The Lords, The License and The Liars.
THE LORDS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4825790.stm
Quick post today at a guess as I am sending out the Amber invites and have to start actually using sections of my brain that I prefer to leave on freewheel action as long as possible. If at some point this morning/ afternoon those of you in the central London area experience brown outs, have no fear I’m just plugging myself into the National Grid in a desperate attempt to kick start a small section of grey matter.
So what to yatter about? Well the Lords (Gawd bless ‘em) punted the ID card bollocks back again at the Commons for the 4th time. With the predictable diatribe from “outraged” New Labour apologists, something along the lines of how disgusted they were that an unelected body would dare to defy the Commons. I assume I’m missing the point of the Upper chamber here that it is meant to oversee the actions of the Commons.
The problem being of course that if HM Gov wants the legislation through it just whips out the Parliament Act and says bollocks to you. So I’m still slightly confused at the gibberish from certain members of HM Gov, especially as they seem so eager to put more and more people into the Lords. Indeed not since James I/ VI have so many bought so much for such a good price. I can only assume it’s a Scottish thing.
Equally how does the conversation work between those offering and those buying? I have this awful sensation that somewhere in a back lit wine bar you have some twonk sipping his heated water with a lemon slice talking with a bastion of industry running something along the lines of,
“Well for 250k we can give you the basic package, you know, tea on the lawn, a quick hello to Her Maj and of course the slightest whiff of ermine. Obviously this is just entrance level stuff.”
“Well I was hoping for something a bit more, now that all the NEO positions have been snapped up I’m looking for something to fill my days. Of course some generous expenses would be nice and the excuse of popping down to Town for a couple of hours a week would be good too.”
“Okay so were looking at the more expansive options, well we’ve got the Chai. That’s a nice deal. 1.2mill, yeah I know it sounds a lot, but. No I promise absolutely no chance anyone will find out, ’cos you’re not going to say anything and we’re certainly not - imagine how those smelly union members would feel, and who do all those civil servants work for? Anyway, the Chai as I said it’s our top of the range full ermine, stupid coronet a private dinner or two. Great networking opportunities, oh and every now and then if you have a chance we’d really appreciate it if you voted for us.”
THE LICENSE
http://www.infologue.com/user/strAdvert.asp?idAdv=359
So now we’re onto licenses. Well it’s Day 2 in the Big SIA household and it has now become an offence not to wear your license if you have one or even better work or be sent to work without a license. Sounds great huh? Well there are a couple of tiny loopholes. First off of course there is the infamous ACS hole. Which basically says that the company you come from or, are employed by has bunged someone a couple of tenners when they came round to check them out and as such they cans send staff without licenses to sites. Okay it’s not that bad, but is basically saying that a bod can be on site, un-vetted for around 2 months. The SIA however said of course this can’t involve sites with minors. So basically no child abusers please but feel free to knick anything that isn’t nailed down.
The second entertaining hole is that if you are defined as “non-front line” also known to everyone within the industry as wankers or sometimes managers. Well this delightful group do not have the same rigorous standards for criminal checks. For instance there may be a manager that I could possibly be aware of who has been successfully charged with: affray; drunken disorderly; theft and my personal favourite fraud. However as these are defined for “non-front line” staff as irrelevant to the licence then no problem. If however your one of the grunts well no license. So be warned all you people out there, the people with real access to information, access control systems and quite frankly your stuff, well they may not be that snowy white.
THE LIARS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4824426.stm
Finally if you scratch your nose when talking to someone your probably not lying - fun little piece.
Sees you all later will be supping this eve