THACKLEY TRUMPIT JULY 2014 MUSINGS FROM THE PADDED CELL - THE IDLE LORD

The Idle Lord. 

Musings From The Padded Cell

Britishness 

The media are awash with chat about the notion of “Britishness” in the wake of the Trojan Horse story coming out of Birmingham. As ever, politicians are jumping on the bandwagon likes fleas on an old dog; it is, after all, election time soon.
Rationale debate is still difficult to achieve as this is a ridiculously emotive subject, despite it rising to the top of the agenda largely due to UKIP’s recent successes at the polls.
Cameron, as ever, is flapping around like a one-winged parrot, seeking tough sound-bites whilst selling us off to the Chinese. Miliband, leader of the party that opened the flood gates, is almost invisible; small mercies to be grateful for I guess.
Whilst there are sound economic arguments for controlled immigration, these are inevitably based on the reality – like it or not – that we can be choosy at least as far as non EU migrants. Britain is a nation people aspire to come to.
However, the thing that hacks off Ordinary Joe more than anything else is the fact that the politicians who preach the benefits of mass immigration rarely live in the areas that have to deal with the impact.
One hack wrote at the weekend of the “metropolitan elite” – he meant New Labour – whose policies opened the doors.
Bradford – metropolitan but far from elite – contends with it’s primary schools dealing with almost 150 different languages. This has been a massive failure of the indigenous population. Making kids learn the Magna Carta will not solve this one bit.
There remains a fundamental flaw in the way we treat minorities. Bending over backwards might seem the “fair” thing to do but it misses the point that there are those within these communities that will exploit this weakness as Birmingham demonstrates.
Wherever you live you must surely respect the law of that land. To live here, often on the social benefits a progressive society can still afford to provide, and yet to rail against it’s very existence and cultures is both offensive and ignorant.
Fortunately, most common sense can still be found in the good old British pub – one of the founding pillars of Britishness – and I find it hard to argue with the sentiments I heard expressed at the weekend.
“If they don’t like it then they should *** off.” said my unnamed source, clearly fearful of a kidnap attempt and beer deprivation.
Britishness should be about upholding the values and traditions that we have fought for over centuries. You cannot cow-tow to a raft of migrant cultures simply to appease the politically correct brigade.
And before the human rights brigade pipe up there is nowhere better on Earth than Britain to enjoy human rights; that is why most people still want to come here.

Top man 

I defy anybody not to have seen the story of Bernard  Jordan, 89, and his “great escape” from his care home – fulfilling a wish to attend the D-Day commemorations in Normandy last week – and to have watched without a lump in their throat.
Wonderful stuff from another era and all carried off with grace, charm and a cheeky wink of an old boy’s eye.
Boys own stuff because boys will always be boys.

More From “I Told You So” Corner

According to last weekend’s Sunday Times, Ofsted have finally woken up to the fact that there is almost no competitive sport in state schools and that this is not a good thing. Well done chaps, what took you so long?
Regular readers – I do have a few – will know I have been banging on about this for well over a decade and more. Most recently I wrote a chapter (3) in “Fifty Not Out” on this issue.
However, even more damaging and socially divisive is the fact that these inequalities forged at primary schools are further widened all the way to elite sport.
Take the distribution of funding from UK Sport, essentially dictated by the pursuance of Olympic medals:
http://www.idlelord.com/playing-up-hill/
Bad enough that we fund only sports where medals are deemed possible but look at what we end up with* in terms of the proportion of GB medal winners who were privately educated. Sydney 2000 – 23.6%, Athens 2004 – 27.8%,
Beijing 2008 – 35.7%, London 2012 – 46%
*Sunday Times 15/6/14
England’s cricket team for the first test contained only one player – Moeen Ali – educated in the state system. This is a national scandal and in no small part has played a significant part in the rapid and apparently unstoppable rise in obesity levels nationally.
It is a failure of generations of young people deprived of opportunities to enjoy sport and live a fit and healthy lifestyle. Politicians of all parties should be ashamed of this utter disgrace.

