I have nothing to say about council cunts
...but I will add my tuppence about BT.

About seven years ago, me + Mrs RWN moved into a rather nice rented flat in Harpenden. On our arrival, we found a BT ISDN box had been installed and, not wanting to pay for the service (which was expensive and shit), asked BT to come and remove it. "Of course" they said, "that'll be £50 please." £50 to remove something that we hadn't asked for and didn't want? But it was that or pay even more per month for the ISDN, so we agreed (then got the landlord to pay for it -- bargain).

Anyway so the guy came and did the work. After he left, I went to make a 'phone call and the line was dead. Odd. I was in the bedroom, so I tried the one in the lounge and it worked. Very odd. I then tried the other two sockets: also dead. Very odd indeed -- four sockets, all but one dead, when they'd all been working the day before.

I called BT and they said, "Oh yeah, the engineer who removed the ISDN box also deactivated all but the main socket. It's standard practice." Right, said I (starting to lose my cool just a little), can you please ask him to come back and re-activate them? "Oh yes, of course. That'll be £52." £52 to reactivate something that was working just fine before your man broke it? "Er...no, it'll be £156. It's £52 per socket."

Take a moment to imagine my response.

After spending several hours over the next couple of weeks trying (and failing) to get some sense out of BT, we told them to disconnect the line immediately, and switched to NTL. NTL might not have been perfect, but for the same price as a single BT line we got 'phone, cable TV and broadband. And when the engineers came to fit the kit (for free) they also re-activated all the disconnected 'phone sockets (for free).

I don't know about the council, but BT is a bunch of cunts and no mistake.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 9:50, Reply)

earlier this month
a big A4 envelope arrived from the local council, Do Not Redirect and all the stripes and logos on it to indicate that This Is A Big Important Piece Of Post. Inside was a single sheet of paper, telling me to complete and return the enclosed form, with all documents on the attached list, within 14 days.

There was no form. There was no list.

I wish it ended there, but when I got to their office (you don't really think they'd answer the phone, do you?) the lady on reception listened to my query, looked at the letter I showed her, signed me into the building and gave me a number.

After over an hour of waiting, I went back to reception to just, you know, check, that I hadn't got my number wrong, or fallen asleep and missed it. "Oh dear," she said, and that's never a good thing to hear from anyone official, "we [no, you dumb bitch, it was YOU, personally] forgot to allocate you to an advisor."

Two minutes later I was seen, thirty seconds after that I was leaving with a 20-odd page form to fill out and a list of documentation they needed. I do hope it was the right one. I returned it (in person, and got a receipt) next-day but I haven't heard back from them yet...
( Batsgirl, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 9:49, Reply)

My overgrown bush
It's funny to see this QOTW as I sent this email last Friday.

Dear Sir,

I live at B3any_towers and I would like to discuss the issue of my back passage which runs from my property to another road. I think something should be done about my back passage, it is currently overgrown with bindweed and nettles and access to my property is restricted. We are currently in the process of moving house and so there will be increased activity up and down my back passage. There is a bramble bush at the end of the passage which is somewhat overgrown, and the nettles are becoming uncomfortable, only the other day my wife complained of developing a nasty rash having successfully forced her way up my back passage.

About 4 years ago you sent me a letter informing me that due to health and safety issues the refuse collection team were no longer going to be able to access my back passage to collect my rubbish. I can understand this, as on a cold and icy morning access to my back passage could be considered as dangerous. However, without the constant traffic that my passage once enjoyed the natural obstruction has become worse.

I am not sure who is responsible for the cleanliness of my passage, but as it is not identified in my deeds, I assume that the responsibility for clear access to my passage is with the council.

On a serious note, I do feel that the vegetation at the end of my passage does pose a safety issue to members of the public, as it can offer a hiding place for undesirables to hide, or carry out other indecent acts. In the past I have found beer cans and drugs paraphernalia at the entrance to my passage.

If the council agrees to clear the growth at the end of my back passage, I would be more than happy to ensure that the rest of my passage is clear.

I hope this email has amused, but there is a serious issue with the overgrown bushes at the end of my passage.

