The state of the UK

[Ben]

Someone sent me this, a lot of people seem to be suggesting there is a lot or truth to it!

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the
winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in
the cold.

THE END

THE BRITISH VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The
grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press
conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to
be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the
grasshopper, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live
coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the
squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a
country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so
while others have plenty. The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights
and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the
squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special
from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural
choir singing "We Shall Overcome". Ken Livingstone rants in an
interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich off
the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the
squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for
squirrels to enter inner London.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the
Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive
to the beginning of the summer. The squirrels's taxes are reassessed.
He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as
builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine
for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to
work.

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to
furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be
socially mobile. The squirrels food is seized and re distributed to
the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly
imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start
building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and
utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had
hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country
of origin with mice. On arrival the tried to blow up the airport
because of Britains apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking
and attempt bombing but were immediately released because the police
fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves
to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was
feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a
scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the
squirrels's food, though Spring is still months away, while the
council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't
bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs.
Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug
'illness'.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment
since arrival in UK.

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a
burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but
released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks.
He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and
supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a
botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and
state the obvious, is set up.

Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is
increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for
enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by
the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the
press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the
root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic
experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were
infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in
the United Kingdom.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing,
the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on
their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay
for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond
65 because of a shortfall in government funds.


THE END

[gary]

Dont get me started on Social Services and bleeding hearts....

Heres a true story (http://gtcc.blogspot.com/2006/01/whalemeat-again.html) in which I was involved that isnt quite as complicated as Bens example but covers the same sort of territory but because this particular grashopper was part if the indiginous population that have always scrubbed along and managed the system couldnt give a damn.

[Alan]

Aye, very good Ben :) It is soooo true.

The problem with the UK is that any criticism of anyone is perceived by someone as political incorrectness, when it isn't. It's just criticism. And any problem is solved with the sacking of a Government minister . . . Prescott is next. Will that solve the problem of the Government being a lazy, self-protecting bunch of hypocrites?

[Ben]

Amazing story, Gary. The one I was sent and posted above (not written by me!) is obviously very flippant in comparison. How much can be blamed on the social workers and how much on the bureaucratic red-tape madness they are forced to work with? A bit of both I suppose...

[Alan]

Dont get me started on Social Services and bleeding hearts....

Heres a true story (http://gtcc.blogspot.com/2006/01/whalemeat-again.html) in which I was involved that isnt quite as complicated as Bens example but covers the same sort of territory but because this particular grashopper was part if the indiginous population that have always scrubbed along and managed the system couldnt give a damn.
Excellent entry gary, I enjoyed reading that. You have a way with words :)

I don't think it's necessarily the faults of the social workers. They don't intend to do any harm. It's the bureaucracy that stops them from doing their jobs properly. They are personally held liable if something goes wrong that isn't done by the book - even if it is the common sense thing to do.

My gran is the only person I know who is helped by social workers every day of her life. She's living in sheltered housing and doesn't have many complaints about it to be honest. It's an excellent facility. However, she told me the other day that the social workers were not allowed to get in the lift with her. I'll need to find a reason for that one.

[gary]

Amazing story, Gary. The one I was sent and posted above (not written by me!) is obviously very flippant in comparison. How much can be blamed on the social workers and how much on the bureaucratic red-tape madness they are forced to work with? A bit of both I suppose...

There is a breed of social worker, do gooder type, from reasonably well heeled backgrounds that genuinely want to do good but when it comes to being up to their knees in the kind of nitty gritty stuff that goes on in the estates simply do not have the emotional currency. The TV programme Shameless makes me uncomfortable because although it is funny, if you have lived in one of the estates you know the kinds of people that get into the same sorts situations in real life.

One family I have dealt with - this is real - kept chickens under the kitchen table and had a hole in the top through which the crumbs were swept, if you went to the house there was likely to be a baby donkey sitting on the sofa, they burned the back doors and the window frames because they were cold, kept a horse in the back bedroom and when RSPCA complained it had no water merely filled the bath and opened the adjoining doors, and worst of all, after a post natal visit from the midwife who suggested circumcision would be needed on newborn son, performed said circumcision with breadknife.

If you get thrown into that straight from college having grown up on the leafy side of town how can you be expected to cope?

99% of the time Social workers do a great job - my own mum is well off as are my aunt and uncle - al in their 80s. Its at the raw bleeding edge that the system struggles.

From the red tape point of view, my feeling is that even locally the politicians have no idea how to sort out a mess. Our local council has recently combined education and welfare and installed new accounting software to run everything, 6 million quids worth. They apparently thought this was too expensive so cut 2 million quids worth of staff induction and training. Some people are being paid two and three times, some are getting nothing. I know personally one member of the social services team that is on sick leave with clinical depression brought on by stress, she is not the only one. There have been instances of social service staff paying out of their own pockets for stuff because the system was in a knot and services would have been with drawn. The agencies will not send temps into the offices any more.