More Musings

At last one of the half-wits that have been disturbing the local area on their souped up skateboards has been prosecuted. 
Sadly the judge backed away from a custodial sentence – bad enough – but it was the comments in mitigation from his solicitor that hacked me off most.
Trying to excuse the lad’s actions because he had had a tough upbringing was pathetic. Why not simply state that there is no defence for endangering peoples lives, taking up expensive police resources and for destroying the peace that most people crave.
The solicitor will doubtless be an educated bloke and will probably live nowhere near the affected areas. What a waste of a good education if you cannot distinguish      between right and wrong.
We cannot keep excusing cretins like this nor simply tag them and hope for the best. It’s like slugs, there is no point in moving them on as they will only keep coming back. Stand on them…hard. 

And More Musings from The Idle Lord

Normally I dread a dental appointment for obvious reasons but ever since falling off a six-foot fence at Christmas, the shame of confessing to nice man Andrei how I scraped my front tooth, has been weighing heavily.

We went through the usual preliminaries.

“Do you smoke?”

“No”

“Do you drink?”

“A bit” said sheepishly.

“Over 30 units a week”

“Depends if Big Al needs keeping company” I offered hopeful he would change the subject “course I do!”

I explained that the reason I, as a normally responsible 51 year old, had fallen off a fence was most likely because that particular night I had probably had my weekly allowance in one go. And that Joe Lawrence had encouraged me to garden hop on the way home.

These days the dental practice is part of a large group and you only have to look around reception to realise that there is now a corporate sell here with all manner of products on offer.

So Andrei must now sell as well as offer torture, whereas nice old Mr Spencer simply gave you that routine “…sound, sound, sound….oooh….kerr-ching…pension time!”

Fortunately, Andrei is as bad as I am at  selling.

“Have you got an electric toothbrush?” he asked.

I showed him my mobile phone and suggested he already knew the answer. Not put off just yet he pointed out how much better these were – on special offer in reception by coincidence – keeping me in the dreaded chair far too long.

I don’t go to the dentist to do anything other than try to get out as quickly as possible. Flogging me a mini-vibrator is not enhancing my customer experience one bit.

“If you stopped drinking for one week you could save enough for one” he offered as one final stab from the sales manual. Time to go seek a pint I thought, see you next year.

THACKLEY TRUMPIT JUNE 2014 SAVE IDLE MOOR THE IDLE LORD

The Thackley Trumpit

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Concreting My Childhood – Save Idle Moor