Yours sincerely
B3any_pants

I got the response yesterday informing my that the footway is not their responsibility or that of the County Council, so I will have to do it myself

TWUNTS!
(B3any_pants, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 9:38, Reply)

something and nothing
My council tax bill for 2003 arrived and I was over joyed to find out it had already been paid as the fuckwits had hideously charged me the previous year, the bill was £0.00. it gave me a small chuckle and I put it in the bin. Several weeks pass and I receive another bill for £0.00, telling me this amount was now overdue and i must make payment urgently. So I rang them, how do I pay a zero amount??? after about an hour of them umming and ahing it was decided that I didn't need to pay. end of things or so I thought, but oh nose, I went to Iraq for 3 months and the postal service over there isn't exactly the best. on my return home i had various bills and baliffs letters demanding the payment of £0.00 plus a court date of about three days after my return. Super-frigging-duper, I got the last laugh when the magistrate (sp??) had the rare condition of common sense, not only did he throw the whole matter out but he recognised my regimental tie, he served in the same unit as me but 30 years earlier, on hearing where I'd been he went mental at the baliffs and council officals, forcing them to write me a letter of apology. Crowning turd in the water pipe was that I ended up on a credit blacklist. Cheers Cardiff city council, or Culeless Cunting Cretins as I prefer to call them.
(The kneeling rifleman Is slowly getting there.., Fri 27 Jul 2007, 9:31, Reply)

Sheffield again
Used to live in a council flat with gas heaters. Once a year they had to come and service them. After one such visit I went out for the evening, returning to a flat reaking of gas which was coming from the bedroom heater. I had to open every window in the house (it was the middle of winter) and sleep on the sofa in the freezing cold lounge.

When I finally got them to come and sort it (days later) I was told that it hadn't been connected back up properly. I could have died and I didn't even get an apology!

If that fitter was Corgi registered I am a .......(insert favourite comment here)

Tnucs.
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 9:27, Reply)

Back in the 1970s
we moved into a new house which my parents had built. My dad wanted to build a wall round the property to give it a bit of privacy. The council regulations stated that any boundary wall could only be a maximum of 3 feet in height despite the fact that there was a wide pavement and there was no way it was going to block the view of the road when emerging from the drive.

So he planted a hedge and grew it to 8 feet.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 9:18, Reply)

Water water everywhere...
Actually there was just the normal amount of water, but I liked the phrase. This isn't about the council, but what the hell.

Anyway: in the early 90s a friend and I moved into a flat in a recently converted Victorian house. We registered properly with all the service companies (and the council tax) and got proper responses from all of them, except the water company. Their reply was that as the building had only just been converted they had no rateable value for it yet, so there was nothing to pay - yet. We contacted them regularly but they still hadn't made up their minds.

On the very day that we were moving out they sent us a massive bill, to be paid in one go. How we laughed as we dropped it down the drain immediately outside the flats.

6 months after we were in our new house I recieved a letter asking, in so many words, 'Are you the Mr. Singingringtree that lived at X Flats during the period, etc etc.?' I just wrote back saying 'no.'

Never heard from them again. Never felt bad about it. If they'd have got their fingers out in a reasonable time we'd have paid the installments, but they didn't so sod 'em.
(singingringingtree Living in the past., Fri 27 Jul 2007, 7:36, Reply)

swimming pool fences
I have an above ground spa, it has a lockable cover on it, and i have locks and gates preventing street access to it, the only way to access said spa is through the house, and out of the back door.

the council still insists that i need a seperate isolation fence, but thats not the stupid part.

the most ridiculous part is that the minimum height of the safety fence is 10cm lower than the height of the spa it is protecting.

even after visiting the council and pointing this flaw out, they still insisted that i install the fence.

length? as i said i have 10cm more than the council requires
(bundy, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 6:52, Reply)

@TheMole
I'm sure Ofcom would be delighted to interested to hear your opinions, given that since the Tories privatised BT in the 1980s they've been doing everything in their power to prevent a monopoly, including splitting the engineering department (the ones who charged you the £162 - the same price you would've had to pay if you'd had TalkTalk or any other supplier get the line fitted) from the actual part that placed the order.

For the record when I moved into my flat the BT line was switched on within 24 hours and the broadband connected within a week (the legal minimum, I believe) and KCC were surprisingly helpful, too.
(jamesthegill opens new tabs with his scroll wheel, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 6:46, Reply)

A divergence from topic? Oh my!
I've just moved house, and the council answered the phone within 5 rings, set up my Direct Debit to pay my council tax within 15 minutes and sent me a pack of (albeit useless) information about the borough the next day.

BT, on the other hand... *deep breath*

I moved in on the 1st of the month. As a borderline addicted-to-the-net chap, I immediately sought broadband joy. To find a lack of phone line. Not, I must emphasise, a lack of a physical cable, but a lack of a record of connection. Fine, say I, reconnect this phone line post haste, but since I'm paying to have a new line installed, can I get a new master socket and a couple of extensions in, y'know, positions that might be useful to me?