I imagine the scenario to be similar at the Home Office with regard to the recent immigration fiasco and the Social Services who have apparently overpaid child tac credits to the tune of £1.8 billion - AGAIN. Education is a mess at national level - I have been witness to at least 15 initiatives in 30 years and it is evident to most people that work in the system that when the govenment wants standards to rise they tinker with the papers and the pass thresholds. What i did for O level in spanish now comprises the AS level and the GCSE is conversational, situation based pap that doesnt go much into the nuts and bolts of how a language works
</rant>

[gary]

Excellent entry gary, I enjoyed reading that. You have a way with words :)

Thanks for your comments

on a lighter note and still on the topic of education you might enjoy these - see if you recognise any of your teachers.

Zoo Time (http://gtcc.blogspot.com/2006/01/zoo-time.html)

And re the exam system

Pig weighing (http://gtcc.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_gtcc_archive.html)

[ValenciaSon]

It could be worse. You could have my president.

[cubix]

Dont get me started on Social Services and bleeding hearts....

Heres a true story (http://gtcc.blogspot.com/2006/01/whalemeat-again.html) in which I was involved that isnt quite as complicated as Bens example but covers the same sort of territory but because this particular grashopper was part if the indiginous population that have always scrubbed along and managed the system couldnt give a damn.

Amazing story, in the US if you did that there would have been a lawsuit. God forbid anyone doing anything nice or helpful

Ok, anyway...un-related to this topic at all, I saw the whale at the start, and it made me think of the exploding whale video. It's a pretty awesome video, so check it out

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/the-video/

[gary]

It could be worse. You could have my president.
Remember - your President is controlling our President!

..err sorry Prime Minister...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1185000/images/_1187179_newbushblairap300.jpg

hes even adopted the same silly gunslinger walk!!

can you tell which one is Pinnochio?

[gary]

Amazing story, in the US if you did that there would have been a lawsuit. God forbid anyone doing anything nice or helpful


Teachers in the UK have a duty of care - I exercised it - job done.

Due process was followed - they did get a magistrate to make a supervision order in my favour and I did the fastest ever registration to be a foster parent - we just precipitated a short circuit.

Thinking about it - if I was hard arsed enough I could have put a bill in for 2 nights bed and board!!

[Edith]

Amazing story, in the US if you did that there would have been a lawsuit. God forbid anyone doing anything nice or helpful

Ok, anyway...un-related to this topic at all, I saw the whale at the start, and it made me think of the exploding whale video. It's a pretty awesome video, so check it out

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/the-video/


Eeeuw, that's gross! I remember seeing some National Geographic Channel footage of great white sharks feasting on a rotting whale carcass near the Natal coast in South Africa... it really grossed me out too. I could almost smell it. Yuck.

[Alan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/5040970.stm

. . . madness.

[Ben]

Ridiculous. Nothing wrong with a bit of old-fashioned streaming!

[Marbella]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/5040970.stm

. . . madness.

:mad: Grrrr...if my children are anything to go by, I would bet that the children in 1b aren't even aware of the insignificance of the class name.

This is about stupid parents not following their own twisted logic through i.e. what should we do, not grade work just in case little Johnny finds out his 1/10 wasn't as good as little Chantelle's 10/10?

It's not uncommon for the teacher's name to be used in the class name but sooner or later the children will have to learn there are winners and losers in life and you just have to accept it.

[Alan]

Or that classes need to be numbered, and it's not personal.

I wonder if I could retrospectively sue my local council for my being in Room 2 instead of Room 1 when I was 5. Could employees sue because their employee numbers aren't all "1"? And why did my neighbour get a lower car registration number than me? It's not fair.

[cubix]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/5040970.stm

. . . madness.

I would be offended by that, in the United States

AR-Signifies Accelerated Reader(it's a computer program that kids use

AP-Advanced Placement(Where high school students can earn college credit)

[greytop]

This could be serious. My apartment is accessed via "puerta C". Does this mean its value will go down compared to puertas A & B? Maybe I should ask the residents committee to rename the doors.

[richardksa]

When I was at school the classyears were suffxed by A, M and G, basically in order of academic ability. But how they arrived at those letters was a mystery. Anyway, A, as top stream was easy to guess; M as middle also. But G? No one said anything, but the general concensus of opinion was Gormless. :rolleyes:

[Alan]

You didn't say which one you were in :)

[gary]

So, all those of you that have a class of kids - try this
Ask them to line up tallest to shortest
Ask them to line up fastest runner to slowest
Ask them to line up who would beat who in a fight
If you ask them to line up brightest to thickest theyd do it and theyd be right....kids are not stupid.

Whats needed is the understanding that no two people are the same and to define succes not by comparing one child to another but by comparing each child to himself over time.

Theres no such thing as failure now - its not allowed - you have deferred success!!

[lumpsuckerpig]

The lead story is so close to the Britain we now have that it's uncanny. I know someone who has recently had to move into a rented terraced house. This person works full time, pays his taxes and national insurance and his bills in full and on time. He doesnt smoke or have a car. Yet this person is wose off than the lad who lives next door to him who is unemployed, rather unemployable I would say. This guy gets his rent, council tax, water rates, gas, electricity........ all paid for and still has enough cash to run a car and go out boozing. Comes to something when you work full time and you are worse off. I work in a school and it comes to something these days when kids who misbehave get to go on trips and holidays which kids, who have been good and behaved, are barred from. One kid on enquiring if he was allowed to go on the trip was told, 'sorry, only for these particular kids' at which he said "mmm, perhaps if I misbehave I'll be allowed to go on it" Human rights and political correctness have gone crazy. I say what about the human rights of all us here who do tow the line, who do work, who do pay taxes and respect the law? Soon we will be like the red squirrel, defunct, and the grasshopper will reign supreme (Charles Darwin knew a thing or two).

