the head librarian at my local library is Sigmund Freud.
He says no one can get a library card unless they have three forms of id.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 1 Aug 2007, 9:55, Reply)

I asked the council whether they were going to let paedophiles move in
and they said "yes, absolutely, as many as possible."

Stupid Sparta Council.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 1 Aug 2007, 9:51, Reply)

Child Tax Credit
Not the council, but HMRC. What an absolute shower of cnuts they are.

All families with an income of less than a huge amount are entitled to claim Child Tax Credit. The amount awarded is on a sliding scale according to income, but the minimum payment is around £42 per month.

The jokers at the HMRC wrote to me a few years ago to advise me of my annual award. They informed me that as I had 0 children, my new award for the year would be £0. I phoned them to announce my shock at this, as I most certainly left 2 children having their breakfast with their mother not an hour previously.

They apologised, and said that it was an error due to them moving onto a new computer system. I would be issued with a new award statement.

I was. It said the same fecking thing. And the next one, and the next.

I finally manage to make a breakthrough, and they decide to issue us, on a monthly basis, a manually raised Giro. They've apparently given up trying to tell the system that I have 2 kids, so they have to raise a payment manually instead. Every month. Christ knows how many others are in the same boat, but I'm guessing it's thousands. Somewhere there is an army of drones manually raising Giros because 'The computa sez no'.

Oh yes, one other point. They still owe us the whopping total of £545 for an entire year of payments. Apparently manual payments cannot be issued retrospectively for an entire year's worth of payments. They've now owed us this for 3 years.

Meanwhile I know that my tax bill, from the very same people, will be shortly dropping through the door demanding payment within 28 days, or they'll chop my bollocks off.

As I said, cnuts.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Wed 1 Aug 2007, 9:43, Reply)

One sec there Le Brian...

"The police and fire service are there to help you. Even if you don't have a fire or get broken in to, they're still ready should it ever happen."

Still ready? STILL SCROTE-NAILING READY????

Firstly, I refer you to norcomark's post "FIRE!!" (currently residing in page 3 of this QOTW.)

Also, the police...there to help? Shag me ragged, if it wasn't so funny I would empty my arse in despair. The police are nothing but a bunch of lazy-arsed, speed-camera toting, abuse-of-power, pick-on-the-easy-targets, lickspittle crime-number dispensers who (like the councils btw) are way more concerned about draining every drop of hard-earned cash from decent Joe Pooflake...(erm, I meant 'Joe PUBLIC')
They might be bogged down with beaurocratic red tape etc blah blah just like the rest of us, but that doesn't stop them being shit scared of real criminals and after an easy life - i.e bullying the ballbags off the rest of us.

Anyone had a real 'crime' solved recently and satisfactorily by the police?....no?

Anybody been done recently and fined for something pointless, non-harmful and generally nonsensical??

....please form an orderley queue.

Christ I'm just so happy that another £120 has come out of my bank account this morning to pay for the wastes of DNA that work for the councils and police etc.

Now I feel safe.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Wed 1 Aug 2007, 9:37, Reply)

le brian makes some good points
the one I agree with most however, is the council "rebranding" that goes on.

it really fucks me off that a council would decide that they need a new logo

why? because their old image isn't trendy enough, and the people might choose to go with a different council? fuck off.

this brings me on to the environment agency doing the same thing.

"hmm, I don't like the environment agency's logo. I'll take my business to one of their rivals...."

what a load of bollocks. it cost a fortune in taxpayers money, and all they did was change a font and the colour of something. big fucking deal.

cocks
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 1 Aug 2007, 9:36, Reply)

at deaths door
A few years back when i was living in England i worked for the electricity board. For various reasons i had to deal with local authorities to gain access to council properties. To be fair most councils were pretty good and sent a man round with a set of keys at the agreed time.

It was during one of these visits that i got the following story from a council maintance worker.

It seems that about a year previous a tennant had comitted suicide in his council flat. Nothing unusual there normal story, after a couple of weeks the neighbours complain about the smell enviromental health goes in and finds the rotting corpse.

This particular winner had killed himself by hanging himself over the back of the bedroom door. After a while he had sort of started to leak fluids.
The council cleared the flat ready for the next tennant HOWEVER
As the corpse had leaked the thin plywood door had absorbed his juices so there was a permant man shaped mark on it.