I got a visit from an engineer on Friday 13th. This was the first available appointment (yes, that is a fortnight). He inspected my (pre-existing) master socket, said hmm, reconnected the wires in the green box on the street and left. No extensions or moves on his job sheet apparently - insert jobsworth comment here to forestall detail.

Despite providing my Direct Debit details on the 1st, I got a "final, last, fuck you, you bastard, I'm going to cut you off" bill on the 21st. Yes, 5 working days since the line was installed. For £162. Can I get through to customer service? Can I fuck.

BASTARDS. FUCK YOUR MONOPOLY, FUCK YOUR PROFITS, AND MAY GRIZZLY BEARS FUCK YOUR CHILDREN.

Yours,

Less-than-happy of Lytham

No, there is no other option. No cable. Just BT. Click "I agree" to tell BT that they are a useless shower of cunts, or to tell me I need a length apology. Your message is important to me, and will be answered as soon as possible.
(TheMole, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 1:30, Reply)

Croydon Council efficiency
Last year I was in the position of having to sort out my student loan, which involved filling in a load of ridiculously long and complicated forms. I couldn't use the ones my school were giving out, as they were supplied by a different Council, so I had to trek to the Council offices and get my own form. It turns out the only thing that is different is the address on the envelope they give you separate to the form.

My mother asked me, as I was going, if I could ask for a holder for her parking permit, as she had got a new car but could not move the windscreen permit holder across to the new car. I arrived at the Council offices reception to find a large room full of metal seats, all screwed down, and a complex system whereby a visitor was required to take a paper ticket with a number on for each service that was required. When the number on the ticket came up on screen, the visitor was directed to a desk to talk to a person. I was given a ticket for education, I waited for around half an hour, my number came up. I spoke to a woman who gave me a form.

I went back to the original 'welcome' desk and got a second ticket, this time for 'parking'. I waited for around another half hour, before being directed to the 'parking' desk, which happened to be the same woman I'd seen before about 'education'. I asked her for a parking permit holder and she scraped around in some very untidy drawers and under piles of forms and finally advised me to go to the Post Office and ask, as she had run out.

Great service from the Council. Incidentally, there is never a queue if you want to talk about something nice and middle class, like Planning or Environment, but the queue for the homeless is estimated at 2 hours, while the workers for Planning and Environment have a cup of coffee and a chat and enjoy doing fuck all.
( lrjlo, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 1:13, Reply)

Off Topic...
as this concerns one of our beloved former public utilities, which may or may not be trading under a name like 'Gritish Bas'.

I decided to go abroad for a bit towards the end of last year so let my flat out. Prior to this I had some problems with the gas bill. I thought I had it sorted, but I've now just had to send them this letter. (It doesn't start well - I consider it a courtesy to get someone's title right, normally only a problem when addressing a woman but in this case it wasn't obvious from the person's name what sex they were. I'm not a bigot but I'm not that au fait with names from the indian subcontinent to know what is a male or female first name! Is it too much to ask people to include their title when they write to you?)

Anyway:

Dear Mr/Ms Fuckwit,

I have received a letter from you (dated 21 June) concerning the above account following my letter to you (dated 18 June). You would have had a quicker response from me if you had written to me at the address at the top of that letter rather than the billing address. Please respond to this letter on the address above.

I find the contents of your letter very frustrating. I appreciate that your systems indicate that I have an account and have had one since 2003. I entered into a significant amount of correspondence with yourselves and othershitpowercompany last year and have also had to write to you twice this year.

To summarise (yet again):

• I set up an account with yourselves for both gas and electricity supply in 2003.

• Subsequently it transpired that neither of these was being supplied by you, but by Othershitpowercompany.

• I successfully resolved the problem with electricity supply last year.

• I thought I had successfully resolved the problem with gas supply last year as well. In previous correspondence to you, I sent you a copy of the closing bill with Othershitpowercompany before I moved out of the property last year prior to it being let out.

• You refunded to me last year all the monies I had paid to yourselves from 2003 onwards as they were actually due to Othershitpowercompany. I paid up the full amount due to this company.

• Earlier this year, you sent me a bill for gas supply to the property. I responded to you that this was incorrect. A conversation with one of your call centre operatives from your Edinburgh call centre advised me that this was indeed an error, and that although the Meter Serial Number was correct there was an incorrect correlation in your systems between that Meter Serial Number and the Supply Reference Number.