 By Steve Wilson The Idle Lord

The Bradford Metropolitan district is a large sprawling area not often cited for its beauty. However, some 70% is green space and quite stunning in parts; it’s not all dark satanic mills up here.
This may not be the case if the rampant greed of property developers is allowed to hold sway over the next few years as house builders awake from years of recession.
Ilkley Moor…where locals wait armed with crossbows should Bradford Planners approach…
There are some very desirable outlying areas such as Addingham, Bingley and Ilkley, albeit that if Scotland gets independence, you can bet Ilkley will be hard on their heels.
Inner Bradford – a mix of the good, the bad and the downright ugly – does contain some really nice places to live too. Developers recognise this, hence a plethora of planning applications reflecting the current resurgence in the UK’s mad property market.
Driven by an easing of credit and very short memories, prices are surging once again. 
George Osborne…unlikely to be buying a 3 bedroom semi in Bradford
The politicians tell us they have the current situation under control; this is patently b******s as a modest flicker upwards of interest rates would be seismic. 
Regardless, the quest for attractive land to build on means green spaces    everywhere are under immense threat. 
Spivs and speculators everywhere despite what Uncle Vince says
There are 3 separate planning applications in this part of the city for almost 1,200 new homes. Now we have another proposal for 70 new houses on Idle Moor, to be built on land that was previously a mine. The locals have a case for feeling somewhat shafted.
The land is classed as Urban Green Space and, if opened up, you can bet that subsequent applications will    follow as each field is picked off like a domino effect.
For example, the recent failure of plans to develop a nearby football pitch have temporarily land-locked a brown-field site – the old boiler works – approval of this plan is one more piece in the jigsaw to open this. 
Developers spread like a cancer.
It’s gold rush time again…lets have another crash!
According to protesters there are over 300 houses for sale in Idle & Thackley so 1300 extra houses hardly seem a priority. This is not to count the number of empty homes lying waste, estimated at over 1m nationally.
Local schools are already oversubscribed as are health practices and the roads are jammed so much there is hardly enough space for the local hooligans to try to break their necks doing wheelies on their souped up BMX’s.
The developer – MGL Homes Ltd – is listed in Idle but has little real local     interest other than turning a few quid. The majority shareholder lives in rural Pickering where they are a little more reluctant to concrete green fields. 
A cursory look at the last filed accounts (30/11/12) shows little substance nor evidence of consistent trading. Put bluntly, this is a punt to grab a quick buck and the council should recognise this.
Eric to the rescue?
Of course, protesters largely live in houses built on green fields too so developers will argue their protests are inadmissible; this is missing the point completely. Development should be planned, sustainable and not limitless; clearly the current proposals are not.
Protesters might expect to take comfort in the fact that previous, smaller planning applications have been rejected by the Secretary of State and the reasons for these rejections have not changed. However, the Government’s obsession with new housing suggests not.
Bradford Council has convinced itself that it needs some 40,000 homes over the next decade and, as ever, they are taking a “cut”. Sport & Leisure are demanding a bung of £121k for “the provision of recreation open space and playing fields due to the extra demands placed on the locality by this development.” How will they provide open space when they are concreting it all? This is a blatant lie as the only recreation provided in the area is by private clubs because the council simply has no strategy at all.
It would be another severe beating on the doorstep and a bucket of cold water to wash off the dust before Blue Peter.
I grew up playing on Idle Moor, roaming the fields of the Booth’s farm hoping not to get shot or gored by a bull, coming home black bright like a miner as we played commandos    rolling in the coal dust on the moor, our own Utah Beach. Fortunately, Mr Booth never shot us.
We played King of the Castle on a little hill right where they want to build crappy boxes. It was here that I realised throwing the object of your teenage desires off the top was not a way to her heart. Limbs luckily intact she vanished very quickly mumbling “psycho…”We fumbled in long grass on silly, endless summer days, coming home red-faced and none the wiser. We ran, we hid, we mucked about; sometimes we hit golf balls for as far as we could with no hope of ever finding them but secretly aiming at the cows. We had free space and we loved it, but in these money obsessed times of greed these simple things seem not to matter. To hell with the quality of   people’s lives nor the right to some free space from the claustrophobia of modern life. Finally, one look at the Planning Committee sitting for the next scheduled meeting at Wacky Hall down in Bradford would fill most objectors with dread for there is only one that represents a ward remotely near.
One more nail in the coffin for a part of the city where life is still good.

THACKLEY TRUMPIT MAY 2014 THE IDLE LORD

The Idle Lord Brings his Blog to ‘Trumpit’ Readers, (With no apologies to sensitive ears) 

Sport England’s CEO Jennie Price, recently announced its four-year funding programme for grass roots sport; the headline grabbing news was that almighty football was losing £1.6m of it’s £30m slug because of a reduction of some 100,000 participants over the last six months.

Apr 2012-Apr 2013  Oct 2012-Oct 2013

Source: Sport England’s Active People Survey – Participants

Swimming 2.88m - 2.93m

Athletics 1.95m - 2.02m

Cycling 1.86m - 2.00m

Football 1.94m - 1.84m

Golf  771,000 - 751,000

Tennis 423,400 - 400,600

Squash 257,100 - 240,700

Rugby Union 166,000 - 159,600

Boxing 149,700 - 154,800

Cricket 189,000 - 148,300

A glance at the table above suggests few sports are in rude health and remember this quote from Sport England’s Annual Report from Price herself.

“In December 2012 we published results showing that 15.5 million people play sport, once a week, every week. This is the highest ever figure, over 1.5 million more than in 2005 when London won the bid to host the Games…”

The only sport showing real growth is cycling which is largely because people cannot afford petrol; dodging buses and cars to work does not count as sport!

The quango also claimed that the £1.6m would still be directed to football but funding a new project, in other words more twee ideas from people who just do not have a clue.

If football, the most accessible and popular of all sports kids play today, is losing numbers what does that say about our approach to sport and any Olympic legacy? Well actually it says just what we all knew; it was and is a total load of bollocks.

Thank you for the money?

Of course, football is awash with cash at the top level.