Given these circumstances any normal person would throw the door away but not the council. Instead they elected to paint over the door . Result a man shaped stain on back of door in semi gloss.

The stupid thing is that this council has its own joinery facilities to make doors , it would only have of cost them an extra 10 quid or so to do things properly.

In this qotw people are moaning about unnessecary expenditure but in this case who would begrudge it ?? Would you want to move into a flat with this sort of reminder of the previous tenant??

So Letchworth town council managment for being such tight arsed cunts I say fucking know it all wankers.
(welgar, Wed 1 Aug 2007, 8:49, Reply)

Jobsworth
is somebody who is unessarily obstructive and generally behaves like a cunt, while CLAIMING doing something simple and helpful would be 'more than me jobs worf mate'
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Wed 1 Aug 2007, 7:07, Reply)

I'm trying to understand the use of the term "jobsworth"...
....basically, someone won't risk getting the sack just for your benefit and somehow they're in the wrong for that? I don't understand you people.
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Wed 1 Aug 2007, 1:43, Reply)

A local east end council lets call them Darking and Bagenham
Wouldn't this be funny if it were all true?

Take a left wing council, Labour stronghold if you will.......a few years ago forcibly start to indoctrinate staff about inequality, to the point of an employee from the black womens workers group talking in a crappy video about "enjoying the challenge of working in a well known racist area" (based on what ???? maybe the unwavering labour vote??)do nothing about 90 or so illegal african tenants whom have had Tenancies sold to them by an employee (whom herself helped address the ethnic imbalance) at up to three grand a time alledgedly, and then appear on tv bleating about the lack of available housing to those in need due to government/ right to buy policies. Continue to pursue policies to turn the "Racist (albeit left wing) area" into an area that is in harmony with its new found diversity and everyone lives happy ever after....oh except they now probably have a dozen BNP councillors ....job done....raises eyebrow.....
(Froddo, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 22:53, Reply)

"I don't use any council resources"
Yes, you do.

The police and fire service are there to help you. Even if you don't have a fire or get broken in to, they're still ready should it ever happen.

Unless your private road connects directly to a motorway, you are using the other roads in your area. So, yes, you need to pay for them.

Schools are educating the people who will be looking after your sorry arse in 15-20 years time, and they keep the little darlings off the streets for most of the week. Yes, they need to be paid for.

Anyway, rant over, the small-minded amongst you can go back to complaining that you have to pay for the next street to be dug up.

My council just renamed themselves to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council and gave themselves a shiny new logo. I don't even want to think what that cost.
( le brian, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 22:43, Reply)

Um Fucksticks
It works on house value. Your four bedroom house is worth more therefore you pay more.

And before you whinge, think about the poor single people who only get a 25% reduction in council tax despite working like a Trojan and consuming less than a quarter of the resources of a family!
(Medibot, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 22:11, Reply)

Council Tax
Lived in a 2 bed house with my wife. We both worked, no kids, no benefits. Council tax = £100 per month.

Now live in a 4 bed house with my wife. Same council We both work, no kids, no benefits. Council tax = £170 per month.

How the fuck does that work then? We move to a bigger house, consume the same services and pay more! In fact, the road at our new place isn't adopted meaning that the council has no responsibility for street lights, surfacing, parking restrictions, etc. We should get a fucking discount for that. Cunts.
(Fucksticks, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 21:49, Reply)

Completely off the point...
But who was the noob BG employee (Cardiff) I glared at meaningfully cos they had a B3ta t-shirt on?

He was ginger in the style of La Manuel.


I feel like a B3ta whore but,

Click 'I like this' if you'd like two, clearly sick-minded and bored call centre employees to find themselves a butty. :D
(Medibot, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 21:45, Reply)

It took Edinburgh Council no less than FIVE MONTHS
to sort out my housing benefit. When they finally did get round to doing it, they sent it to my landlord, who cashed the cheque, and I had to be very polite to him to get it back (I had actually been paying my rent all that time).

One time I got a council tax bill for a whole year they just forgot to charge for.