• Your Edinburgh call centre operative advised me that any bills that came through should be ignored and that a ‘zero’ account closed bill would be issued in due course. I have also received a cheque from you in respect of monies that had inadvertently been collected by direct debit by you.

• At your call centre operative’s request, I performed a ‘burn test’ and I can confirm from this that the gas supplied to the property is indeed passing through the meter with serial number 1234567S.

I fail to see why I have an obligation to pay you further monies. I have now received a number of demands to pay this bill, with added threats of legal action and one letter threatening me with having the supply cut off. Since I do not actually live at the property (it is tenanted) I assume you cannot legally do this.

I am not prepared to waste more of my time sorting out this issue, having to write repeated long accounts of the previous actions taken by you and me on this matter, when I have already supplied you with all the pertinent information.

I would like you to:

• Annul this bill for £195.11 (plus the additional £14 for your ‘urgent telemessage’) immediately.

• If there IS an amount due to you in respect of this property, please sort it out between yourselves and Othershitpowercompany. I have paid them fully for all gas used whilst I was occupier of the property. Your (or Othershitpowercompany’s) failures in this matter, if any, are not my problem to sort out.

• Desist from any legal action against me – it is not warranted!

I hope that you can appreciate from the tone of this letter that I have now run out of patience and am quite angry about having to spend yet more of my time attempting to resolve this issue.

If your response to this correspondence is not to my satisfaction I will take the matter up with EnergyWatch.

Yours Sincerely,
Calamity

Apologies for ridiculous length and girth.
(Calamity wetter than a fish's wet bits - bloody rain on, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 0:22, Reply)

Used to this kinda crap all the time...
I work for a water company who processes £70 million in electricity bills every year. We get summonses quite regularly for the grand sum of £2.50 every other week to be honest. As a result, I'm quite flippant if I get any of these automatically generated things, and to be honest, so should you all. Even if the bailiffs arrive, just be nice, they are humans too! Don't admit anything's yours, don't admit anything full stop. Just treat them like you'd treat a stupid kid. You'll be fine...
( Whodathunkit, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 23:20, Reply)

The twelve tasks of Asterix ...
The object of aspiration in this case was permit A38. I went to the proper authorities, entered the room to find nobody was there. Outside a passing secretary was able to tell me the two ladies that worked in this office were reknown for staying away for hours during their shift.
A couple hours later i return to finally find said two ladies. I unbosom my desire to them, to which one of them surprisingly answers, "this is no problem". So i hand in a couple of papers that are needed for my request, and she gazes at me derangedly. She said "Oh, we´re not responsible for these kind of papers. You will have to check these at another department." However, she was not able to tell me which other department this may be.
After assiduous investigation i find the right place, go upstairs, and set forth my request. Again, a vacant stare is greeting me. After some discussion she finally tosses out some paper for me to fill in, which surprises me, as i thought i had to hand in my papers to her... So I start filling in the papers, not recognizing this is referring to something totally different. Just after i finished filling in the form, she tells me she cannot proceed, as the deadline for this sheet was last week. That´s how i recognized it was the wrong form.
After explaining to her, she got even more puzzled and told me, she had nothing to do with the permit i needed, even though she knew everything about this was dealt with where i had started. There the two ladies did not want to believe me, and simply did nothing. Tomorrow i will try again...
(Boor, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 23:16, Reply)

Wiltshire council
Are, in fact, evil pricks. They have closed day centres for people with learning difficulties across the region- citing funding as the reason, whilst keeping for themselves a very posh staff restaurant in County hall- subsidised out of council tax. Not that Bath council are any better: they have greenlit the demolition of half the city centre to make way for more chainstore shite, with the local stone for facing the breezeblock bunker being transported to Italy and elsewhere for cutting and preparation. This is after pissing away £40m in public & lottery funds building the national laughing stock spa project before handing it over to a Dutch private company to rake in the massive profits, and letting Andrew Brownsword ( Forever Friends tacky card millionaire bastard ) do exactly as he pleases with a massive swathe of public land right in the centre. They're so fucking full of shit they squeak going round corners.
( uncle bastard is twanging a dan moi, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 23:11, Reply)

Bolton council
We had to move out of a lovely victorian house, 4 bedrooms, plenty of space into a dingy council house, 3 bedrooms, cant even move.
So we went visiting it first of all and my father said he would take it.. and before we moved in we got robbed. Yes, it's not the council's fault but here is an example.

