Council Cleaning Con

THE CITY COUNCIL ALWAYS AMAZES ME BY THEIR SHIRKING OF RESPONSIBILITY.

Take this poster for example.  Double left click on the image to enlarge.

This is a poster in a charity chop window on Kilmarnock Rd (which is the main street in Shawlands). It is about so-called “Community cleaning of a lane”.

Yes, it is advertising the fact that the council wants local residents to clean their own streets and lane.  Hey, isn’t that what we pay council tax for?

Things are getting worse when the council can take council tax from us, and then get us to do the work ourselves! How Bizarre!

Guttered

THE COUNCIL ARE SPENDING MILLIONS INSULATING COUNCIL HOUSES.

The trouble is that they are not doing a very good job where the council property meets a privately owned property as shown in the picture to the right.

As ever, double left click on pictures to enlarge.

The above picture shows that it is not confined to new meeting old — even when dealing with a new-new interface, they have screwed this up! What you are looking at are two examples of stupidity.  The rainwater gutter could have been trimmed shorter to allow a full and proper rendering, but instead, the full original length was allowed to remain unchanged, and the insulation and new rendering cut around it!

This is completely unbelievable, it creates a heat bridge and one of the most likely sources of damp in a building I have ever seen. Things are certainly getting worse!

Plague of Leaflets

TARGETING YOUR MARKET IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD FOR BUSINESS. However, evermore companies are choosing to use customers as targets.

I hate these leaflets, and I don’t understand why it is so popular.  A person puts a sales leaflet under parked car’s windscreen wipers in the hope that it will drum up business.

Please double left click on the images to enlarge

However, what actually happens is that it annoys the car owner –  they have to scrape the wet paper that has stuck to the glass. They cannot drive away and use their windscreen wipers until this job is done.

It is especially bad on an expensive car, and it can reveal to a thief, for example, how long the car has been parked there.

Thing are definitely getting worse!

Please double left click on the images to enlarge

GP Scared of Swine Flu

I WAS SURPRISED TO COME ACROSS THIS NOTICE IN THE WINDOW OF THE MAIN GP SURGERY IN SHAWLANDS.

Double click on the picture to enlarge.

However, in case you cannot see the image properly, it states:

“SWINE FLU

IF YOU THINK YOU
MAY HAVE THE SWINE
FLU PLEASE DO NOT
COME INTO THE
SURGERY. GO HOME
AND CALL US AND WE
WILL ASK A GP OR
NURSE TO CALL YOU BACK.”

Boy is this GP scared of swine flu — he or she is not taking any chances — in case “the swine flu” (sic) can be transmitted by telephone, a nurse may call you.

Things are getting worse when a medical diagnosis is done over the telephone, and even worse when it may be done by a nurse!

• If you’re getting worse, you’re getting nurse. (apologies; I couldn’t resist that bad joke).

Now, the television and wireless have been keeping me bang up to date on the swine flu topic, and I have to say that I have been confident and reassured as a result.  That is until now.

When I saw this notice on the main road in Shawlands, I began to get scared for the first time. Things must be getting worse when the doctors are so frightened by it!

Fitting Advert

COMPANY IMAGE IS EVERYTHING.

On this site we often point out public signs that have errors.  This is because we feel that public signs, menus, notices and so forth should be checked for simple mistakes.

However, a company image goes beyond spelling and grammar, which is why we have shown some dubious logos (such as “Don’t Be Alarmed“).

Now, imagine a company that has only three main features (selling points) … (1) a van, (2) the spacial skills to know if and how things will fit ahead of time, and (3) how much care and attention to detail you have.

Imagine the livery of the van — what message would you be trying to get across?

You would probably want a van that looks clean, well-cared-for, professional, sturdy and which advertises with an office address, perhaps a logo, and a tag line.

Well, imagine now what we thought when we saw this van recently (see picture — click to enlarge).

Yes, things are getting worse when they cannot see ahead, when they cannot fit all the letters of the word across the van!

Handy?

DO YOU ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS WHEN YOU VISIT THE TOILET?

Some people do, and some don’t.  It is difficult to wash hands when basins have no rubber bungs, no soap, and no hot water.  If there is no bung, you can only wash one hand at a time because the other hand is invariably holding down the tap.

Next on the list is drying.  I see so many guys leaving Gents’ toilets rubbing their damp hands down their trousers!

Paper towels are good, but messy (and can run out).  Hand dryers are popular, but they are noisy and people have to queue to use them (hence the impatient trouser-wipers).

It seems that the trouser-wipers are actually onto something, from a “saving-the-planet” viewpoint, as evidenced by the photograph here (just click on the image to enlarge). It states:

“We’ve given the
thumbs up to energy
saving hand dryers.
These hand dryers work faster and save
80% of the energy used by traditional dryers.
Plan A”

Things are definitely getting worse when there are no dryers and no towels and as we wipe on our denims we can read the stupid sign and feel that we’re “doing our bit” to save Earth. By the way, the 20% energy rating must be down to the trouser-wipe!

Deeper Surface

I WAS PASSING PC WORLD ON ARGYLE STREET WHEN I NOTICED THAT THE CAR PARK WAS FENCED OFF.

Then I noticed a sign that stated:

“SORRY FOR ANY
INCONVENIENCE
CAUSED DURING
CAR PARK
RESURFACING WORK”.

That seemed fair enough.. that is until I glanced through the fence at the work itself.

Please double click on any picture to enlarge.

I was stunned to see how deep these excavations were — this was not a resurface, this was archaeology!

I may be cynical, but was this all really necessary?  It just seems a tad excessive.  Things are certainly getting worse when a car park’s surface is a metre and a half!

Child Seat Recall

WHEN I SEE PRODUCT RECALL NOTICES, I ALWAYS WONDER ABOUT CUSTOMERS WHO DON’T OR CAN’T COME BACK TO SEE THE RECALL NOTICE — SUCH AS TOURISTS.

It is all the more chilling when it concerns a child’s safety!

Things are getting worse when notices taped to shop windows are considered as doing enough — why can’t the television news or newspapers carry a product recall section?

• See also : gettingworse.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/an-ill-wind/

Flat Bottles

I WAS AMAZED AT THIS SIGN — STUCK TO A GLASS RECYCLING BIN.

It says:

“Please wash your bottles, remove all caps and lids and FLATTEN them when possible”

Are they serious? Flattening clear glass bottles?  I wish I had brought my hammer!

I understand the idea behind recycling, but I cannot fathom the rest of  it all.  For a start, these bins are an eye-sore.  The public seem to use them to recycle glass, but they then leave their plastic bags and boxes everywhere — what a mess.  Throwing bottles in is noisy, it is dirty and inaccessible.

On top of all that, some bins are for all glass — regardless of colour!  I have never seen anyone wash off the labels and remove caps — I do wonder what happens to it when it is so contaminated.  Is it all just an elaborate hoax or something?

Pot Luck on Roads

THE ROADS ARE IN A DREADFUL STATE.

However, it seems that the council’s new LLCs would rather spend our tax-quids on speed cameras and speed humps in parking bays than fix the pot holes!

It is no exaggeration, and there is often no opportunity to avoid driving into them because of cars parked either side of the road.

These photographs were taken at the Battlefield monument right outside the Victoria Infirmary (one of the two southside hospitals in Glasgow city).  I pity the occupants of ambulances that have to deal with these pot holes on a daily basis!

Mind you, according to a news story I read, the repairs are never done very well. It’s all one big money-spinning racket. We’re going to pot (holes) — and, yes, things are still getting worse!