Trying to get them to cancel the benefit when I finally moved out was an extra challenge. They sent my final benefit cheque and council tax refund to the house I just told them I'd moved out of. Moving in my new place was also fun. They back-taxed us for five years worth as the computer system couldn't handle someone just moving in with someone else and consequently backdated my occupancy to when my boyfriend first bought the property. We also had a student as a lodger, for added administrative hilarity (the council also sent him a tax bill at his mother's house, presuming him to be her husband).

And before that there was Durham Council, who spend an entire year trying to get our council tax bill right when I was living there as a student. Since there were three of us in the house, an undergraduate, a postgraduate, and a postdoctoral researcher, this caused them great difficulties in working anything out correctly at all. In short, only one of us was actually liable for paying any tax (the postdoc). They told me the college sent them the list of students so I wouldn't need to do anything further. Still no discount. You see, the college doesn't tell them about postgraduates, only undergraduates. So then I had to go through the equally dismal University administration to get an exemption certificate, stamped by my department and everything, which I took to the council and they sent me another bill which was wrong, because they lost my certificate so I had to get another one. Eventually they sent us a court order for non-payment of council we weren't even due and it was up to me to sort it out again. I had been to their offices on something like a monthly basis and every time I had explained the situation and only a week before I left did they send us a bill that was correct.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 21:37, Reply)

Er.
www.b3ta.com/~Mykeyboy
( Malchick, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 20:48, Reply)

Southwark Council
Now there's a real bunch of cunts.
Most of the maintenance and repair contractors they employ, particularly 'Botes', are even bigger cunts.
(rambleon, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 20:35, Reply)

Rubbish cunts
Anyone else remember when putting rubbish away was like this?

1. Bins out on a Sunday night.
2. Big stuff down the dump.

Now it's like this.

1. No bins allowed, only bin-bags, so it's easier for foxes and rats to have a nibble and spill the contents of your cat's litter tray over the front garden. So much more hygienic.
2. Bin-bags must be exactly 13.75 inches from kerb, or binmen will not take them, stinking out your street for an entire week, leaving a sarcastic note written in crayon.
3. Bin-bags must not be put out more than 3 seconds before the dustmen turn up at 5 in the afternoon. This is a good way of stinking your entire house out, especially during those long summer months.
4. If you do dare put your bin-bags out before the dustmen have actually left, some friendless cunt with a clipboard will come round and rip through your maggoty old leftovers to try and find something with your address on it (tip: shred everything, or leave something with the council's address on it) so they can fine you half your week's wages.
5. At the dump, some stinking twat in a hi-vis jacket will sniff round everything you're throwing away to make sure you're not throwing the "wrong things" away.
6. If you dare visit the dump twice in a day, you'll be told never to come back.

How the fuck did it become so difficult to throw stuff away? No penalties for the scum who put half a ton of packaging on everything you buy, obviously; it's not their fault. It's clearly everyone else's fault for not being some yoghurt-weaving wanker from the Observer Magazine who lives in a woollen teepee and has the time to turn all known waste into petrol.
(budddwyer This thing will hurt someone, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 19:49, Reply)

Strewth, talk about 'above and beyond!!'
Cheers again rachelswipe.

I can definitely confirm that the house is bleeding miles away from where this godforsaken tree is. They do say something about a 'private drainage system for this area' but basically, they can 'lick my left one'.

Talking of which, I've just had a thought...Am I going to receive a bill for this advice? and if so...can I pay in sexual favours?

(you can't blame a guy for trying)
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Tue 31 Jul 2007, 19:11, Reply)

Herts County Council...
... are in my experience actually quite good, but some time ago they franchised out the local dumps/recycling centres to a private firm. The one nearest me is staffed by pikies who run the place like wannabe Nazis and above all, insist that all electrical goods be put in a special pile round the back of one of the skips. Fair enough, I thought initially, this must be some sort of eco-friendly directive. Not a bit of it - basically they take (and presumably sell) anything that looks remotely serviceable when they think nobody's looking.

A couple of years ago my CD player developed an annoying habit of skipping, and it was uneconomical to have it repaired. So I took it up the dump and made a great point of asking where I was supposed to leave it. I could see their eyes light up when they saw the CD player, and just before putting it with the rest of the electrical goods I pretended to trip and dropped the player to the ground. The insides smashed with a satisfying crunch.

