Bureaucrats Gone Mad

Last night on the Channel 4 News there was a story about an amazingly stupid Ministry of Defence (MoD) screw-up. About a year ago a British soldier was killed in action in Afghanistan. This week his family got a hand-delivered letter from the MoD informing them that the final settlement of his pay had been incorrect and they were deducting £433.13. And thirteen pence!!!

It turns out that he poor guy died ten days before the end of the month and therefore he didn’t earn all of his vacation pay for that year. Hence the error!

The MoD has since apologized to the family for “… any distress caused.” They also helpfully pointed out that this sort of adjustment was routine for dead soldiers. The insensitivity of the letter and the “apology” are dreadful and the public relations consequences are appalling, but the financial impact should also be examined.

From the government’s point-of-view they were able to claw back £433.13. As they are constantly reminding us, these are difficult times, the country’s debts must be paid off and we’re all in this together, even the parents of dead soldiers. On the other hand, I wonder how much it costs to hand deliver a letter from the MoD in London to a bereaved family in Lancashire. I’ll bet it cost more than £400. I’m also curious about the cost of the MoD’s PR consultants’ fees to deal with the media for this incident. I’ll bet that was a LOT more than £400. My guess is that the government has incurred a serious net loss on this transaction. Oh well, we’re all in this together, even the MoD.

By the way, the Minister of Defence had to resign a few days ago for violating the Ministerial Code.

Manhole Covers, Trains, etc.

Times are tough here in the UK. Unemployment is high and rising higher; right now it’s a bit over eight percent. Wages and salaries are going down on average in both real and absolute terms. The prices of gasoline (petrol), electricity and gas are rocketing upward. And, on top of all this, there is no economic growth at all. I know all these things are true in other countries as well to a greater or lesser degree, but there’s a symptom of the economic trouble here that seems to be peculiarly British.

The theft of all things metal is becoming a national emergency. Thieves are prying up manhole covers. They’re cutting down high-voltage power cables and the cables from electric train lines. The lights go off, the trains stop and local government must pay a lot of taxpayer’s money to replace the manhole covers.

All this metal gets sold on the scrap metal markets. This activity is well reported on the news programs, so I suppose most people know about it. What I can’t figure out is why the cops don’t just drop in on all the scrap metal dealers and have a look around. I mean manhole covers should be pretty easy to spot. They could bust dealers with manhole covers for handling stolen goods. That should soon put the thieves to work finding something else to steal.

Oh, but the government is cutting police budgets by an average of around 20%

The Green Dragon

Hereford is our county town (county seat in American) the HQ of our local government. It’s about 15 miles from Leominster. Susan and I go there several times a year for our dentist or to shop. Hereford is a busy town with a big central square and a good number of shops.

Hereford’s cathedral is appropriately large and seemingly always under serious repair work. In the cathedral there is an interesting museum that has the Mappa Mundi, a thirteenth century depiction of the then known world. There is also the Chained Library. This is a collection of the cathedral’s oldest books, some dating from eighth century. The “Chained” part comes from the practice of chaining the books to the shelves so that they couldn’t be stolen.

Just up the street from the Cathedral is a large hotel called the Green Dragon. I’d guess that the name derives from the fact that the dragon is the symbol of Wales, which is not too far away. On the wall facing the street the hotel flies four flags. One of these flags shows a dragon emblem.

The dragon on the flag is red.

Who’s the Russian Composer?

This one made me laugh out loud. BBC Radio 4’s lunch time program, “You and Yours”, is a variety magazine format focussing on issues that affect their listeners. One of the items in today’s program was about questions on the UK test for new citizens that have incorrect answers. A naturalized citizen who described himself as an academic gave several examples from the book issued to prospective new Brits. In this book there are practice questions and answers and quite a few of the answers were wrong.

At the end of the program the presenter repeated a story attributed to Peter Ustinov. When he was newly arrived in Britain he was once asked a question on some kind of test that went like this, “Name one Russian Composer.” Ustinov answered, “Rimsky-Korsakov.” When his test was returned, the question was marked “Incorrect, the correct answer is Tchaikovsky.”

Red Squirrel, Grey Squirrel

At some point in the dim past grey squirrels were introduced into the UK from North America. It seems that these immigrant squirrels were more successful in their new environment than the native red ones. It is a commonly held belief here that the greys beat up or killed the reds. In fact, they were just better at eating and breeding in England. Over time the grey squirrels gradually displaced the natives to the point where there are very few of the latter left. This situation makes the grey squirrels a convenient and much used metaphor for Americans in general. The subject of red (good) vs. grey (bad) comes up several times every year on BBC Radio 4 and sometimes in nature programs on TV as well.

The recent big news story of Amanda Knox is a case in point. Ms. Knox, an American, was convicted four years ago in Italy of murdering her university roommate, Meredith Kercher, a British subject. This week, in a re-trial, Ms. Knox was found, on the basis of faulty evidence, to have been wrongly convicted and was released from prison to return to her home in the USA. This has been on the front page in the papers and the lead story in the broadcast media all this week. The tone of these stories suggests, subtly, of course, that there might be something wrong with the new court ruling. After all, she is an American accused of killing a Brit.

Grey squirrel vs. red squirrel all over again!