For example, Wayne Rooney earns from Manchester United alone, over £15m a year; yet the grass roots struggle on with a disinterested elite and a pointless quango doling out cash on useless surveys.

Just to prove how in touch with real grass roots they really are, Price, interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme, claimed that the grass roots was struggling “…because up North on muddy pitches…”.

This is typical of the insulated arrogance that dominates these pitiful quangos with their ivory towers funded by you and I.

For Price’s salary alone you could employ half a dozen PE teachers and that would be a good use of public funds for a starter.

And here’s a thought. As most grass roots clubs are dying through lack of funds with charges to use council slag heaps going through the roof how about this?

According to Deloitte’s Sports Business Unit, the average Premier League player earns £30,000 a week. There are 18 Premier League Clubs and each squad has 25 players at least.

If the FA had any balls, introducing a scheme where a player donated one week’s salary to grass roots annually would generate £13.5m. We could then sack Price and her cronies and save a fortune.

Debts No Honest Man Can Pay – Part 2

There was a very interesting piece in Private Eye (1362) on the continuing saga of the slow but inevitable de-railing of the Punch Taverns Gravy Train. Regular readers will know I am no fan of these faceless, corporate blood suckers and nor is the Eye.

Punch is known as a “Zombie” company; although generating cash, typically, these only have enough funds left to pay off the huge interest on their debts, but not the debt itself. So they are, in effect, the walking dead.

When did Maths teachers ever look like this?

So here’s a crude bit of arithmetic; the current debt aligned to the leased pub estate tots up at around £575,000 per pub. Fine perhaps if all these are in central London selling champagne.

Part of their bold plan, according to the Eye “is to raise £100m through selling 1,100 pubs designated “non-core” – corporate bullshit meaning we cant make enough money here as these are shit-holes even though we paid a fortune for them.

So, selling over 25% of the estate will reduce debts by some 4%! Brilliant!

And the debt to pub figure goes to circa £760,000. More brilliance!

Punch resemble a Third World dictator, rumbled at long last by the people, now using the last few days to gather what they can before making off into the sunset with the dry roasted nuts in the corporate helicopter.

All smiles for the cameras…even if nothing changes

(Picture from CAMRA – Campaign for Real Ale)

Unregulated, unchecked and unashamed this is corporate greed at its naked worst. As for Vince Cable, Business Secretary, his response has been pitiful with threats as flat as a pint of three day old lager.

Here We Go…Again

The smell of cut-grass – the club cricketers’ marijuana – can only mean one thing. Gear is being dusted down, wives are being  placated and dreams of impossible glories crowd heads up and down the land. On a doubtlessly freezing cold night we will soon all assemble again for another summer of    attempting to preserve the great game of cricket for future generations so that Sport England can keep doing surveys; junior training is back again. Footballs will be put aside for the time being and skills that have been ignored for decades in schools up and down the country will be demonstrated by old lags, not long for this world, as we part kids from various devices. Volunteering glues together so much of our changing society and yet we few struggle on under expectant gazes of those that could and should help more. We don’t need surveys we need bodies. We do it because we care and because we value this part of life. So we hope that the cakes are fluffy and the tea is warm come closing time on practice night and that the kids have not pushed us one step further to assisted dementia.

THACKLEY TRUMPIT APRIL 2014 THE IDLE LORD

The Idle Lord Brings his Blog to ‘Trumpit’ Readers,

(With no apologies to sensitive ears)

I am a Bradfordian, born and bred, still living in this tired old place although long since able to admit to being proud to do so.

It’s my home and yet admitting to this has, for many years now, opened me and countless others up to much lampooning and the occasional dose of pity.

The city is like a fallen beauty queen, it’s best features ravaged by time, neglect and sometimes sheer bad fortune. The belle of the ball stands fallen cowering under pitiful glances from cocky nearby upstarts.

And yet, whisper it quietly, the old girl may be stirring back to life with a facelift and an injection of fresh confidence; could she swagger again?

Bulldozers and Concrete

For as long as I have been alive the city has been in some state of decline.

From the madness of the Sixties, when much of it’s heritage was bulldozed and replaced with an ugly concrete Legoland, through to the slow death of it’s once world famous textile industry.

