Captain Higgins's Blog

Yes, the Captain is back……

captainhiggins — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:09:31 +0000

General crossness, the New Year, and a deep-seated desire to annoy people who deserve it leads to me switching on this blog once more. m/f as we used to write in the trade.

Mr Growser again

captainhiggins — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:47:50 +0000

As did his creator, Mr Growser lives in what is now the London Borough of Barnet, a badly-run large London outer administrative area. There’s no real centre, and it’s relatively affluent, or parts of it are, and does not quite have the problems of (say) Tower Hamlets or Hackney. The culture of the Council is, though, inevitably informed by the inappropriate numbers of indecently well-paid senior officers, and an arrogant lack of consultation with the communities they are supposed to serve. This is all overlaid by the gross ineptitude which allowed this curious local authority on the one hand to place borrowed money in Iceland to the tune of some £20 million pounds, hoping to make a fast buck from the then higher interest rates, and then to lose it. Clearly their well-educated officers and Councillors of the ruling Conservative group were not there that evening at night school when the class was told “interest is a reward for taking risk”, or to wonder how a tiny country with such a small GDP could guarantee essentially commercial loans of such magnitude. In the true sense of the word, it was an ignorant thing to do. Now, Mr Growser wonders, have they indicated their officers should not spend any money on matters like enforcing the integrity of the Green Belt? Or repairing potholes? Is there a Birmingham style cull of the overpaid? No. Have Councillors volunteered to give up their “allowances”, since some of them at least were in charge when the money was lost? No. Has any Councillor resigned because of this huge loss? No. As Mr Growser puts it “It’s disgraaaaaaaaaaceful! It ought not to be allowed!

Church and State

captainhiggins — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:15:05 +0000

In all the current allegations of bullying at the heart of what passes for government, no word on the moral compass from The Venerable Beard. A Chaplain comments “I think we should concentrate on the inner meaning of bullying. In the second chapter of Egregius, verse 23, are we not told that unkindness to others is a sign of searching for fulfilment? Does not |Scotius tell us in his commentary that hurling stone tablets is a genuine way of expressing ourselves? We are, after all, sinners, and should not be quick to throw the first Nokia”.

Mr Growser writes….

captainhiggins — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:47:12 +0000

Shutting London Fire Stations! It’s disgraceful! And call yourself the Mayor of Barnet, too….it ought not to be allowed.

I have decided to join Twitter.

captainhiggins — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:37:42 +0000

This is clearly a crazed act for someone who cannot see much but sad in those who view rather than do somethin useful. But, my invisible friends, there may be merit in being more active, letting my rants spill out into the air, opening the front door of suburban opinion, though with deep hopelessness at any influence on the shallow, smug, self-satisfied and thich bunch of fools who have let our country become what it is, namely bust, fighting an under-resourced war, a haven for Europe’s and the world’s chancers, spivs and deluded, where a sense of duty is now a sense of entitlement, where Etonians tell us we can have no more Grammar Schools and want us oiks to vote without telling us what they intend to do to give us “change”. As for the promise of localism, of you and I, my friends, having any say, just look at what Conservative Central Office has done to impose Friends of “Dave” and the Cameroonians on local Conservative Associations. Would it were the laws were still in place so I could pick the pocket of our Prime Minister (as opposed to this deeply flawed inadequate picking mine) and be transported to Australia.

Police set own agenda

captainhiggins — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:12:09 +0000

I've got an alibi

In the wake of the Deputy London Mayor’s (or is it the Mayor of London’s Deputy’s – one gets as confused by the roles and titles as they must be as they change hats and salaries throughout the working day) allegation that the hand of Boris is on the Met tiller, it emerges the police think no-one has the right to tell them what to do. Particularly, they appear to say, a politician elected by the very people they are employed to serve.

Mrs Ollerenshaw has little time for either side. “If I see those two, whatsisname Boris and the man in that peaked cap, I’ll tell them to pull themselves together and stop these hooligans scribbling on walls and thieving. If they can’t run things without squabbling in this way how can they expect to get any respect? They need a grownup to give them a good shaking. If there’s any more of it I’ll get Mr Ollerenshaw to have a quiet word with Boris’s dad. I don’t know whether it’ll do much good – he hasn’t even taught Boris to ride his bike properly. I don’t like to interfere, but I’ll make it clear I’m only telling them for their own good”.

Poetry cornered

captainhiggins — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:11:21 +0000

Our poet has been at it again. He believes there is a lucrative market for verse aimed at lovers of dear little pussies. No card manufacturer has offered him more than a crude brush-off for this masterpiece….

“My guru, who’s in Katmandu,

Says cats are not auspicious.

But curried with a little goat,

Are really quite delicious,

So, lunch on Tuesday? Must go now,

For Tiddles is suspicious.”

Brown cuts communications no shock probe

captainhiggins — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:10:36 +0000

A leading Civil Servant has explained the Prime Minister’s diffidence over the Lockerbie Bomber affair. “The dog ate the minute” he said, “and political advisers had to invent the PM’s position all over again.” Correspondents are desperately trying to work out whether equating absence and absentmindedness with deviousness will bring down official wrath on them together with partly ill-founded leaks about their private life. Meanwhile the Press has not had the time or the Official Press Releases to tell the world a Bank of Englad official has been spotted in New Bond Street allowing £20 notes to fall on the pavement from a special holder clamped to his leg. When arrested by police on suspicion of littering he made a statement saying he was part of the team charged with “quantitative easing”. No-one, least of all economists, knows what to make of this.

Poetry Corner

captainhiggins — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:09:46 +0000

A poet of our acquaintance has provided this musing from London’s clubland, entitled Eminence. He writes

“Today, while leafing through WHO’s WHO,

I saw a name I thought I knew.

A boy who we thought quite a fool, when he was in my year at school.

Our last real contact was a punch.

I wonder, should I give him lunch?”

Introducing Olive

captainhiggins — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:09:02 +0000

Mrs Ollerenshaw of Toadmorden, Yorks, has joined the controversy on bankers’ bonuses. She told a sharp-suited man in the High Street, apropos of nothing, he had more money than sense. She added “I’m only telling you for your own good” before resolutely proceeding towards the Co-op bakery to acquire more parkin. Unfortunately the man in question was a nattily dressed unemployed mobile phone salesman with no idea what sin he had commited. When told later, Mrs Ollerenshaw added “He had it coming to him” before putting more water in the teapot.