Three topics were discussed at Wednesday’s Full Council
meeting, Councillors’ questions, Motions and the Leaderְ’s report. In due course
summaries will appear here but not just yet. Reporting on a Council meeting takes
three to four times the length of the meeting and right now there is simply not enough spare time.
It is a month before the next meeting of any note so unlike Scrutiny meetings which
are like buses, turning up three times in a week, there is no great rush to get anything on line.
Meanwhile the usual fillers from the trivial end of the spectrum.
Parking
The photos below were all taken yesterday within five minutes walk of home.
The reason for the first ticket is obvious. A wheel on the pavement is always an offence. It doesn’t show
clearly on the second Photo but the front of the car is overhanging the flat portion of someone’s drive by about a foot.
I suspect the affected resident reported it because I know they are pretty fed
up with Elizabeth line commuters.
The others are impossible to be sure about. It could be that someone has not
paid the outrageous £15·80 minimum charge or it could be a resident with an expired CPZ permit but it is much more likely that it is something else.
On both sides of the road only a small section of each 150 yards long parking bay is open for paying visitors.
The dividing line has faded almost to nothingness and in any case residents are allowed
to park over it
rendering it invisible. The restriction sign offers no help at all.
The lack of clarity has been known to Bexley Council for many years and the current Cabinet Member but they would prefer to cheat motorists whenever possible.
Brown faced friends
A friendly Councillor told me the other day that he secretly feeds the foxes in his garden. Or was it a she? I forget.
I am not sure that is a good idea.
A year ago a very sick looking mangy young fox would use my front drive as a
sleeping pad and I took pity on her. At first it was the occasional sausage,
bacon that was past its sell by date and maybe a bit of corned beef.
She became a regular visitor and a very healthy looking specimen. A veterinary
surgeon friend told me that the cheapest way to feed her was to bulk buy dog
biscuits but the fox turned her pretty nose up at the idea.
Occasionally she disappeared for two or three weeks at a time but recently she
(there was a distinctive feature in her fur so easy to identify) has taken up almost permanent residence and will trot alongside me if take a
trip to the communal bins. Now she brings friends. The original one is happy to
come right up to me, then there is a second which is timid and thinks 15 feet is
quite close enough. A third turns around and runs if she sees me. Then stops,
turns around again and reconsiders its position.
There is a fourth one but I have only seen it once.
Finding things to keep them happy is beginning to get
rather expensive. My advice would be, don’t do it!
The fourth picture is of the family dog who was often mistaken for a tame fox.
Judy died in 1969 aged 14.
X marks the spot
I have always felt a little sanctimonious about not blocking anyone on Twitter (†), not
even those hateful Lefties who report me to the police and threaten to sue if I
so much as mention her name. What is the point of depriving such people of a source of education?
However recently I have seen far to much abusive stuff on X and last Saturday
began to use the Mute facility so that they no longer waste my time with idiotic
insults. Political comment is welcome but threats of violence are not. By the
end of the weekend 121 mainly anonymous accounts were muted and I suspect the
number is around 200 now but only one Bexley based as far as I know. In reality
another reaches the criterion.
I am not an enthusiast for calling election candidates about whom we as yet know very little, sleazebags, racists, poopers
(on the grave of a dead MP) and associating them with Kim Jong Un until they have proved themselves worthy
of those epithets. So far I have avoided the Mute button but Councillor Dourmoush has grasped that nettle with both hands.
May I pass on a message to the Mayor of Bexley please? If you or any of your
successors ever fail to immediately dump any Award suggestion bearing my name into
the nearest Council shredder you will never hear the last of it.
Someone seems to think it is funny most years but it is not.
In any case, us Knights have had our fair share of Civic Recognition Awards
already. The photograph is of my 13 year old Granddaughter getting hers from the
Mayor of Malmesbury last night. (Junior Citizen of the Year.)
The bugger could not be bothered to wear his chain!
† Over enthusiastic commercial advertisers excepted.