Wool generated much of the wealth that built Bradford and many surrounding   areas for that matter, but we gave away our skills in exchange for cheap tat from the Far East.

When M&S finally gave up the ghost of supporting UK textiles in the early 1990s the end was in sight for most major      producers in Bradford.

The mills had also been a major factor behind mass immigration post World War Two, although this was not a new concept to Bradford. With those jobs now disappearing, Bradford had its very own issues to confront.

Politicians, choked on political correctness, ran for cover and any sensible debate on multi-culturalism was impossible.

Nadir– Racial Tensions

The pot simmered…and simmered.

The nadir surely had to be the riots of 2001 when anyone who still refused to acknowledge that there were racial      tensions in the city had to face reality, however unpalatable.

And yet these strains have existed since the beginning of mankind; this is not  Bradford’s dilemma to solve nor is the city unique but burying the issue simply stoked up the fires.

As the city burned, confidence vanished, investors fled and we hung our heads like a pariah in the shadow of our brassy neighbour Leeds, gleefully sucking in new cash, desperate to become the London of the North.

Bradford, with it’s begging bowl, looked down and out.

False Promises

Years of false promises and some plainly daft schemes followed; the city seemed doomed to remain a laughing stock, an image perpetuated by a hopeless Council seemingly in awe of anything offered, however appalling.

We had numerous agencies foisted on us and plans from a deranged Southern architect to turn the city  centre into a Thunderbirds set.

The city lumbered from one bad news day to another culminating with the farce of the hole in the ground when plans for a new shopping centre    simply came to a stop, sadly after the demolishing of what was to be       replaced.

At last though, the Westfield shopping centre has started to rise from the ground, albeit some eight years late and with it will surely come some   renewed sense of place.

Bradford may be ugly in places but, luckily, it is big and ugly and retailers cannot ignore size. However, what becomes of the rest of the city centre post Westfield is anybody’s guess at present.

The only plan the think tank in City Hall appear to have with regard to the current shopping core is to put down new paving flags. With the vision of a canary in a coal mine they stick their heads in thick, wet sand again.

Bradford needs bold and achievable vision and whilst Westfield is a start, there is a long way to go.

Odeon Plans

The iconic, dare I say it, indestructible Odeon building lives on following news last week that two organisations remain to battle it out to win the right to redevelop this almost fifteen years since the doors shut.

Plans, led by people not councillors or MPs, to save the Odeon have    seemingly overcome the Council’s bungled attempts to bulldoze it so they could build Toy Town, clearly designed by an three year old on acid.

Bradford One and Bradford Live’s separate bids broadly centre around creating a live music venue; One offers a multi-purpose, cultural venue whilst Live’s offer is that of a commercially-run, live performance venue.

As both applicants know though, these are very early days and  Bradford has a recent history     littered with grand plans that came to nothing leaving a population somewhat cynical.

Those that remain sceptical may require a leap of faith but, should this come off, Bradford will have an entertainments corner to be proud of and with architecture of stand out quality.

It really is worth clinging to this dream and this time Leeds – snazzy new Arena et al – will have little to match this. Hell, we may even get a sushi bar!

The single biggest threat here could well be that both groups fail to see that a combined bid,harnessing the best of both ideas, would have the best chance of   becoming a reality.

This is, after all, about Bradford and not the singular dreams of individuals, however noble their efforts so far. That two groups have achieved so much more than our elected lame brains says it all.

Collaboration and co-operation would ensure this wonderful    building can finally come back to life at the heart of the city and   without doubt, quality retail and  entertainments suck in people and spending power.

Bradford has a chance…at long last.

Cash Strapped

Meanwhile, the Council that has no cash, is rumoured to be planning to build a brand new swimming pool in the city centre on a scale to get Lord Coe and his Olympic minions slavering.

However, in these cash-strapped times surely we already have one in front of City Hall?

Not only is Bradford at last in danger of getting some shops above ground, there is an incredible scheme being considered to create an underground market   featuring a Victorian-style complex of shops, bars and restaurants.

A £1m price tag is being privately funded with the aim of attracting young entrepreneurs.

The Tunnel is the working name for the development and received a visit from Cllr Green, Leader of the Overground recently, doubtless keen to see why there was more activity   under than above ground.