I have since done this with an old Amstrad computer, a monitor screen and a TV. Childish but fun.
(eesnahk, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 18:13, Reply)

dont recycle
I have worked on a tip or as the council would have it 'household waste recycling centre'. They don't belong to the council any more, as they were all sold off to private company's who will run them for a fee. But in order to keep their contract they have to basically do what the council says.

This basically means having recycling bins. But does the stuff in them get recycled? does it fuck. If something untoward goes in a recycling container the recycling centre wont take it and it will have to be dumped on a landfill at a cost of 120-140 pounds a ton or 1400+ pounds per skip. if you work at the tip health and safety dictates you cant go in a skip and get it out.

don't recycle: cardboard. for every person who sorts through his/her skanky rubbish there are ten who cant be arsed to pull Styrofoam from their old packaging. result; cardboard goes on landfill

don't recycle: white glass in the white glass bin. white glass can be mixed with any colour glass but the white glass bin gets contaminated with clear plastic/window glass/pyrex

don't recycle: building waste. at every dump there is a place for soils and rubble. for this people read "any old crap relating to the building trade". result; goes on landfill at a cost of 1600 pounds


there are plenty of people who try and recycle but they are outnumbered by persons who couldn't give a flying fuck . as a result around one fifth of what goes in recycling bins actually gets recycled.

since all this dumping costs money any profits to be made quickly get eaten up. more dumping means less landfill space=more money to dump. this is why in order to stay solvent the waste management company's have to charge the council more every year. this gets passed on to your council tax.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 17:53, Reply)

well
there's lots and lots of legal shit. but the very basic position (no liability accepted for reading this, esp if you die of boredom):




A tree belongs to the owner of the land on which it grows even if its branches or roots go over or under adjoining land. This includes the branches and the fruit of any tree or shrub. This even applies to windfall apples etc.

Roots that grow from land onto a neighbour's are trespassing. The neighbour can chop the roots along the boundary line without permission (although if he damages the tree this is a different issue).

Roots can often lead to substantial damages:

1. The cost of repairs
2. The reduction in the value of the house
3. Any other expenses directly arising
4. Probably the legal costs of the person who has suffered the damage.
5. An order by the court that the owner of the tree cuts back the branches or the roots or takes down the tree itself.

Subsidence/damage caused by tree roots will involve a claim, which will generally be a nuisance rather than trespass if it has to go to Court. Naturally a negotiated agreement with neighbours would be far preferable.

For the Council to succeed:

1. As Claimant, it must be an owner of the land affected. This would usually mean that they must either own the freehold or have leasehold of the land.

2. The person alleged to commit the nuisance (the Defendant) should be in occupation of the land from which the roots grow because he has to be in a position to abate the nuisance. This is the crucial point for Pooflake, unless the tree is on his land or land of which he is a co-owner such as shared garden.

3. Unlike trespass where damage is not necessary the Council must be able to prove that damage has already been caused to its property.

4. A reasonable person in the position of the Defendant must be able to have foreseen that damage would be caused by the roots.

Insurance Companies will often say that a building is old and that that is the reason for the damage. They might even argue that the house should not have been built so near to trees. Neither of these arguments is a strong one.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 17:35, Reply)

Not really much to say...
but whilst i'm here.

CUNTS
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 17:20, Reply)

Weston-super-Mare
'"Cunt"cil' is how I always refer to our town "cunt"cil on my blog. I have managed to compare them to the Luftwaffe and drugged up hippies in my local paper (sadly they didn't use my last sentence in a reply to one of our "cunts"cillors who was moaning that "Only sad cases write into newspapers", the phrase was "This man is about as welcome as dysentry in a rowing boat" (oh and the little fucker, who used to be my Geography teacher at school years ago, then got unelected and now sends lots of letters in to the paper... well done you fucking spacktard).

And whooo....

Weston is a crap hole compared to the past. It is now full of druggies because our "cunt"cil lets every other rehab centre that wants to open, open. Then the various nicking scousers, braindead geordies and tosspot cockneys wander in, get kicked out of rehab and start turning the place into Moss Side.

