The Stupider People Are, The More They Complicate Things!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for a mid-week rant I think.

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You may have noticed from the tag line of this blog that its major theme is to expose stupidity and bureaucracy and hopefully to encourage people to fight against it, rather than meekly fall in line with every idiotic rule and regulation that the bureaucratic morons introduce to make our lives a misery.

It is one of those curious contradictions in life that the stupider people are, the more they complicate things and the more they try to regulate things that require no regulation.

They just don’t understand that simplicity can sometimes be the most effective solution to problems – if indeed the problems they perceive even exist in the first place.

On the other hand, things that do need regulating, like the banksters for example, are left largely without interference.

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The big question is, why do these idiot bureaucrats needlessly complicate our lives? 

Many years ago I figured it out.

They do it to try to enhance their own importance. It’s as easy as that.

Let’s face it, most bureaucratic jobs don’t take a rocket scientist’s brain to cope with them. They are easy and repetitive but if done correctly can be completed quickly and without upsetting anyone.

But the bureaucrats won’t have it that way. Complicate the task is their solution. If they do that they need more staff to help them. If they have more staff they get to be in charge of more people, which makes them more important. If they complicate it even more they might need a whole department. And on and on it goes.

In the business world there are empire builders in all large companies. People of mediocre ability, but with enough survival instinct to create a belief that what they do is useful to the company. 

As time goes on they are able to hide within their little empires inside a company and no one questions if what they are doing is really needed and certainly few realize how dumb they are. It is only once they leave this safe environment that the truth becomes clearer.

I have encountered several of these beasts out in the open and it is not a pretty sight. They are so dumb that they have forgotten how dumb they really are. Inflated with their artificially induced and undeserved stature within their former companies they imagine that out in the real world they are, not just ‘as good’ as everyone else, but ‘better’ than everyone else! Invariably they make a mess of things, but unfortunately they cause a lot of damage, sometimes irreparable, before they are caught on and fired. 

Obviously the same type of people are in public life too. In fact this is where they excel, because here it is much harder to pin down their accountability and fire them. In many cases the people who have the power to fire them are exactly the same types and the last thing they want to do is diminish the size of their own empires.

Have you ever noticed that an average town or city can function quite well and efficiently with a mayor and a handful of administrators.

Yet if you take the same town or city ten years later, while it probably hasn’t changed much as regards size, (only in exceptional circumstances would it have doubled or trebled its population or area), it’s local bureaucracy has more than doubled and trebled in size, probably a lot more. It probably also has an increasing number of by-laws and regulations and to pay for it all more and more property and other taxes are being demanded from the community. Clearly all this additional bureaucracy is not needed. But it is there and will continue to grow.

Why do we allow this? Why do we keep electing people whose only idea seems to be the provision of the same basic services at an ever increasing cost?

Big government, federal government, is even worse.

The European Parliament, for example, churns out regulation after regulation after regulation, about ridiculous things like how straight a cucumber should be or how bent a banana can be and still be called a banana! 

Washington has adopted the same strategy, sticking its nose in things that are none of its business and that only serve to hinder rather than help the people who elected them.

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It’s about time we tried to stop this spiral into disaster.

It’s time big brother and all his little administrators had their noses put out of joint. 

Remember, “Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”,  wherever and whenever you can!

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Silly Named Game.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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A few months ago, I can’t remember exactly without doing a search on the blog, I did a short series that I called ‘The Silly Name Game’. Unsurprisingly it featured people with silly names. And some of them were very silly indeed. Here are a couple of examples to get you in the mood.

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But names are inflicted on people. They don’t really get to choose them. If they are lucky the girls ease their pain by ditching a silly or embarrassing birth name for that of a husband, but the guys are stuck, unless they change the ones they get at birth by deed poll or some other official device.

However, as luck would have it, people don’t tend to find their own names humorous or unusual. Familiarity I suppose dulls the senses over the years.

But the question that puzzles me most is, why, when people do get to choose a name, like a name of a town, for example, do they choose something absolutely awful?

If you have never noticed or thought about that you have an opportunity now because this post is about towns that have been named rather badly by someone who really should have known better. Personally I think large amounts of either stupidity or alcohol (or perhaps a combination of both) may have had something to do with it.

Here you go.

As always, enjoy.

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The Ultimate Signs From The Churches

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today we have the final selection in our look at some Church signs that went the way of the failed classifieds.

See if you can pick out the ones that didn’t quite turn out as the author probably intended.

Enjoy.

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Help A Victimized Child And Stop The Idiots In Florida!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes folks, sadly, the idiots have invaded the state organizations in Florida too.

And they are doing what they do best  –  inflicting needless misery on ordinary decent people.

This time the victim is a teenage girl, Kiera Wilmot, who has been expelled from her school and was arrested and charged with causing a totally harmless “explosion” by mixing household products in a plastic bottle.

