Showing posts with label Dundee City Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dundee City Council. Show all posts

Saturday, 22 January 2011

GORGEOUS GEORGE GRACES US WITH HIS CANDIDACY

So George Galloway... you know... the gorgeous one (some say), who thought that our politicians were “verbal stumblebums, who would regard the term ‘nonentity’ as a compliment”, and who compared Iain Gray and Alex Salmond in debate, to the Krankies, has decided that he would bring “a touch of class” to Holyrood.

Well, talking of Kranks, or cranks, George, how would it be if we pointed out that at least neither Mr Salmond nor Mr Gray have ever appeared on television, at least to my knowledge, in a pink leotard. (And, may I say, I fervently hope that they maintain that happy record.)

George Galloway has always been a tad on the weird side, but he is well educated and erudite and so he easily progressed from humble beginnings on Dundee’s council to be the youngest ever chairman of the Dundee Labour Party, General Secretary of War on Want, grace the floor of the Commons for Hillhead and later Kelvin and even later Bethnal Green in England.

He’s done some good stuff (pretty much sticking it to Tony Blair, which will always get a vote in my book, calling Bush and Blair liars and suggesting that troops should refuse to obey illegal orders in an illegal war), although there is no doubt that, along the way, he has become more and more strange, to the point where one wonders about madness of some sort.

The long and flowery speeches which at the same time impressed and caused amusement, especially when he let a Senate Committee have it in the neck, have become ridiculously pompous and overblown and, particularly following his appearance in the Big Brother House, he has become more of a figure of fun than anything else.

The thing I admire most about George is that he simply refuses to let authority beat him into submission. He uses his freedom to speak his mind to full effect and to the evident embarrassment of people who expect lesser beings to fold tents and be compliant. Indeed on an occasion when he was suspended from parliament for 18 days his response was: "To be deprived of the company for 18 days of the honourable ladies and gentleman behind me [in parliament] will be painful ... but I'm intending to struggle on regardless... What really upset them [the committee] is that I always defend myself... I am not a punch bag. If you aim low blows at me, I'll fight back". Would that some of the rest of the spineless morons who inhabit the green benches had half as much pluck... but most of them are looking for the main chance.

So now, and only because he has been thrown out of his seat in London, coming third behind the Labour and Tory candidates, George has decided to add a bit of class to the Scottish parliament. Aye well, that’s what HE thinks. Perhaps the Scottish people will have a different idea.

As far as I’m concerned it’s not a bad thing. His candidature will be likely to take votes from Labour without him having a hope of winning. This can only be to the SNP’s advantage.

Much of the information in this article was gleaned for this article by Ruth Wishart, whom I always had down as a bit of a feminist. I was surprised then to read her sneering at the idea that George had dyed his beard. I wonder if she has ever referred to any female MPs pointing out that their hair colouring owed much to 4 hours with “Raymonde”.

Friday, 1 October 2010

THE V & A AT DUNDEE BUILDING DESIGN


The V&A at Dundee’s main function will be, according to their website, to showcase Scottish design talent, provide a UK base for major international touring exhibitions, and promote a wider understanding and application of design.

The design of its own building is at present under discussion and there are now 6 “finalists” from whose work the building will be chosen.

As suggested by somepapfaedundee in an earlier post, I took a trip down this afternoon to Abertay University’s library to have a look at models and details of the designs. Having only previously seen poor quality pics in the local evening paper, it came as a bit of a surprise to me to see the models up close.

Out of geographical context (and it has to be, because the building will be in a totally redeveloped waterfront area of the city), it is difficult to make a sound judgement about which building is the most aesthetically suitable or pleasing. Interestingly the new building will actually be built out into the river itself and it’s important to take that into consideration when considering the design and materials.

Of course whatever design is chosen, it will displease more people than it will please, but at least the authorities (The V + A, our two universities, the local council and Scottish Enterprise) are giving the public a say in which of the shortlisted designs will be built.

My preference is for the offering from “Rex”, a design company based in New York City, or the Norwegian Snøhetta’s design. Unfortunately, given the remit of the facility to promote Scottish design, the only Scottish offering is, in my opinion, dull and looks more like an electricity generating plant than a museum of art and design.

Better photographs and more details of the architects, the buildings, and how they might fit into what may be there when the whole waterfront is redeveloped, can be seen on the website linked here.

I’d be interested in anyone else’s opinions....

