Logo Madness (or could it be blindness)

This is a cracker if wasted public money amuses you.
The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) felt they needed to rebrand their identity to more closely associate the identity with their market. I know its bollocks but stay with me.
After discussions with a consultant in these things they came up with the original idea of using the department initials in a simple but creative fashion - squash them together thus:

To see what happens when the logo is rotated clockwise 90° click here.

Brilliant eh?

(Taken from The Register)

Fist Group are at it again!!

Wow. This is turning into a veritable Fist Group Hate-Fest!!

FURY AS VILLAGE'S BUS SERVICE TO BATH IS SCRAPPED (The Bath Chronicle)

A few miles to the east of Bath is a delightful village called Colerne. A pub, a Church, a village school, everything you'd expect of a small English village (pop. About 2500). From the end of June it will be cut-off for anyone without access to a car. This is ironic as Colerne has been working very hard to become an Eco-friendly village.

No longer will it be possible to catch a bus up Bannerdown to Colerne to enjoy lunch and a beer at The Fox and Hounds.

No longer will you be able to catch the bus up to Hunters Hall to visit Rocks East Woodland.

In a decent world where public transport might be a service, you'd need a proper socio-economic review before arbitrarily ending a service. As a company Fist Group should be investing in their services, promoting and marketing them in partnership with communities and local businesses for mutual benefit.

The 'We're stopping it 'cos nobody wants it' attitude is complacent and non-productive. A bus will always be undersubscribed if it's not running when it's wanted. Early buses for people and school children to get in to Bath; late services on Fridays and Saturdays for people returning from an evening eating and drinking in Bath or Colerne. If there's no service of course it won't be used.

Where are the posters promoting the local out of town services to the hundreds of thousands of visitors to Bath? What a great opportunity for anyone else who thinks they might be able to make a living from it. Best of luck to them, and show Fist Group shareholders how bad their management is.

Google has 3,110 references to Colerne and the 228. A large proportion of these pages contain directions and 'How to find us' type pages that will have to be rewritten. There's a job for someone.

It could happen to anyone?

A friend of mine fowarded this pic to me and I couldn't resist posting it here.

These men are installing bollards to stop cars parking on the pavement outside an Irish sports bar. They are cleaning up at the end of the day. How long do you think it will be before they realize?

Found on Scottish Webcams Live

Chronicle items that aroused my interest

First up is the item about Fist Groups non-running of the Bristol - Weymouth seaside specials this year. BEACH TRAIN SERVICE CUTS? Appalling!!!

Oddly enough the second item also has a Fist Group element to it. The plan to use the old Midland Railway track bed from Locksbrook to Windsor Bridge as a bus route. As if there aren't enough roads. TRANSIT ROUTE PROTEST GROUP CONTINUES FIGHT and a followup TRANSPORT CHIEF TO HEAR BUS WORRIES

You'll find my comments at the bottom of the first 2 items as NickC

Just so there's no illusions about what is being done to the bottom of town in the name of Transport Integration check this out. NEW LOOK FOR STATION AFTER £10M FACELIFT Surprise, surprise - Guess who runs the dominant bus and rail services in Bath - It's Fist Group again.

My thanks to The Bath Chronicle which used to be an evening paper then went daily and has now deteriorated to a weekly.

Alastair Darling is Barred

A Search UK on Google brings up 32400 entries for 'Alastair Darling is Barred'.
I am very glad to see that the campaign against Alistair Darling has gathered apace. If anyone missed it the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided to put 4p on the price of a pint of beer. The stated aim was to reduce the amount of 'binge drinking' in the UK (or is it just England and Wales?). A counter productive strategy since drinking beer in pubs is a much more tightly controlled activity than purchasing spirits in supermarkets and drinking at home.

The upshot is that if Alistair Darling wants to drive the already declining pub trade further into the ground then increasing the tax on beer is the best way to do it. Thus the idea was born to bar him from every pub in the land. If he is unable to get a pint of good ale anywhere in the country then perhaps he'll rethink this appalling strategy.

On behalf of CAMRA Mike Benner penned a most succinct letter in support of pubs against the tax rise. Mike Benner's letter can be found here.

Support your local landlord drink more beer. If he's gone bust then it's everyone round to mine for home brewed ale (just something I'm musing on at the mo').

WANTED for Conspiracy and Identity Theft

Nice one here that I picked up from The Register (it's probably the only thing I read) on the continuing campaign against our Government allowing our identities to be stolen.

Privacy International have published this poster for download and printing - please do so and display prominently.

A Shameless Introduction

I've recently started watching a series on Channel 4 called Shameless which is now in its fifth season. UPDATE - Shameless 2011 Intro
The one thing that caught my imagination more than any other aspect of the show is the piece spoken by the hero(?) Frank Gallagher as the titles roll which goes like this:

Tickets this way to the Chatsworth Express! Come and watch pikeys making a mess of their lives they were given by Him upstairs! And kids, they're convinced, aren't actually theirs.
What sounds on earth could EVER replace kids needing money? Or wives in yer face... 'cause this, people reckon - and me included - is why pubs and drugs were kindly invented to calm us all down and stop us going mental! These are Chatsworth estate's BASIC essentials!
We are worth every penny for grinding your axes...You shit on our heads, but, you pay the taxes!
Imagine Britain without Chatsworth buccaneers, we'll cum on your face for the price of a beer... eh?
Make poverty history! Cheaper drugs now! Make poverty history! Cheaper drugs now!
Heh heh heh heh... scatter! Party!

YouTube of course have the new version above when you search for new shameless intro and the original version is here.
Outstanding British drama.