We used to have a great fun pool on the sea front... until they cancelled the contract and sold it to developers... and so for the past 12 years we have had a derelict building and that is it. A local blokey even offered to build the pool himself but now they have some God awful grand scheme and it will never EVER get done (click THIS link for a good example of a shit "cunts"cil).

And all the good hotels and leisure areas are being sold off to some fat business cunts who want to make their wallets fatter and their rent boys more sore.

One day... one day I shall be on the council.

And I shall rape them all, men and women, using the deeds to the town hall. CUNNNNNNNTS.

*anddddd breathe*
(elfinpunk Touching Cloth Since, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 17:15, Reply)

Hull
I'm amazed at how many posts end with the intention of "going to Hull". For your own sakes, don't. It's a proper shit-hole. The council tends to enjoy languishing at the bottom of the performance tables. Unless the council are actually that consistantly fuck-awful. What am I saying? Of course they are.

Hull is bisected by a small river, and everyone in east Hull has to cross the river by a selection of bridges to get to what geography students would call the CBD.

Last year, for about 9 months or so, one of the bridges, North Bridge, was completely closed for repairs, fair enough, the bridge is rather old).

For at least the last 2 months, there has been a contraflow system over the bridge as they seem to be doing little more than applying a new coat of blue paint.

Also, Hull faired quite bad in recent flooding. Particularly, Floodplain Housing Estate, or Kingswood as it is officially called, along with all the nice leafy suburbs which suffered badly too.

It was revealed that the council had cut funding from the department that goes about in those big lorries that hoover all the detritus out of the drains so rainwater can drain away quickly. James Reckitt Avenue is lined with deciduous trees. After the rains, it was like a river.

Yet the council said the drains weren't a problem.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 16:49, Reply)

B3tans stand together!!!
The legend that is rachelswipe has just let me know that there's no legal way the Coventry City Crap-pipes can attempt to shaft me with their bag-of-bollocks 'let's all pay for somebody else's tree' effort...

Thanks kiddo...

I can't wait for the next bill to come through the door from these turd-mongers. In fact, I've already begun to write my reply...This is what I've written so far:


Dearest Cunts from the Council,

I would like to inform you that I will be returning your lovely bill to you, immediately after I have used it as bog-roll following a big smelly gronk.

Hit me with your best shot, you bunch of wank bats.

Boom Shanka,

Love pooflake
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Tue 31 Jul 2007, 16:48, Reply)

The "Magic Words" referred to by RadG below are
right here: www.b3ta.com/questions/jobsworths/post31486"
( chart cat has an itch, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 16:24, Reply)

Another story from the inside...
This comes from another job, this time with Tower Hamlets council. A colleague of mine was helping one of the new officers with her computer.

The new officer knew nothing of computers. She was asking the sort of questions my grandmother would ask (and she's 95). The best was when she asked how to delete a file. She was told to click on the relevant file and drag it into the recycling bin. So she clicked on it, she dragged the mouse...

...and threw the mouse into the rubbish bin under the bin!

This was someone being paid between 50-60% more than me...!
(hit me with your jesus stick, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 16:22, Reply)

Ho ho ho. What are the chances
Anyway, haven't had a council tax bill from BARNET - Yes, BARNET COUNCIL for a couple of months. Luckily, I have been keeping this money aside waiting for their response to my requests (plural) for an updated bill.

Finally today my girlfriend managed to speak to someone at the council who said that we owed them £1040 for incurring various charges as we have failed to pay our council tax. We actually owe for the period of April till now and have been requesting the bill since then.

Amazingly, somehow every letter the council has sent to us in this period giving us our new bill and mulitple warnings (about 8 or 9 letters in total) have ALL gone missing. Now, 1 or 2 I could blame Royal Mail but every. single. one. Come on you lousy bunch of low life bastards. You obviously have some fat chunk of shit sitting in your postal department wiping their ass with my letters.

Anyway, after much arguing we have managed to get the bill reduced to what we do owe them.

Roll on the next few missed bills

BARNET COUNCIL - YOU BUNCH OF CUNTS
(Clivicus, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 16:15, Reply)

Not Edinburgh Council this time....
....but the Scottish Executive.

New parliament building estimate? £40M.

Actual build price? Over £400M.

Number of convictions for fraud? 0.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Tue 31 Jul 2007, 16:03, Reply)