[lumpsuckerpig]

Remember - your President is controlling our President!

..err sorry Prime Minister...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1185000/images/_1187179_newbushblairap300.jpg

hes even adopted the same silly gunslinger walk!!

can you tell which one is Pinnochio?

The one with the long wooden nose :-))

Oh! just realised, they both have long wooden noses, but one of them has strings attached to his arms, legs and head!

[gary]

I work in a school and it comes to something these days when kids who misbehave get to go on trips and holidays which kids, who have been good and behaved, are barred from. .

Yeah I went to work at a school once where if the scrotes behaved all week and got their sticker chart filled up they got McDonalds Vouchers. I asked what the other kids got for behaving well all week every week scince they had been in school. There was much dumbstruck blinking as if this concept had never dawned on anybody. I explained that I would be handing my half a dozen vouchers to the good kids and go out of my way to make the lives of the scrotes miserable until such time as they were prepared to get on my agenda - this was seen as revolutionary but when it worked was asked to lead a staff training session on techniques for behaviour modification.

Kid : Youre picking on me
Me: Thats right - the Government pays me to do that to children that dont behave
Kis: I'm bringing my dad up to you
Me: Fine, bring a doctor one of us might need it!

You have to state your case and stick to your guns, be awkward and be prepared to give up some of your own time to follow crap through right down to the involvement of parents - who also need to have it made clear as to what is what. They dont like it at first but if youre right with them they are invariably won over.

One of three things follows
a) Behaviour is modified and everyone is happy
b) Bad behaviour escalates and child shoots himself in the foot by misbehaving so much he is excluded and a managed move to another school is instigated
c) parent is as big a twat as the kid so gets arsey and you give them the pink form to sign to move their child to another school

Above all you have to be fair and reasonable - too mant teac=hers get a bee in their bonnet about particular kids and instigate a pogram. 99.99% of kids can be turned round but you have to
a) like kids (which some teachers dont)
b) give them a way back and hope that the scale of any transgression will diminish under your influence until behaviour is within acceptable parameters
</sermon>

[lumpsuckerpig]

Kid : Youre picking on me
Me: Thats right - the Government pays me to do that to children that dont behave
Kis: I'm bringing my dad up to you
Me: Fine, bring a doctor one of us might need it!

</sermon>
I particularly like this bit above!
Parents can be a real pain in the butt though.

Teacher: Your little Suzies been bad all week in class.
Parent: Is that so, well it's no reason to confiscate her fags.

I witnessed this happen, also the big punch up in the headmasters office between a female pupil and her mother when she had been called into school over her daughters behaviour. On seeing her daughter as she entered the heads office she shouted out: Oi bitch! I want a %*&!!$% word with you, and the concrete handbags started. However, most parents are co-operative and will understand and support the stance of the school.

[gary]

I particularly like this bit above!

You might enjoy others in the series.....

Parent : I'm going down to the Education to complain...
Me (flicking 50p piece) : Fine heres your busfare.

Parent : I'm going to call the Education to complain...
Me: (after dialling the number) Here - its ringing, ask to speak to the Chief Education Officer.

Parent: Are you calling my son a liar?
Me: Either he's a liar or I am

Parent : My son doesnt tell lies
Me: So when he says you're growing marijuana on the kitchen windowsill that would definitely be true then?

Cousin of Scrote: If you pick on our so-and-so again I'm going to kick smoke out of you.
Me : If its violence you want youve come to the right person - if you want to complain go fetch his parents.

Me : So you definitely went to the doctors while you were off
Absentee: Yeah
Me : What day did you go?
Absentee: Friday
Me: Who did you see?
Absentee: Doctor Stanton
Me : On Friday evening?
Absentee: Yeah
Me: No wonder you were off you must have been terrified
Absentee (Puzzled) Why?
Me : He died on Monday they burried him Friday morning

Note received from parent - child thinks he has has note to excuse himself from PE....

Sir!
Dont let Winston skive off PE, there is nothing wrong with him, he is just f***ing idle.

most parents are co-operative and will understand and support the stance of the school
Absolutely

[ValenciaSon]

The one with the long wooden nose :-))

Oh! just realised, they both have long wooden noses, but one of them has strings attached to his arms, legs and head!

The one that lies, oh wait, nevermind!:rolleyes:

[Marbella]

Students given free MP3 players (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5319258.stm)

Jolin:mad:.

[gary]

Students given free MP3 players (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5319258.stm)

Jolin:mad:.

Its a good deal - £90 for an iPod brings in £3000 X 3 years tuition fees, its like the plastic toys in cornflakes and McDonalds Happy Meals.

But at least they can enjoy Notes in Spanish!!!!