After reading Holby’s post about the Foreign Office I thought I’d follow them on Twitter. They followed me back. So I thought I’d have some fun.
I wonder if they’ll reply or unfollow me? Or even worse, do a Labour and block me?
In the first of the 3 posts I promised I was going to do today about the Hoot Against Hypocrisy shenanigans I made mention of the occupants of the camera car digging around for something. When I first arrived at the car there was something missing from the front windscreen and when they realised what I was up to they found what was missing and slid it into the holder on the inside of the screen. Once it was in place the male occupant of the car knocked on the window to get my attention and pointed to the inside of the window pointing out something.
If you watch the video you will see what I’m talking about. Look in the lower right hand side (as you’re looking at the car). You can see two little “sticker type” doodabs, but because I’m so fucking organised I took a picture so you needn’t look out for them:
Before I go into rant mode, notice the expiry date on the permit. 10/09/2010, anyone care to guess where I’m going to be on the 11th September at all?
Ok rant mode:
Emergency? Emergency my fucking arse!
When one thinks of emergencies you think of things like this:
This:
This:
And if you’re a chick this:
But you most certainly do not think of this:
You see what they’ve done there don’t you? They’ve assigned the CCTV car the status of an emergency vehicle which then allows it to park wherever and however it wants with absolutely no come back whatsoever. That says to me that there has to be some sort of qualifying factors to get a vehicle assigned emergency status, and by fuckery I’m going to find out what those qualifiers are, and once I do I’m going to make them publicly available so that the man on the street can “adapt their car” to qualify for an emergency parking permit.
That’ll show the fuckers. You may also have noticed from one of the earlier posts today that Lambeth Council have quite suddenly started visiting this site, maybe the person who’s been visiting would be nice enough to send me the qualifying criteria for an emergency vehicle anonymously. Failing that I do have one or three contacts in the council and I’m sure they’ll be more than willing to help me out.
The point of today’s exercise was to prove if you stand against these guys there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it whatsoever as long as you’re reasonable about it, at the same time you’re also demonstrating to other people that it is possible to protest against these mother-fuckers without any comeback at all.
London Borough of Lambeth… You’ve Been Cromwelled!
My second attempt at video making.
I’ve just noticed something which I missed in all the larking about. At about 1:07 into the clip watch how the occupants try and hide their faces with the sun visros. Doesn’t feel so good to have the camera on you contantly does it fucktards…. ?
Well what can I say, it was a blast & I didn’t get arrested, accosted or interfered with in any way shape or form, always a good thing I reckon.
As has been habit this week I cut my bus journey short this morning in order to confront the camera car with my awesomely designed sign, my YBC T-Shirt, and my camera. No, no pig mask today. There’s lots to talk about and show you so I’m going to be breaking the whole episode up into three posts. This post is going to concentrate on the experience itself, one will be a serious question that’s arisen from the experience and the third will be the actual video.
I got to my position way too early this morning, but it gave me a chance to settle my nerves (no matter how many times you do these type of things there’s always a few nerves). I took this time to don my YBC shirt, get the sign ready and to make sure the camcorder was operational and on the correct settings etc. I didn’t have to wait long for the camera car at all, and as expected I didn’t have to wait long until it parked on the now famous double yellow lines.
Sign in one hand, camera in the other I walked up to the window of the car and greeted the occupants and then walked round to the front of the car, set the camera to record and held up the sign.
The male occupant of the camera car said something to his colleague and they did a bit of digging around, I wasn’t quite sure why, but it soon became evident. Which will be the basis of my second post.
Bear in mind this is rush hour in London so traffic isn’t exactly fast moving (Bonus for me) so people actually had the time to read and then react to the sign. At first a few people laughed in the comfort of their car, however they all gave the thumbs up signal,which I’m hoping was their approval of my activities. It didn’t take long before people started hooting as requested and I’m sure the local residents were wondering what the fuckety-fuck was going on outside.
Lots of drivers rolled down their windows and congratulated me as did a lot of pedestrians etc. The crowning moment I think for me (only because it provided a good old giggle) was when a Lambeth Council rubbish truck drove past and actually hooted. Considering I was protesting against some of their fellow employees it was quite surprising but the source of the stupid grin on my face.
After about 35 minutes I packed up and before leaving asked the occupants of the car whether it would be ok to lean the sign up against the car to take pictures etc. They said it was fine, so I took my pictures, wished them a good weekend and got the hell out of dodge.
So all in all pretty successful, hopefully it will have stirred a few people into being vocal about the hypocrisy of Lambeth Council, and it could possibly drive a bit of traffic to the site.
Apologies for the lack of pictures, they’ll be up later tonight when I get a chance to grab them off the camera.
Booyaka Mother-fuckers!
UPDATED: To include this link
UPDATED: To include the screenshot below: Welcome London Borough of Lambeth! I hope you’re on your lunch break while browsing the site!
Yes, yes I know an oxymoron and all that bollocks, but if you’ve read the post before this, you’ll know that the other day after almost two years of just driving by a certain camera car that was breaking the law I decided enough was enough. I confronted the occupants of the car and made a little film. Oscar winning stuff. I shit you not. Anyhow, the day after I filmed the camera car I thought I’d go back to see if they’d taken any notice of my complaint. Sadly not. However I did attempt to film the car again, I got about 30 seconds worth and to be honest I don’t have the motivation to edit it and stick it up just yet as the effort and time involved far outweighs the length of the clip..
I’m sure everyone’s heard the saying “Third strike and you’re out”, well judging by the non-response of the camera car I’m guessing I’ll be able to catch them a 3rd time. It should be pretty easy as parking on double yellows is quite a habit for these cretins. So to celebrate and to make the 3rd time a little more special I’ve done a little more preparation. See picture below. Apologies for the poor quality of the picture but I’m sure you’ll get the gist of what I’m going to be doing.
I’m sure you’ll agree I’m no arts and crafts specialist, in fact I failed that particular part of my school career rather badly. But at least I’ve got the job done and I’ll be able to get the message across.
Now I know some people will be asking what good will I be doing by standing in the middle of the road with a sign. Well to be 100% honest probably not a lot, however at least I’ll make my point. That said, on the two previous occasions I’ve filmed the camera car I’ve had a rather positive response from people in their cars and passers by, so I’m hoping a cacophony of car hooters will be piercing the still morning air in the Streatham area soon.
Are the council aware of what I’m going to be doing? Nah, not really, but who gives a fuck huh? They do know however that I’m on the warpath:
Dear Mr Cromwell,
Thank you for your e-mail of 31 August 2010. I am sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction with our services. We have logged your correspondence as a complaint under the reference 134507. A copy of our complaints procedure has been attached for your reference.
A response will be provided by 21 September 2010
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further enquiries.
Yours sincerely
Robert Elliott
Assistant Team Administrator
Business Performance Section – Parking Services
Lambeth Housing, Regeneration and Environment
+: PO Box 51929, London, SW9 9YR
(: 020 7926 6249 Fax: 020 7926 0506
:: relliott2@lambeth.gov.uk
Website: www.lambeth.gov.uk‘Making a difference’
Indeed, and if that’s not enough, the nosey mother-fuckers have been visiting the site, which is rather flattering really wouldn’t you say? That and they’ve got my FOI request too. Keep an eye out for a new video soon.