Thursday 4 February 2010

Hoist By One's Own Retard


When idiotarian control meets intransigent bureaucracy.

29th January

While in Manchester the Home Secretary visited Newall Green High School in Wythenshawe to meet young people who could be some of the first to be able to apply for cards from 2010. Together they discussed how identity cards will help young people strike out on their own by opening their first bank account

4th February

Darren McTeggart tried to use the £30 card to pick up a replacement credit card from a branch of Santander – formerly Abbey – in Manchester, where the scheme was rolled out on a voluntary basis last year.

Mr McTeggart, one of the first people to get the card, said: “They said it was not on their list of approved ID."

Pray tell how someone working in a bank, in Manchester, is apparently oblivious to the huge publicity surrounding the ID card scam scheme. One wonders if they would be as slow on the uptake if Jedward had wandered in to ask for a loan.

This is the problem with a nation dumbed down to the level of self-absorbed, vacant drones, there's always one who will make a flagship policy look an elaborate and expensive farce.

Pffft.




7 comments:

Christopher Snowdon said...

Cracking title.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Cracking title indeed.

I was laughing so hard I couldn't actually concentrate on the post :)

Anonymous said...

"One wonders if they would be as slow on the uptake if Jedward had wandered in to ask for a loan."

That could never happen. Loans are only supposed to be given to people with some prospect of a reasonably long career in front of them.

Dick Puddlecote said...

S & MW: Cheers, but don't get used to it, title inspiration hits me about twice a year.

Anon: Good point. If I could name another X Factor contestant, believe me I would have.

Anonymous said...

Of course young people have never been allowed to have bank accounts before now...er, oh wait, that's not right..hmmmm.

BHJ

timbone said...

Sorry a little off topic, but one bit reminded me of something. A person who had lost their sense of smell asking for a free gas safety check only to be informed that their handicap was not on the list of disabilities.

Anonymous said...

So a national identity card in not on the list of suitable identity proofs; a loss of the sense of smell is not on the list of disabilities.
Do we see a common thread here?

No one seems to have any DISCRETION any more. No one seems to be allowed to use their common sense. All must be done according to a set of instructions and no deviation is permitted. And so we get these constant reports of extremely silly Health and Safety regulations, and so on, culminating in the loss of life - in the case, for example, of the child which drowned in Wigan because two special constables were not trained to enter a pond.

Do you know, COMPUTERISATION is involved in this problem. Years ago, when I was a bank officer, the Branch Manager had the power to decide whether or not to give a customer a personal loan. When the bank became computerised, a message was sent round that a new computer program had been introduced and that personal loan applicants' details should be entered into the computer and that IF THE COMPUTER SAID 'LEND', THEN THE COMPUTER'S DECISION SHOULD BE ACCEPTED. Everywhere we go, people tap things into computers and whatever comes out is SACROSANCT.

I had this problem at my local library. Very quickly, I borrowed books which were not exhibited but were held in store. After 6 months, the library insisted in taking them off me (even though I had taken them into the library to be renewed perfectly correctly). I surrendered the books and they were put back in store. That is, put into a cupboard somewhere. Now, what is the use of books being stored in a cupboard? But the computer said that 6 months had elapsed and so the books had to be taken off me. Stupid, or what?

Obviously, it is not the actual computerisation. It is the instructions from above which make the computer KING.

But we see by this how silly the modern world has become, aided by computerisation. As regards global warming, computers do all the calculations of temperature changes, and whatever they say is law. As regards smoking statistics, the computer projections are law. Some 'scientists' and politicians are past masters of manipulating computerisation to their advantage.

In the case of smoking, as it was in the case of the poll tax, the whole house of cards would be brought down in a heap if people rebelled. But we note that, in the case of the poll tax, people did not just not pay their poll tax, they marched about in the streets, even though some of the marchers probably benefited (unbeknown to them) from the poll tax.

Bearing in mind 'computerisation' of people and the 'instructionalisation' of people, the only question that arises is HOW?

There's the rub.