Once again Fife Council have shown themselves up for the charlatans they are. Not content with looking to bring in monthly bin collections (see Blog entry 22 Jan), the almighty cock-up that is the school situation, and the overpaid overpopulated local authority but now they want to stop people paying respects to their deceased friends and family.

No doubt this latest piece of nonsense is somehow connected to those bastions (you heard me right) of our best interests, namely Health and Safety, although the article doesn't seem to clarify what exactly these "long-established rules on monuments and memorabilia" are. I note that the chairman of Fife Council's housing and communities committee is one Brian Goodall (pictured, right, at a recent Ward 4: Dunfermline South meeting), another one of my local representatives who makes Lord Lucan look like the ubiquitous Fearne Cotton. Come out, come out, wherever you are Brian? As I explained recently I only ever hear from one of my local councillors. Whenever I send an e-mail to one of them on local issues, which I often have to resolve myself, I copy the others in a matter of common courtesy (something they seem to know nothing about). Yet not once has either of the SNP or Lib Dems made any comment or offered a solution to whatever the problem is. Not once have they thought, "hey, maybe we could assist one of the local community we were elected to serve". "Nah, they'll have forgotten by the time the next election comes. Now show me again how to fill in this expense form". Oh, you think so, do you?

I'm only surprised that the mementos adorning gravestones last as long as they do as cemetery vandalism seems to be the latest mindless trend for the more feral elements of our modern youth. (I don't like to make sweeping generalisations about "young people" but some of them are just evil).

Talking of the debacle that is the piss-poor education infrastructure in our local area, Fife Council keep inundating us with information about the school they think our offspring should be attending. As usual we're way ahead of them and have already made all the necessary arrangements, which, I have to say, has been like planning a military campaign! One of the Council's recent missives actually asked us to complete a map showing them which route our child would take to school! Even though we've already told them that our daughter will be going to the local Catholic school they're still writing to us..."we notice you haven't replied blah blah blah"..."you didn't attend our recent open night blah blah blah". You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

I had given serious thought to trying to get a job with Fife Council as they're one of the biggest local employers but why would I want to work with such a bunch of clueless buffoons? I just wouldn't be able to hold my tongue. The daily grind that is travelling to and from work in Edinburgh suddenly seems rather appealing. Better the devil you know, methinks.

I actually got a response from the one local councillor who knows what the Reply button is for. He agrees with what I said about the proposed monthly waste collections and says that the Opposition will be voting against it and he doesn't think the pilot scheme will go ahead in our area - well, Committee Chair Tony Martin wouldn't want to shit on his own doorstep, would he? No matter where the pilot scheme takes place, I'll continue to protest against it because it's so blatantly WRONG. Some things are worth fighting for.

Rather interestingly he also said that a bus shelter WILL be erected at my morning bus stop, which is something I had given up all hope of. It would have been nice to have been told. Apparently there were some "objections from neighbours" but if they had to wait where I wait in the morning they'd be a bit more sympathetic. Last week I was stood beside three brass monkeys crying their eyes out. He also said there would also be the "imposition of enforceable 20mph speed limits" throughout my local area. I told him, quite frankly, that it wouldn't work because (a) the current speed limits are already ignored so why would the boy/man racers obey the new ones and (b) they're not "enforceable" because there's no-one to enforce them. Yes, you can phone the Police but the call will be given such a low grading as to make it pointless.

Talking of ra polis, I must have phoned them about an incident recently because this morning I received a "Fife Constabulary Quality of Service Survey" in the post. Whilst there may be some statistical use for any information I give them I'm not convinced that completing it will make any difference, certainly not to my local area. If they really wanted me to assess their service they should have issued it a lot sooner because I simply can't remember why I phoned them. What makes me laugh is that they've actually given me a deadline to get it back to them!

When I was struggling really badly with depression (it's still not resolved) I would phone them up about things that I know now I should have ignored or turned a blind eye to, although these things were against the law. (The Black Dog does tend to make you more over-sensitive to some things). Someone was sent round to 'tell me off' and as a result I simply stopped phoning them. Anything less than a murder or rape and I just forget about it. It shouldn't be like that but I was left with no alternative.

Maybe I should report my local councillors for impersonating elected officials...then again, why bother?