Public consultations: it’s the news from Britain

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In a stunning leap into the modern world, the Wirral Council got rid of a 1935 bylaw that made it illegal to beat a carpet, sing wantonly, or sound a noisy trumpet along a stretch of the Merseyside coast. 

Is it possible to play a non-noisy trumpet? No offense to trumpet players, but I’m under the impression that they’re pretty much all tuned to the key of loud, although any quiet trumpet players out there are welcome to tell me I’m an ignorant git. I do not now play nor have I ever played the trumpet.

But back to the law change: It’s also now legal–or at least not illegal–to incite a dog to bark, make a violent outcry, or erect a “booth, tent, bathing machine, shed, stand, stall, show, exhibition, swing, roundabout or other like erection or thing.” 

What’s a bathing machine? It’s not a machine that throws itself into the bathtub. It’s a wheeled hut that could be pulled into the water, allowing victorian ladies to change into clothes that wouldn’t drown them but not have to walk across the beach in anything revealing. Why anyone bothered to ban them in non-victorian 1935 is beyond me.

Irrelevant photo: My phone tells me this is whitebeam. It’s sometimes right but it did once swear that a dahlia was a carnation, so don’t place any heavy bets on this, okay? What I can tell you definitively is that it’s a neighbor’s tree.

What inspired the changes? Bikes–or as they call them in Britain, push bikes. The old law made it illegal to ride one along what’s now a popular bike route, which left the council in the awkward position of wanting to post informational signs related to a common but technically illegal activity. 

Before 2011, local governments in England needed permission to get rid of out-of-date bylaws. Now all they have to do is hold a public consultation, which brings me, at long last, to today’s headline.

Maybe you know what public consultations are like, but in case you don’t, they work like this: You (the you here being a governmental body) open some online site up to the public, inviting them to comment, but no one knows about it unless the Anti-Bathing-Machine Society finds it and publicizes it to their members, in which case they all write in and make the case that the beach will fill up with bathing machines. You either read what they’ve written or you don’t. Either way, you’ve consulted, the rules have been followed, and you can repeal the law in peace. 

I’m sure London followed those procedures when it repealed a law against transporting horse carcasses in Hammersmith and Fulham. As did Whitstable, in Kent, when it repealed a law against drying clothes in parks. And so we stagger into the modern age, unencumbered by history. 

 

Consulting the not-public

Meanwhile, the House of Lords consulted itself (at least as far as I’ve been able to work it out) about whether to change its rules so that lords will no longer have to register nonfinancial interests that might influence their work. And guess what: it decided the rule was too burdensome and dropped it.

Does a nonfinancial interest  matter, though? Since we live in a society where money rules all, you wouldn’t expect it to, but it can involve anything from being the unpaid chair of a board to involvement in a thinktank or lobbying group. Tortoise Media found that some members of the Lords only participated in debate on topics they’d registered a nonfinancial interest in. 

And following the trail of a declared nonfinancial interests has, at times, led to undeclared financial interests coming to light.

 

Not consulting a proofreader

At the recent Conservative Party conference, attendees were given chocolate bars with a wrapper misspelling Britain–the place the party would like to take another run at governing.  I hate to defend the Conservatives, but they have company: the Scottish Labour Party misspelling Scottish in an election leaflet and the Reform Party misspelled the name of one of its two Members of Parliament, who went ahead and shared the leaflet on social media.

 

Consulting the wrong people

Whoever the organizers of the Great North Run, in Newcastle, consulted when they ordered participation medals and tee shirts for their race, they were the wrong people. The souvenirs proudly carried a map of the wrong city: Sunderland. 

Give them a few years and they’ll be collectors items.

 

Consulting more wrong people

The British aren’t–hmm, how do I say this diplomatically–famous for their food, and when a popular website, Good Food, ran a recipe for cacio e pepe, which you may have guessed is Italian (the language is a hint) it set off a storm. First mistake, the website said it was easy. It’s not. I can testify that the easy part is how easily it goes wrong. Second mistake, they got the ingredients wrong. 

Butter? No. No butter.

Parmesan? Nope. Pecorino romano. 

An Italian association of restaurants demanded a correction and, in case that wasn’t enough, took the issue up with the British embassy. But let’s not be too hard on the British about this. The New York Times got in the same kind of hot water by adding tomatoes to a carbonara sauce. 

 

Let’s drop the consultation theme

In Bavaria (that was in Germany last I looked), someone called the police about a wiseacre ringing their doorbell in the middle of the night and being nowhere around when they answered the door. You know how the game works: some teenager rings the bell, then runs giggling around the corner. Except that the ringing didn’t stop.

The police did show up and noticed not just that the bell was still ringing but that a motion-detection light hadn’t gone on, which led some clever devil to notice a slime trail crossing the doorbell sensors. A slug had set them off. Or–what do I know?–a snail.

The police claim to have explained territorial boundaries to the little beastie. I doubt it’ll help, but the story made the news in multiple countries, including Britain (making this almost legitimate blog fodder), for whatever that moment of fame is worth to the sleep-deprived.  

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Meanwhile, back in Britain, 210 teenage army recruits were put through the wrong training course when the army forgot to notify an outsourcing company, Capita, about a change in its requirements. By now, everyone will have been shuffled into the right course but the mistake will extend the length of their training. 

The Army’s struggled lately to recruit enough trainees to replace the soldiers who are leaving. It’s currently short more than 2,000 trained personnel. This is unlikely to help.

30 thoughts on “Public consultations: it’s the news from Britain”

  2. The Good Food website story reminded me of when Jamie Oliver tried to reinvent paella by adding “chorizo” – a type of Spanish sausage. People in Spain are still horrified by this gross misconduct. (I love Jamie Oliver by the way, but some things are sacred, paella being being one of them).

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  3. I play trombone but yes there are soft trumpet players. They usually put a mute in their bells to make them sound softer. The most famous of which is Miles Davis who often would uses a harmon mute. Google him and you will have a jazz experience.

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  4. Despair not ! here is all you need to know about that old Italian shepard’s chow.

    As for lasagna – you can throw anything in that can not escape, and there is nothing wrong with Bechamel sauce. It’s Greek anyway.

    As for a quiet trumpet, I think Mr C. BAKER may be interesting for you. Chet was a tragedy on two legs, but one of the best musicians on earth.

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    • That’s too votes for the possibility of a quiet trumpet. I can only refer you to the long-dead lawmakers and hope–

      Nah. Never mind that.

      The only thing wrong with bechemel sauce is that it fills space without contributing taste. Other than that, it’s fine. I’ll be the shepherds did a better job of it.

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  6. Just a random tale from a few years ago on the subject of mistakes. One night police were pursuing a fugitive, using a helicopter and thermal imaging. The villain they caught was a compost heap.
    Jeannie

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  8. The slug story reminded me of something my husband did several years back. We live on two acres in the exurbs. Crime is pretty much a non-issue. But he thought we needed a security light. It’s nice on dark mornings. However, I don’t know if he set it up wrong or what. It’s right outside my bedroom window. And some nights, it’s triggered a lot. Not by humans, by raccoons and deer. And the cypress tree that was a shrub when he planted it but is now as tall as the house. He’s gone, but the light remains.

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