Culture of Waste

OK, I’ve started again now. Dangerous thing, ranting. It’s habit-forming.

This had me swearing at the radio this morning. Birmingham City Council organising a “day of culture” in support of its bid to become the UK’s first City of Culture, whatever that means and however it might differ from European Cities of Culture such as (snigger) Liverpool and (guffaw) Glasgow. And culture means just about anything, it seems. If you’re in Birmingham and you visit an art gallery, the Council are dying to hear from you. If you do a bit of dancing, do tell the Council. If you cook a meal or go out on your skateboard, the Council want to hear about it. No really, they do.

But if you forget to tell them, don’t worry, they’ll find out. From another page on this specially commissioned, taxpayer-funded website: “Throughout the 24 hours there will be roving reporters, out and about, visiting events across the city to report back live on the website on what the city is getting up to. Armed with video cameras they will capture Birmingham enjoying culture in its many forms!”. God Almighty.

And the Conservatives are getting slammed for wanting to save money ?

Birmingham City Council, it will be recalled, was recently the focus of protests and demonstrations when they announced that they need to make 2,000 job cuts over the next year. Birmingham City Council, the organisation that brought us “Winterval”. Birmingham City Council, which has overspent its budget to the tune of £75m. I wonder how they did that, then ?

All this is being fronted by some publicly-funded Council-offshoot called Birmingham Cultural Partnership. They claim to be working to: “Get more local people involved in culture (including arts, libraries, music, dance museums and galleries)”

Well, don’t. Work to educate your kids, keep your streets clean, help the homeless and mend the potholes. Leave the rest to the people. And save them a fortune in the process.