It is the summer holidays and today we all got woken up at 9am: four guys from said council all bound in. Something to do with the electricity of the house.
We couldn't sleep through it though because they HAD to go into every single room. We was all up for 3ish hours waiting for them to finish... not only that, we couldnt watch tv because as i have said, it was the electricity :[
Top it all off?
"Soz m8 bu u iz gna need furver investigationzz."
Yeah, they didnt find the problem :]
(I've got the clap has some cool sentence here, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 23:08, Reply)

Protection of the ents?
Where I live, right across from my house, there is a large mansion-type house thing with a garden which used to be full of beautiful trees which cascaded from the surrounding walls bringing delight to all who passed by.
The council, despite multiple petitions against it, decided to cut down all these trees as they were apparently 'a safety hazard for the parked cars and passing pedestrians' despite the fact that there hadn't been a single incident the entire time they had been there.
After the trees were cut down, the place was robbed about 4 times in the first week...they are now considering regrowing the trees...

Length..erm..the trees were pretty large?
(Azhri, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:50, Reply)

One for us Yankees...
'Twas the 1980s, in Rochester NY that this took place. A sad tale of road construction...

For those of you overseas, a bit of explanation first. We have various levels of government here, as you do there. There's the federal level, then state level, then county level, then town or city level. And each of these levels of government has its jurisdiction, and they rarely if ever communicate with one another.

So one day I had to go across downtown Rochester, from my sister's house to my father's office. Normally it was a pretty direct route that took about 20 minutes along some fairly main roads, so I trotted off happily enough.

Then I hit my first obstacle: road work that has shut down the main (state owned) road, detouring traffic down a side (county owned) road.

All was fine until I hit the second obstacle: road work on the county-owned road, resulting in a detour down a small city-owned road. The traffic was far heavier than that road had ever been intended for, so it was rather slow going, but it moved along until...

The third obstacle: the city was tearing up that street, and funneling the traffic through one of the more obscure blocks of downtown Rochester.

Not one of these highway departments had bothered to check with the others. We had the Perfect Storm, resulting in a lot of cars filtering through back streets like water through a sponge.

By this time I was in an area of the city I had never before entered, and with good reason. Let's just say that it was not one of the more prosperous sections of town, the roads were as smooth as an old limestone quarry, and the local residents were looking increasingly angry to have so much traffic flowing through the 'hood. As I'm blond with grey eyes, I was especially unwelcome there, if you know what I mean. Racism tends to run both ways, and I was very much the minority there. No one attacked me physically, but I heard a lot of things growled as I drove by.

It took me over an hour to get through there. By the time I got to Dad's office, I decided it was reasonable to go get some beer first.

Twats.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:49, Reply)

It worries me greatly
When I read these stories, and suddenly realise our central government wishes to devolve more power to these local feckwits. Sod this shit... I'm emigrating.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:44, Reply)

Salford V Manchester
It once took Salford Council a year and a half to work out my council tax bill, with estimates varying from £67 to £1400. Eventually they settled on a value of which I payed off half and setup a direct debit for the second. The direct debit didn't go through. I moved house and they took me to court. I didn't know until afterwards. So had to pay court fees too, when I re-found out about the whole thing.

Then Manchester spent 6 Months deliberating on how much was needed, and they where impossible to get hold of! When arriving at a decision they told me I would have to pay twice as much for 6 months to make up for the money I hadn't already paid.

But not to be out done Salford put the killer blow in poor performance in with a request for council tax payments from 6 years ago! Despite the fact they should have had on record I was a student. I've since proved this and now hopefully they'll leave me alone.
(el_meerkat, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:39, Reply)

Wiltshire
Another vote for Wiltshire County Council. They're absolutely fantastic, and are particularly forthcoming with compliments: the other day a very nice traffic warden put a note on my car saying "Parking Fine".

What a top geezer.
(SJH, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:26, Reply)

Tidy Tip Twattery
We'd just moved house to a new place near Birmingham and, as you do with a new place, we had to get rid of all the old shite in the way of an otherwise great garden. This involved removing an old, stinking pond; shrubbery; knackered, rotting fence panels and a tree. It also required levelling the garden as it looked like some wanker had deposited a small mountain range in the lawn. This involved ripping the lawn up and getting rid of said grass.
By this point I had already taken the remains of the pond and a small pine tree down to the tip without issue. Ground works start and the lawn comes up so while my dad is busy removing the crappy lawn as fast as possible I start taking it down the tip. 5 loads later:
"Mate, this has to stop."
"Why? I pay my council tax!"
"Rent a skip in future, you're destroying your car as well"
"I pay a hell of a lot of council tax, I'm NOT paying £200 a weekend to rent a skip to get rid of domestic waste"
"You're banned for a month"

I wouldn't mind but it's not even run by the council, It's run by a private company who get paid by the council.

