Lobster Blogster

Lobster Blogster produced this image around three years ago,
when the nutjobs at Watford Borough Council refused to warn
people in the "green bin" scheme of the dangers of Japanese
Knotweed. Eventually the DEFRA stepped in and gave them a
ticking off. Fat lot of good it did though, because now we have
knotweed in a building site right opposite the town hall.

During the week the lobster learnt that a crazy planning
permission has gone through, whereby over a hundred
"protected" trees are to be cut down. Clearly the value of a
Tree Protection Order is precisely zero, when you have a
town run by Liberal Democrats.

The Leader of the Lib Dems in Watford, and wife of the
mayor, runs a blog where he spouts facile drivel week
in week out. Perhaps the lobster needs to add an new
section in his "Top Blogs" bit forbloggers that emit
meaningless twaddle whilst developers go around chopping
down beautiful trees.
________________________________________________
UPDATE 1.
The Communities and Local Government website have a
publication called Tree Preservation Orders: A Guide to the
Law and Good Practice. It is available online in both Word and
PDF formats.

Watford Borough Council's guidance on TPO can
be found here.

Етикети: Lib Dems, Nascot ward, tree vandals, WBC

Iain Dale was spouting some old tosh along the lines that all bloggers censor their comments the other day. How does he know, does he read all blogs?




And then Lobster Blogster spotted a certain comment by Guido Fawkes Esq. Aha thought the lobster, a good chance to test the limits of Daley's self censorship regime. So the lobster posted the following comment (only one typo).



What are the chances that this particular comment will be airbrushed away by morning time? Does the pope shit in the woods? etc. etc.

Етикети: BNP, Guido, Iain Dale

Some rather excitable journalist at the BBC went off into one about a squid with an eating disorder, and completely missed the scoop of the year that "a London Bus was found floating on the Ross Sea!". The Sperm whale who was asked for his reaction said: "You wait all day for a squid to come along, and then three come along all at once!"

Етикети: bus, Ross Sea, squid

The guy that designed this has totally lost the plot. Go to www.geocities.com/bobtegner/ for more watery fun :0)

Етикети: Bob Tegner

Bought a record today, and the first track on it was Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren singing "Goodness Gracious Me".

£4.99! A real bargain.

Етикети: LP

The Lobster has been tasked with finding a venue in
or around Watford to show Al Gore's film, "An
Inconvenient Truth". To make the exercise worthwhile,
the venue would be able to hold 200 or more people.

_____________________________________________________
Possible locations are:

Vue cinema in Garston

Lecture Theatre at Post-grad Centre, Watford General Hospital
  - seats 100

Meriden Centre
  - seats 200 at a push, £150 to hire + £150 deposit
    7pm - 11.30pm, no tickets on door

_____________________________________________________
Ruled out are:

The Colosseum
  - small hall is c.£800

West Herts College
  - completely unhelpful (as expected!)

The Pump House
  - too small, but could possibly work with
    two sittings

YMCA
  - no longer let out function rooms

Watford Palace Theatre
  - 650 seats, c.£1,000-£1,500 - out of our price range

_____________________________________________________
Need investigating are:

School halls
Church halls

All other suggestions will be gratefully received ;0)

Етикети: Al Gore, venues, Watford

Iain Dale has a "dirty little secret". Would you like to know what it is?

Етикети: secret

Here's a sad thing:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/UK-mailing-db/

No one has signed the lobster's petition.

Oh, well...

UPDATE 1.
If you want to read why the government won't be banning junk mail (as suggested by Kat below), read the PM's e-petition response here.

UPDATE 2.
The lobster has had a petition rejected. See here for the lobster's proposal to make lying illegal :o)

UPDATE 3.
Here's the "more details" bit of the unsolicited mail petition properly formatted:
__________________________________________________________

The Prime Minister shall make it his responsibility to:

1) Set up a national database of UK addresses where the owner or occupier would prefer not to receive junk mail.
... a) Definition 1: junk mail
Items of non-addressed printed material which is delivered to an address, without the owner or occupier’s prior consent.
... b) Categories of junk mail which an owner or occupier may or may not chose to accept are listed at item 4) .

2) Require the Home Secretary to take responsibility for administering the database.
... a) by asking the Police and Security Services to address and to advise on issues of security, as and when they arise.
... b) by using the existing database, wherever possible, so as to minimise the cost to the exchequer.

3) Require the Environment Secretary to inform the operation of the database so that it works effectively at a national, local authority and local community level.
... a) by asking for the co-operation of existing UK organisations, bodies and groups who would be willing to participate in such a venture.
... b) by co-ordinating efforts to maintain said database, and to report to the government on the efficiency of the database.

4) Categories of non-addressed mail should include, but not be limited to:
... a) Commercial advertising
... b) Appeals by bodies of a charitable nature
... c) Information from a local authority where it under no legal obligation to supply (i.e. information about new services, regular mailings or brochures, surveys etc.)
... d) Material circulated by political parties
... e) Newsletters, petitions, advance notice of social activities and similar which may on an occasional basis be circulated by volunteers to a local area or neighbourhood
__________________________________________________________

Етикети: junk mail, petition, unsolicited mailing