I think I'm considered persona non grata in the various local blogger groups. It's because I generally don't blog about my hometown. Apparently, there's this rule that says if you're a Birmingham blogger you have to write about Birmingham.
Pfft. And tush.
Anyway, hopefully I can qualify for the time being, as Birmingham has featured the news in the last day or so, due to gargantuan levels of dickwaddery.
I realise I'm making up new words. Bear with me, folks. We're pushing the envelope.
A leaflet sent out by the Council to 720,000 householders here, praising us for our recycling efforts, featured a picture of Birmingham's skyline. But instead of Birmingham (West Midlands), someone managed to use a picture of Birmingham (Alabama) instead.
This displays dickwaddery on several levels. (I'm really pushing this 'new dictionary' thing, aren't I?) Firstly, are we really to believe that someone in Environmental Services sat up and thought: "We've saved a whole bunch of resources here, with our successful recycling programme. Why don't we celebrate it by producing tonnes of four-colour printing?"
And then, with irony circuits disconnected, and having decided to rape the planet's already limited materials, they give the design job to Gavin. Gavin's got qualifications and everything. He's a safe pair of hands, is Gavin. Unfortunately, he's too busy smoking B&H and watching Big Brother to actually do any work, so with the deadline approaching our Gav just scoots onto Google to find a Birmingham cityscape. Copy, paste, job's a good 'un. And no-one checks it. Nobody in the council (based in the centre of Birmingham, by the way) says, "Um, Gavin. This doesn't look like the view from my window."
And the initial reaction from the Council when they were found out? "Oh, this was just meant to be a generic cityscape." That just happened to be from a city with the same name as yours? I suppose if you're a spokesperson, simply saying, "We don't have the faintest clue what we're doing," isn't an option any more. I mean, it's even getting coverage over there, too. And I thought Fox News didn't do global.
Dickwaddery. You heard it here first.
4 comments:
Just you wait--York will start using an outline of the Empire State Building on all its official letterhead.
I think dickwaddery covers the £16,000 mistake ... "it's just meant to be a skyline to represent a city" my arse - that'd be someone searching Google images then!
No, no, no. You're missing it altogether.
They used the skyline of B'ham Alabama as a means of economizing.
(sorry, economising).
The B'ham AL skyline is so teeny-tiny that by using IT rather than the REAL Birmingham skyline the printers were able to save GALLONS of undoubtedly petroleum-based ink, thereby preventing the price of petrol from jumping again.
I'm certain of it.
Dickwaddery... I like it.
It kinda rolls around on the tongue before falling off. It has a certain something, a je ne se quoi... panache maybe?
Whatever it is I'm gonna use it.
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