When WSCC officially opened the pedestrianized East St. we had plenty of tantrums from the local councillors because they weren't involved enough in the opening ceremony. This was probably because the project was carried out by WSCC not ADC, and the monies for the project came from WSCC and not ADC. The new Footbridge is the same, and so are the tantrums it would appear.
Here's the official press release from ADC:
I do hope that when they say that there will be a display of 2014 cycles on Coronation green, that they are talking about the year 2014, as 2,014 bikes would take up a lot of space and there probably wouldn't be any room for people.
I agree that some stuffy old member of an outdated Germanic monarchy doesn't generate much excitement here at the Monkey House, but I am surprised that the local Tories are not over keen on the idea, after all, they love all that "us and them" rubbish, and would usually be found crawling over broken glass with their flies undone in order to even get a glimpse of one of these rusty old inbred relics, so why not this time?
It appears that a Tory scorned is far worse than any proverbial Woman. It appears that the ADC councillors were expecting to run the show as usual, and obviously they are somewhat put out by not being the centre of attention. This has led them to organise some "Fun" after the Imperialist overlord has sodded off back to one of his big houses in the country, which are obviously paid for by the people, but are exempt from the bedroom tax, but that's a different subject.
The local Tories appear to think that they should have more involvement because £200k of ADC cash was thrown towards the £10m price tag, although I recall this £200k being a grant rather than ADC's cash. And how is this ire showing itself?
On Facebook of course:
I'm unsure whether he is attempting, basic sarcasm here when he refers to the "pride that WSCC have in their wonderful work on the bridge", or whether he does think that it is a wonderful bridge and that they should have some form of pride. I don't know, they could be embarrassed about a crappy bridge, it's anyone's guess.
It is a bit strange that Mendoza seems to think that the people of Shoreham have been somehow mistreated by WSCC, purely for putting his and Parkin's noses out of joint by not letting them host the party and take the credit for something that they had very little to do with. It seems pretty clear that up until they found out that WSCC were overseeing the opening ceremony, these people were in full support of the bridge and were repeatedly telling us how much the wait would be worth it in the end. Mendo was even telling us how great it was and how he was arranging the opening ceremony up until a couple of weeks ago, when I assumed that he found out that he wasn't going to get any self publicity out of it.
As for the people at WSCC not knowing anything about Shoreham, well that would make them on par with Mendoza, because he's only been here five minutes and doesn't have a clue about the place either, maybe we could arrange an "Ignorance off" to see who knows less about Shoreham. You should also note that WSCC's representatives in Shoreham are all members of the local Tory party and also ADC councillors, so in effect he is saying that his fellow councillors are clueless, which I think is the first time that I've ever agreed with Mendoza.
The people of Shoreham aren't particularly bothered about who opens the bridge, or who talks about it on some radio programme that no one will listen to anyway, they just want the bloody thing to open so that they can cross the river, because after all the "iconic" nonsense, it is a bridge, a supposedly functional item which allows people to traverse a gap. That is all the people of Shoreham want, not a publicity show, a party, some stuffy old horse-faced relic cutting a ribbon or a competition to win a bike, but a bridge, so that they can move freely between the town and the beach.
I for one, can sleep soundly tonight, in the knowledge that Parkin will be saving the people of Shoreham from missing out on an opportunity to publicise our civic representatives who had absolutely sod all to do with the bridge, aside from a dozen or more photo opportunities for the local rag and a tantrum when they realised that they wouldn't be in charge of the visit by the Kaiser's second cousin twice removed (approximation but you get the picture). Is the sarcasm showing in this statement yet? I do hope so.
It's lucky that we have civic leaders who are so willing to promote
The other thing that concerns me is Mendo's choice to start a statement with a capitalised "NOW THEN...", one is instantly reminded of The Duck of Gloucester's old mate Jim......
Oh, they're both not from Shoreham, like to be on the radio and have old person hair, maybe there are more similarities, I just don't know.
Enjoy the bridge, I'd wait until after all the spoilt children have gone home before you use it though, you don't want to get involved in a scuffle, as Mendo does like to have a punch up whenever possible, he does claim to be dead hard and has a pretend ancestor who might have been a boxer, I guess that it could be true, he does look a bit canine after all.
Nighty Night
K
