Eleven days after the appointed inorganic pickup date for my address, and after
only two phone calls
to the Council--only two!!--I was honoured with a call from a bureaucrat at the high-and-mighty
Auckland Council--that bastion of mainliners perched on a permanent high of their own petty power--a woman who announced herself as Hazel in a Pommy accent.
Bureaucrats don't have surnames, see, because they likes to live in Anonymous Land so that people
can't get at them... They doesn't like people, see. People is a nuisance, see. Worse than blowflies
at a picnic, see.
But my VOIP phone automatically records every single word of every single conversation in an MP3
file, so modern technology neatly defeats them boo-rock-rat wishes. It was stamped 09:54:00 on
06/12/2016 if you wants de boo-rock-rat accuracy.
(Not even the Pied Piper of Hamelin can get rid of boo-rock-rats. That's a well-known scientific
fact. Even more factual than gravity and the unwelcome pulling of ponytails.)
'The item was left because of the stairs,' quoth Hazel, as the MP3 file silently recorded. 'It
wasn't safe to carry the item down the stairs. They've made that assessment.'
I told her that that was rubbish (perfect pun, notice), and asked how did she think I got the thing
in here in the first place. And how did I manage to take it 70 metres back up the hill, all by my
unaided thread-like self, so that the Council's weak and timid collectors would not have to exert
themselves and risk their lives.
Of course, in talking to her I didn't use terms like 'thread-like' and 'weak and timid', because
mainliners don't have no sense of humour, see. (Maybe the full stop in that last sentence should be
after 'sense'. Then it would be 'Mainliners don't have no sense. Of humour. See.' Yes, much better.
Editing is such fun.)
'I don't accept that,' quoth Hazel, our unwitting MP3 Star. 'We actually had our independent
auditors out with them at the time, and they agreed with the decision.'
Whaaaaaaaaaaat! They carry 'independent auditors' about with them in their collection truck! So now
we know that they mainline on an overweening mix of steroids and petty power. Wow! That's progress.
Yes, my favourite one-word joke. Again. I get so many chances to use it in this midden world. And
getting more midden by the minute.
Hazel continued with her quothing: 'I support their decision. I can't ask them to go and collect
something that they think is a health-and-safety issue.'
But not a common sense issue, or even uncommon sense, or any kind of sense. Weak and timid, see.
Hazel quothed on: 'If you can get the item down the stairs, we will collect it.'
Small errors, there, Hazel. First it is up, not down. And thems is actually steps, not stairs.
Stairs is wot you has inside a building, O Unwitting MP3 Star. Steps is what you have outside, in a
path, on the edge of the porch, outside Pallymunt, etc. The fridge-freezer is waiting at the foot of
the STEPS--the foot--so it had to go up. UP, Hazel, not down. Wot an accurate report the
'independent auditors' did for our MP3 Star. They know not their up from their down or their stairs
from their steps or their health and safety issues from a piddling liddle fridge-freezer that they
had to carry a mere 7 metres.
And they cannot read their own advertising. The Orcland Council website says; 'Items should be able
to be lifted by two people. Accepted: Large appliances--fridges, freezers, washing machines and
ovens'. Misleading advertising, see. AKA lies.
But if I were do wot the MP3 Star wants and take the 'item' up the steps I would be leaving it on
the side of the road. Because that is what is at the top of them steps. But the high-and-mighty
Auckland Council calls that illegal dumping, and fines you up to $400, and sends you to Guantanamo
Bay without the option of a surfboard so that you can chat with radical Islamists for the next fifty
years.
So I now have an ornament at the foot of the steps below my letterbox. A fridge-freezer. A very dead
one. Lying down. A bit of modern sculpture, some performance-art, entitled 'Death of Civilisation.'
Not everyone has one. But don't be jealous. You too can have one. You just put one out for Orc's
indigestible, incompetent, inept, infuriating inorganic-collection system. Which will leave it for
you, artistically positioned, and festooned with a note to say that it will not be taken.
Like boo-rock-rats, it's impossible to take.
