worth being aware how these things work.