- Words and pictures by Chris Dale
Introduction
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Recent Posts
- Contrasting views of seasons and weather on Port Meadow
- Mrs Duck poses for the camera
- Heron flying by
- The Commonwealth Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill and Wellington Arch
- Morning sun over Oxford University’s Ceaușescu Towers
- Sunsets too bright to be believed
- Wagtails on wood in the water
- Medley – from autumn colours to winter bleakness
- I found a blue tit while looking for waxwings
- Four variants on a view of Port Meadow floods
- Waxwings in Oxford
- Flooding at the south end of Port Meadow
- Feather in the water
- Filthy pictures – sewage on Port Meadow
- Thames Water brings its own special flavour to Medley
Social
- Words and pictures by Chris Dale
Introduction
-
Recent Posts
Category Archives: Bureaucrats
Lemonade, wind-breaks and a Passion Play – the triumph of officiousness over common sense
Tired of Brexit, I come back to that staple subject, the dim and officious council employee and other “small-minded officials with powers disproportionate to their intelligence” as I put it in an article of 2010. The lemonade girl of Tower … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Local Government
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You are ’16 going on ’17 and tomorrow belongs to….well, we have control now, whiners
Two songs from film musicals seemed appropriate as 2016 ticked over to 2017. In The Sound of Music, a cropped-haired young Nazi explains to a naive young girl about ’16 going on ’17. Timid and shy and scared are you … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, Bureaucrats, Politics
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Two of the UK’s most hated companies in quick succession at Heathrow
We felt quite cheery as we set off for New York via Heathrow. Then we came across two of the UK’s most disliked companies in quick succession. Encounters with WH Smith and G4S show how public distaste for a business starts with … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Planes, Transport
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The tripod police at Oxford station
I referred in a recent article to the risk of being taken for a terrorist whilst taking photographs in London. Mary Ann was due back from Cornwall on a very late train, and I thought it might be interesting to … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Jobsworths, Photography, Railways
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Au barricades as the French beat off the men who saved them on D-Day
One does long to love the French as much as one loves their food and their countryside, but they don’t make it easy. The Telegraph reports that French bureaucrats (and it is no coincidence that the very word comes from … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats
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Hideous new buildings rising at the south end of Port Meadow Oxford
One hardly needs to prove that the pen-pushing creatures who scuttle behind the skirting-boards at Oxford City Council’s Planning Department are not fit and proper people to look after Oxford, but in case you are in doubt, see this photograph … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Oxford, Oxford planning, Planning, Port Meadow
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Tanner talks rubbish again in Oxford
Gordon Brown’s big Labour conference speech was described simultaneously (and by the same people) as absolutely awful and the best he has ever made. A group of viewers were given devices which allowed them to record their reactions to the … Continue reading
Three traffic wardens for one car
I watched a pack of traffic wardens surround a car in Market Street, Oxford this afternoon. I guess only one gets the bonus and perhaps they had all raced to get there, the fastest getting to do the job while … Continue reading
A different view of grafitti
I was about to publish one of my periodic comments on the prevalence of graffiti in my part of North Oxford and at the failure by both Oxford City Council and the police to do anything either to prevent it … Continue reading
Just empty the f***ing bins
What can we do when Oxford City Council officers refuse to collect the plastic which won’t fit into our blue boxes? Stop drinking milk? Like many others in Oxford, I make a trip to the tip every so often to … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Oxford, Oxford recycling, Recycling
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Photographing traffic wardens
I did a piece yesterday about a traffic warden who “ordered” a driver to delete photographs which he took of her. The source of that was an Oxford Times Online story which has since attracted some comments. One is a … Continue reading
Data Protection and public photographs
Oxford Times Online has a story about a man who, whilst being given a parking ticket by a traffic warden, spotted that she had herself parked on a double-yellow line and took a photograph of her. She “ordered” him to … Continue reading
Fish-heads for Fooks not fair
It seemed more than a little unfair of Dom Joly to pursue Councillor Jean Fooks round Oxford Town Hall with a box of rotting fish on his television programme The Complainers last week. Mrs Fooks is the executant of a … Continue reading
Didcot Country Theme Park to cost £2.5m
South Oxfordshire’s plan to tame Wittenham Clumps into a country theme park are reminiscent of Jerome K Jerome’s caricature of German tidiness. Why can’t these ghastly little people leave the countryside alone, why don’t they leave people to make their … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Didcot, South Oxfordshire, Wittenham Clumps
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Westgate War to continue
The Battle of Bonn Square has given way to the War of Westgate, as protesters promise to keep fighting the development to the end. As one who has long predicted a civil uprising in Oxford, I am on their side. … Continue reading
Grafitti remedy worse than the grafitti
Slopping green paint over graffiti ruins the brickwork permanently. Leave the graffiti there until the day when we have competent people in charge who will address the real problem, not just paint over it to meet their targets. The principle … Continue reading
Posted in Aristotle Lane, Bureaucrats, Graffiti, Oxford, Oxford City Council
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‘Pride in our city’ gets a gutter cleared
It now appears that it was Oxford City Council who weeded the 30 foot stretch of gutter illustrated in my post No grass in Oxford except in the gutters . I had surmised in A gutter gets weeded in Oxford … Continue reading
A gutter gets weeded in Oxford!
I put up a post a couple of days ago called No grass in Oxford except in the gutters which explored a couple of paradoxes – the fact that Oxford’s planners want to concrete all the grass whilst the street … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Oxford, Oxford City Council
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What a load of bollards in Oriel Square
Oriel Square was a bustling, pretty little place when I first knew it, as an undergraduate in the 1970s. I lived round the corner for two years and crossed it every day. Oriel College is beautiful even amongst its peers, … Continue reading
Environment Agency neglects the basics
Many factors contributed to the severity of the recent Oxford floods – a lot of rain fell in a short time; the Government reneged on its flood defence funding commitments; Oxford’s developer-friendly planning officers, too idle to think beyond getting … Continue reading
Posted in Bureaucrats, Flooding, Oxford, Oxford Canal, Oxford City Council, River Thames
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Oxford Inciter 