The pics here show, 1 Sutherland Hussie (Edinburgh); 2 Steven Holl (New York + Beijing); 3 Snøhetta (Oslo); 4 Rex (New York); 5 Kengo Kuma (Tokyo and Paris); 6 Delugan Meissl (Vienna).

Thursday, 24 June 2010

CRASH AS THE STAFF OVERLOAD COMPUTER SYSTEM WITH ENGLAND MATCH....IN SCOTLAND


Some people just ask for it, don’t they?

Yesterday, at the start of the Slovenia v England game, the staff of the Dundee City Council crashed the whole computer system and the Council site was unavailable to tax payers for transaction of business.

The management (and I use the term loosely, because it implies some sort of foresight, forward planning and control, none of which has been in any way evident) quickly blocked the BBC website which was live streaming the match.

What?

The action they took was to stop the match being shown. Right.

The only councillor they could find to comment was a Liberal Fraser MacPherson (without whom the pages of the Courier would be decidedly bare). He rather lamely said that he would speak to Council chief executive, David Dorward, to make the point that they should not be watching sport in council time. But he pointed out that because of flexible working practices some staff may have saved up time and might have been watching in their own time.

What?

Don’t they have homes to go to?

MacPherson continued: “The bottom line is no one is going to object to staff watching sport in their own time as long as management is Ok with it. We would have to be sure that there were sufficient staff to maintain services and particularly those staff in public facing positions.”

What? Again. If they were doing it in their own time, but on our equipment why would there not be sufficient staff in public facing positions (whatever that is?)


If staff are at work, they should be working. If staff are finished work, they should go home, or to an internet café or whatever to watch the match. No one should be watching the match in the office. If we allow people to watch sport why can’t they watch Emmerdale or Strictly Come Dancing? What nonsense.

How could other staff do their job effectively with the distraction of television entertainment? That’s not what the computers are for.

A council spokesman has said that measures have been introduced to stop this happening again.

So let me just enlighten him or her to the fact that we, the people who pay for this, are incandescent. Why aren’t the people who were logged in to the BBC website being disciplined? It would happen to me if I did it.

Ironically the very next day, the Dundee Trades Union Council, in the form of Mike Arnott, its secretary, has suggested that as many as 660 jobs may be lost in Dundee City Council in the cutbacks. Apparently 600 were due to go before the Budget and that has been revised upwards because of the austerity measures announced by Mr Osborne.

The council’s administration leader, Ken Guild, refuted this saying that the figures had been “plucked out of the air”. He declined, however, to say if the figures were in any way realistic. He said that he didn’t know how many people would be going, but rolled out the usual platitudes about avoiding compulsory redundancies. It seems, however, that there will be many more unemployed in Dundee in the near future.

Whilst I hate to see people made redundant, I really can’t help but wonder what we, the Council Tax payers, get for our money.

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Minister and Convenor Open New Dundee Housing Project


Something cheered me hugely today. Alex Neil the Housing Minister and Dundee’s Housing Convenor Jimmy Black, opened the new building project in Mains Loan, Dundee, and laid the first stones. This project will build the first council houses in Dundee for 20 years. Initially seven family homes will be built and three wheelchair friendly units, with more in the pipeline.

Councillor Black said: "It is a significant event, marking the start of Dundee's first new council house builds for at least two decades and the Scottish Government funding will help the city achieve its aim of providing more than 70 new council homes over the next few years.

"The new homes that are planned will help address a shortage of family homes and houses that are designed to make life easier for people with disabilities.

"All the houses have been designed to provide high standards of energy efficiency through increased insulation levels which exceed current building regulation requirements. This should mean lower heating costs for tenants, better noise insulation and help achieve carbon-saving targets."


According to Joe Fitzpatrick, one of Dundee’s MSPs, in the last year the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with £75 million to build 2,300 new council houses and the planned radical legislation to end the right to buy for new social housing will ensure that those new homes remain accessible, affordable and available for future generations.

For far too long, in my opinion, the standard of council housing in Dundee has been too low. The best ones were long since bought and profits made on them. What has been left was the slum property in the least desirable areas, and some semi derelict multi-storey properties. There was a desperate need for new council housing. It is good to know that once they are built they will not be sold off cheap.

As an added bonus this project is providing employment opportunities for the builders, a local construction firm. It’s just a win win win situation.

Well done to the Scottish Government and Dundee City Council.

Pics: Jimmy Black; Alex Neil; Joe Fitzpartick