Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

My parents sent me this link today about a man in Derby called Richard Butler, whose home is threatened by a proposed new Ring Road.

The proposed scheme has been under review for a long time. In 2004, Derby Council successfully prosecuted Richard Butler under the Town and Country Planning Act after he displayed a protest banner against the scheme. Because his banner contained the logo, website address and telephone number for the protest group Derby Heart, it was unauthorised advertising, claimed the Council. That’s the same council that turns a blind eye to all of the other unauthorised advertising that isn’t politically opposing it.

So Derby Council tried to squash a bug with a Bureaucratic Sledgehammer. it seems that Richard Butler hit them back in the Paperwork Nuts with a counterpunch.

How?

Well, when a council wants to flatten your house for a road, it will usually carry out a compulsory purchase of your land. It has to serve you with paperwork and follow a bureaucatic procedure to do so. Richard Butler has sold portions of his land to several people around the world, including Spain and Shanghai, who will now have to be found by Derby Council and served with paperwork. This will take a very long time.

Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of the case. Perhaps he’s being selfish. What I love to see, though, is the fact that he’s turned the bureaucratic process on itself. He’s beating them at their own game!

Saturday night was meant to be a quiet one with Nev and Lee, two friends from school (See previous Blog entry). I’d just come through 2 stag weekends and a boozy trip to Wiesbaden, Nev and Lee had their own alcohol horror stories to tell.

Nevertheless, things went wrong fairly quickly. There’s a simple equation to this: three good friends + pub + buying rounds = hangover.

The Venue was the Castle on Harrow on the Hill, my local. The food and drink here is very good and what’s nice about it is that the pub has a nice “villagey” feel.

There was none of my favourite tipple at the Castle, a beer called Honeydew left, so I settled down with my two good buddies and a pint of Staropramen.

Then she walked into my life and with a casual wave of her fleshy arm changed my life forever.

Next to my pint lay the pub menu. The pub menu stuck slightly off the edge of the table we were seated at. The girl toddled past our table and waved her arm into the menu, which slid against my pint, which tipped into my lap. It was all rather like a game of MouseTrap.

So I went home and got changed. It was only five minutes around the corner.

Amusingly, the family of the girl in question made no attempt to leash her and she happily toddled around the pub on her rampage. I did get some evil looks from her parents who assumed that I had loutishly spilled beer all over the floor.

The evening progressed very well - we always have a laugh when we meet up. I did feel a bit of regret when I realised that my trip to Wiesbaden had coincided with Lee’s 30th Birthday and that I had forgotten to wish him a apppy Birthday. In a gentlemanly attempt to redeem the situation, I leaned over the table to shake his hand. As I sat down again, my sleeve caught my pint and spilled my new pint into my lap.

So I went home and got changed. It was only five minutes around the corner.

Into my third set of clothes, I got back to the pub, in fear of a toddler, and we continued. The evening was rounded off with some teenage misbehaviour in the streets of Harrow and an excursion to the fields overlooked by the church on the Hill. Usually full of goths, it seems that we were out too late for them this time.

Perhaps they just heard us coming…

The next morning my hangover was severe. I’m lucky 20% of my drinking ended up on the floor before it got anywhere near my mouth. Nothing a fry up at Tony’s couldn’t fix!

The full shocking photographic evidence can be found here!