Inspecting the access he declared that Bradford would develop this link with the Channel Tunnel to make the onward journeys from Eastern Europe and beyond that much quicker.

He also declined to comment on plans for an escape hatch with access for local councillors should the Westfield shopping complex go tits up again.

New Idle & District

The Central Office of Command – T’Council – have also announced that further to their plans to concrete the remaining green fields of North Bradford they are now to build even more houses…on the roads.

Cars will become a thing of the past and the air will be sweet and pure, like the space between the ears of most councillors on the planning committee.

Furthermore, Idle, Thackley and Wrose will be merged into a new  Utopia named after the spiritual leader of T’Council and renamed Greenland.

There will be no more need for the Green Party and all their votes will automatically count towards the re-election of the spiritual leader in the spirit of fairness.

And finally, all middle aged men in Greenland will be forced to wear silly earrings as a mark of devotion to the great Leader.

Taken in the age of free love, the Swinging Sixties, this is a great picture; note that for £12 you could also have a “Quickie”. It’s never been that cheap at my local.

Take a look at the marvellous All About Bradford Facebook page for more pictures of a once great city.

Anybody unfamiliar with Bradford’s recent troubled history may get some sense of where it all started to go wrong from pictures like the above.

Contrast the ugly concrete block – long since gone – that dominates all around. One can only conclude that the architects drew this one up blindfold.

If Bradford has anything worth crowing about still it has to be some of the finest Victorian architecture around and, whilst you cannot save everything, what went on in the Sixties was unforgivable.

What we don’t need is London based “modernism” (Yorkshire interpretation = overpriced, poncy s***) dreamt up by architects up their own fat a****…there…that feels much better!

The Idle Lord

Sorry you can’t read the boards in the background, lack of space will just not allow us to make the pics any larger. Still it is as well, it’s just possible you could be one of the contestants, now that would be embarrassing. Ed

THACKLEY TRUMPIT MARCH 2014 THE IDLE LORD

HOW BAZAAR?

From The Idle Lord, Musings From The Padded Cell

Despite public protests and an initial refusal by Bradford planners, a convicted former operator of an indoor market looks about to open a new Asian bazaar on a “trial” six-month basis. Convicted of contravening a Stop Notice issued by the Council, he was fined almost £90,000. Now though, all’s well in the eyes of the Council as they prepare to grant this company, DP Franchising Ltd – of which I can find no record – permission to open despite protests from residents about the parking problems and disruption it might…sorry…will cause.

The licence will be reviewed in six months’ time…pull the other one…before the Council elect to collect another stash of wonga.

Our local Council is staggeringly stupid and inept – we all know that – but just consider the approval comprising 35 stalls with a maximum of 28 traders opening 11am to 7pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The building was a Morrisons supermarket some 30 years ago and the main car-park has since been built on. There is also a roof-top car park which you always felt was about to collapse.

The hair-pin bend on exit certainly livened up the weekly family shop to Morrisons as my Dad’s Ford Capri never seemed to have any brakes that worked all at the same time; most weeks it was like a trip on the Wild Mouse at     Blackpool.

Now they want to plonk 36 cars for customers atop while traders – suitably helmeted indoors no doubt – will have to use 27 spaces behind the building. Unless the traders are turning up in Sinclair C5s this looks disingenuous to say the least.

Then again lets not expect a council to be anything but economical with the truth.

The really “good news” is that a parking steward – doubtless a numerical dyslexic halfwit in a yellow jacket – will “manage” the flow of cars. Could you really make this up?

When the car park is full customers will be directed to on-street parking. Have the Council not noticed that there is none of this? Pity the local residents who will suffer a market nobody, locally, wants and will bring no economic benefit other than to the market operators.

Inevitably, speaking out against this idiotic proposal can get you the convenient tag of “racist”. However, put simply there is as much demand for an Asian bazaar in this area of Bradford as a bier keller across town where they hacked everybody off in the first place.

Ironically, there are several empty and refurbished retail units on the site of the Morrisons that replaced the original, with ample parking – front and back – for customers and traders alike.

Would it be churlish to suggest that they have negotiated a “trouser it fast and leg it” lease, one that they may not have been able to secure on the more suitable retail park?

You can see further Musings From The Padded Cell at http://www.idlelord.com