Week ending 9th April

Our Friday miscellany of the week's news and events
Democracy inaction ... After our piece earlier in the week about the borough's regeneration dreams, a reader sent the following e-mail: "Surprised you made no comment re appendix 2 on first item of business. Here we are told that recommendations from Cross Party Working Group include: The Regeneration forum to be established will consist of a politically balanced view of between 3 and 5 (presumably 4 then) members to be chosen by the chair(person). Why the CPWG wished to discard the usual council protocol whereby political and/or independent groups discuss and decide themselves who will be their representatives on various council bodies, such as this, is not made clear. Further down the same appendix, all council decision making on regeneration projects would seem to be reserved to cabinet members. Call-in of decisions would be permitted by non-cabinet members. As call-in committees have an inbuilt majority of BBI members, such a course of action, for whatever reasons, can often prove to be futile."
Side splitting ... The Boston Bypass Independents' new blog is now trying to woo us with humour, but once again has scored a spectacular own goal. In synopsis the gag tells of an MP who dies and is duped into believing that Hell is preferable to Heaven as a place to spend eternity. He's shown it as a golf club filled with all his old friends, whilst Heaven is pleasant ... but a tad insipid. Only after he opts for Hell is he shown what it is really like - a barren land covered with waste and garbage. When he protests at being duped, the Devil responds:" Yesterday we were campaigning ....... TODAY you voted." The "own goal?" Substitute "Boston" for" Hell," and the" BBI" for "the Devil" and the whole thing ceases to be funny. That BBI! They can't even tell a joke!
What a corker ... As well at their new blog, we though for a moment that the BBI had got itself a website as well. During a random search of the web we came across headlines such as: "A report on the BBI Annual Dinner 2009," "BBI visits Robert McBride at Middleton, Manchester," and "The BBI will be at the PPMA 09 Show." It was only when we looked more closely that we realised that the BBI in question was the the British Bottlers' Institute - "a forum for those concerned with the bottling, canning and packaging of beverages and other products, enabling them to pool their experience and to discuss the important issues relating to plant, equipment, containers, closures, labels and ancillary subjects affecting such products." One BBI sounds almost as fascinating as the other, even though one has found its bottle and the other has lost it.
Poet scorner ... A reader who liked our Good Friday/bad egg photo has come up with a suggestion for further piece. He writes: "During the 17th Century there was a contemporary rhyme (sung to the tune Lillibullero) about the English rule in Ireland that went (loosely) thus;

'There was an old prophesy found in a bog -

Ireland will be ruled by an ass and a dog.

Now, if ------ is the ass and ------'s the dog,

So much for that prophesy found in the bog.'

"The blanks are there because there were apparently two versions- one vilifying the Commonwealth leaders and the other castigating King James and his military leaders.
I don't know why this little ditty comes to mind when I now look at how we are 'governed' by BBI, but it just keeps popping up! I have even tried to write a contemporary version but, starting with the new first line 'There was an old prophesy found in a rick' I keep finding my self short of acceptable/printable rhyming words; however apt maybe the ones that do keep coming to mind. Perhaps you would like to throw it open to your readers for their own suggestions/versions." Idea to us at the e-mail address below.
Snap Happy ... 1 ...Our headline of the week award goes to the Boston Standard for this effort on its website.

Find us a mugging where no one is assaulted, and you win the prize!
Snap Happy ... 2 ...Just when we thought that the Boston Bypass Independents had the monopoly on silly pricks, up popped this comedy cactus at Johnson's Garden Centre.

Unlike many, it seems someone in the plant world at least got excited about working over the Easter holiday! And for the benefit of our pre-decimal innumerate male readers - don't feel inferior ... 11cm is only 4.33070866 inches. As we've said before, if you don't get the joke, please don't ask, as the answer might offend!

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