Wankers. North Warwickshire wankers.
(moffatt, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:26, Reply)

Parking Wardens
I got a penalty charge notice today, for not displaying a ticket in a permit parking only area.

Fair enough, my fool. I get the cheque book out, and write out that £50 until I notice that the illiterate fool who issued the ticket put the wrong street on.

This means that the ticket is invalid! Now, should i send a polite letter pointing out their error, or should i do that, and attach a small goatse photo as well?
(radio_shak has questions, got answers, on, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:11, Reply)

Wiltshire Council
seem to be alright.

Thought I'd put a positive spin on things.
(littlenipple hate's bad grammar, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 22:03, Reply)

Lambeth
Slightly before the below event, a friend of mine was living in Lambeth. For some reason for three years previously, he hadn't paid his poll tax (and rates before that), and they hadn't bothered to try and collect it.

All of a sudden, they noticed that they had had no money from him, and sent him a bill for several thousand pounds.

He really paniced, as he had thought they had every right to demand the money in full. Luckily, when he checked with the CAB, he was told that because they had not chased the money (or even sent him a reminder), it could be considered their error, and they are required to offer easy payment schemes.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 21:46, Reply)

Bromley..
Way back in the dark ages, I was paying my Poll tax by direct debit (seemed easier). All was going well, until one day I was made redundant. My then girlfriend advised me to cancel my direct debit and notify the council. Both of which I did.

Six months later, I had been paying the reduced rate for the unemployed, and all of a sudden, I got a letter saying I had consistantly underpaid, and a demand for the balance (which by that time was several hundred pounds).

SO, I went to the council, and was told I had not proved I was unemployed (I had). I had friends at the DSS, so they contacted the relevant department in the DSS and got them to send the council a letter (which the CC'd to me) stating my sign on date, and what benefits I was on.

In the mean time, the council was sending letters threatening baliffs and other legal action.

A friend showed one of the letters to his solicitor who said that the letters could be considered harrassment.

So, I wrote back to the council (addressing the letter to the person who signed the last threat) pointing out exactly what had happened, I mentioned the fact that I had proved (on several occassions) that I was unemployed.

I also mentioned that I had sought legal advice, and had been told that the letters constituted harrassment, and that if they continued sending the letters, then I would be seeking legal action against them.

I had also made clear in the letter that I did owe some money (I had withheld all payments when I started getting the threats), and was happy to pay that money.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 21:40, Reply)

I'll post a link
homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/

Things like this are built using taxpayers' money so councils can boast that they have x miles of cycle lanes - no matter how shit and useless they are.
( thistle, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 21:34, Reply)

Cardiff Council ar not the best....
at collecting rubbish...
Now where i lived in Cardiff was possibly the biggest student area, so you can imagine when its bin day, the streets run with the bleeding refuse coming out of bags that have been attacked by vermin during the night.
The smell is quite indescriibable, and when they decide they're not going to have a collection, which they do quite reguarly and often during summer, its even worse.
Thankfully it tends to rain a lot in cardiff so its just the rivers of mouldy kebabs and tampons that you have to avert your gaze from as you walk down the street.....I'm glad i don't live anywhere near there anymore!
(The_Ambassador You are spoiling us!!, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 21:14, Reply)

FIRE!!
posting this on behalf of the wife who is too lazy to get her own username.

many moons back, before we met she was at uni in london and lived on Commercial Road in the East End, a few doors up from the fire station.

So one day as she is walking along to the tube she turns down Adler Street to see a motorbike in huge flames. As it is very early saturday morning there are not too many people about so she runs round the fire station, in through the doors which are open and tells the first fireman she sees about the motorbike.

said fireman then tells her that he can't do anything and she'll have to ring 999 and report it and she must leave the firestation as she's not allowed in there.

so the wife goes outside, pulls out her brick - like mobile (yep, she's that old) and calls 999. 10 minutes later 3 fire engines pull up and out jumps the chap she spoke to in the station and they put out the fire, jump back in the engines and drive 10yards round the corner back to the station.

complete lunacy!

length/girth?
chance would be a fine thing now she's up the duff i'm getting none.
(norcomark CNUT abbreviation for CANUTE, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 20:58, Reply)