Would that we could get rid of the Supercilious Supersilly and get back our own Council and run our own affairs, free for ever of the malign injections from those mainliners over the water!
to the Council--only two!!--I was honoured with a call from a bureaucrat at the high-and-mighty
Auckland Council--that bastion of mainliners perched on a permanent high of their own petty power--a woman who announced herself as Hazel in a Pommy accent.
Bureaucrats don't have surnames, see, because they likes to live in Anonymous Land so that people
can't get at them... They doesn't like people, see. People is a nuisance, see. Worse than blowflies
at a picnic, see.
But my VOIP phone automatically records every single word of every single conversation in an MP3
file, so modern technology neatly defeats them boo-rock-rat wishes. It was stamped 09:54:00 on
06/12/2016 if you wants de boo-rock-rat accuracy.
(Not even the Pied Piper of Hamelin can get rid of boo-rock-rats. That's a well-known scientific
fact. Even more factual than gravity and the unwelcome pulling of ponytails.)
'The item was left because of the stairs,' quoth Hazel, as the MP3 file silently recorded. 'It
wasn't safe to carry the item down the stairs. They've made that assessment.'
I told her that that was rubbish (perfect pun, notice), and asked how did she think I got the thing
in here in the first place. And how did I manage to take it 70 metres back up the hill, all by my
unaided thread-like self, so that the Council's weak and timid collectors would not have to exert
themselves and risk their lives.
Of course, in talking to her I didn't use terms like 'thread-like' and 'weak and timid', because
mainliners don't have no sense of humour, see. (Maybe the full stop in that last sentence should be
after 'sense'. Then it would be 'Mainliners don't have no sense. Of humour. See.' Yes, much better.
Editing is such fun.)
'I don't accept that,' quoth Hazel, our unwitting MP3 Star. 'We actually had our independent
auditors out with them at the time, and they agreed with the decision.'
Whaaaaaaaaaaat! They carry 'independent auditors' about with them in their collection truck! So now
we know that they mainline on an overweening mix of steroids and petty power. Wow! That's progress.
Yes, my favourite one-word joke. Again. I get so many chances to use it in this midden world. And
getting more midden by the minute.
Hazel continued with her quothing: 'I support their decision. I can't ask them to go and collect
something that they think is a health-and-safety issue.'
But not a common sense issue, or even uncommon sense, or any kind of sense. Weak and timid, see.
Hazel quothed on: 'If you can get the item down the stairs, we will collect it.'
Small errors, there, Hazel. First it is up, not down. And thems is actually steps, not stairs.
Stairs is wot you has inside a building, O Unwitting MP3 Star. Steps is what you have outside, in a
path, on the edge of the porch, outside Pallymunt, etc. The fridge-freezer is waiting at the foot of
the STEPS--the foot--so it had to go up. UP, Hazel, not down. Wot an accurate report the
'independent auditors' did for our MP3 Star. They know not their up from their down or their stairs
from their steps or their health and safety issues from a piddling liddle fridge-freezer that they
had to carry a mere 7 metres.
And they cannot read their own advertising. The Orcland Council website says; 'Items should be able
to be lifted by two people. Accepted: Large appliances--fridges, freezers, washing machines and
ovens'. Misleading advertising, see. AKA lies.
But if I were do wot the MP3 Star wants and take the 'item' up the steps I would be leaving it on
the side of the road. Because that is what is at the top of them steps. But the high-and-mighty
Auckland Council calls that illegal dumping, and fines you up to $400, and sends you to Guantanamo
Bay without the option of a surfboard so that you can chat with radical Islamists for the next fifty
years.
So I now have an ornament at the foot of the steps below my letterbox. A fridge-freezer. A very dead
one. Lying down. A bit of modern sculpture, some performance-art, entitled 'Death of Civilisation.'
Not everyone has one. But don't be jealous. You too can have one. You just put one out for Orc's
indigestible, incompetent, inept, infuriating inorganic-collection system. Which will leave it for
you, artistically positioned, and festooned with a note to say that it will not be taken.
Like boo-rock-rats, it's impossible to take.
Would that we could get rid of the Supercilious Supersilly and get back our own Council and run our own affairs, free for ever of the malign injections from those mainliners over the water!