The incident happened when she and another pupil of the school, mixed up some common household products in a plastic bottle – having heard that something amusing might result.

They did it outdoors on school premises. The resulting “blast” was not even sufficient to rupture the plastic bottle, merely popping off the top and generating some smoke.

Unfortunately for the luckless teenager, however, an idiot was at hand in the form of an assistant principal. He called the police and idiot number two, the responding officer, phoned idiot number three, a state prosecutor (named in the police report as Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty).

Isn’t it strange they way they all know each other – there must be a Secret Idiot Network, a bit like the Masons, that you are asked to join when you are deemed to be stupid enough!

Idiot three, the Assistant State Attorney, also known as a “R-Q’er” or “Regulation Quoter”, advised that Kiera be charged with “possessing or discharging weapons or firearms at a school sponsored event or on school property” and “making, possessing, throwing, projecting, placing or discharging any destructive device”.

As a result, local education officials (idiots 4 thru whatever), decided that Kiera had to be expelled from school.

Now the poor girl will have to try to complete her education in an “expulsion program”, and faces the future stigma of a serious criminal conviction.

In case you are wondering, Kiera’s killer cocktail consisted of nothing more than toilet cleaner and aluminum foil, so if you have either or both of these in your home  –  and I bet you do  –  then I guess if the wrong idiot came along he could charge you with having bomb-making materials! Never mind, they say the weather is nice and warm at Guantanimo.

Prior to her career as a bomb-maker, Kiera had never been in trouble. Even her school principle, Ron Pritchard, told WTSP News, “She is a good kid. She has never been in trouble before. Ever.”

Ron, in my opinion, you would be a lot better off getting rid of that idiot assistant of yours who started all this nonsense, rather than a good student.

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If, having read this, you feel the urge to help Kiera, there is an online petition addressed to several relevant local officials that says:

Please, do the right thing. Drop these charges and apologize for the incredible turmoil you have created.

To go to the petition please click here

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Remember, as I say at the start of every post, we have to “Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”. Otherwise one day they might be coming for YOU!

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More Signs From The Church

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today another selection of signs from various Churches that didn’t turn out to be s heavenly as perhaps intended, but some of them quite clever too! (But not the first one though, they couldn’t even spell Church!)

Enjoy.

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Forget That The Criminals Are The Problem – Let’s Attack The Decent Law-Abiding People

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for a bit of a rant today.

First one this year, I don’t know how I held out for so long.

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Since the horrible massacre of schoolchildren and their teachers by a mentally deranged moron in Connecticut the real debate has again been sidelined into the convenient ‘to-ban-or-not-to-ban’ guns.

I can’t make up my mind as to what proportion of the gun-banning side of this so-called debate are idiots repeating what other idiots have said, how many are malicious, or how many are people trying to grab a handy headline or two.

The first lot can be easily compared with a flock of sheep. Sheep aren’t noted for their intellectual prowess, nor their debating skills, but when one sheep goes “baaa” you can be sure a lot more will say the same thing.

The second lot, the malicious ones, are deliberately rather than unintentionally refocusing the debate on to their liberal/fascist agenda of increasing bureaucratic interference wherever they see an opening.

And the third group are people, usually politicians or those with a political agenda, using the misery of other people to publicize themselves and their cause, but primarily themselves. Never one to let a band wagon roll past him, President Obama has jumped on this one, all guns blazing as it were!

For all these groups the ‘to-ban-or-not-to-ban’ guns debate is a handy, and a welcome, distraction.

It gives the first group something to say without stopping to analyze the real problem in detail. It gives the second group more ammunition (no pun intended today) to curtail freedom. As for the later group, the politicians love this distraction because it gives the impression that they are compassionate and caring and trying to find a solution, even though they are addressing the wrong problem.

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On the face of it, Obama’s proposals can be dressed up as reasonable. If you haven’t seen them on the media (how could you avoid it?) they include:  

• asking Congress to reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale and production of assault weapons that passed in 1994 and expired in 2004;
• a ban on the sale and production of magazines with more than 10 rounds, like those used in Newtown and other mass shootings;
• criminal background checks for all gun sales, closing the longstanding loophole that allows buyers to avoid screening by purchasing weapons from unlicensed sellers at gun shows or in private sales;
• banning the possession or transfer of armor-piercing bullets;
• and cracking down on “straw purchasers,” i.e., those who pass background checks and then forward guns to criminals or others forbidden from purchasing them.

As I said, on the face of it reasonable, but I suspect this is just the first salvo of a much more comprehensive agenda.

However, the question of the moment is simply this  –  would a gun ban, whether partial or comprehensive, work?

And the answer is categorically, NO!

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And the answer is ‘NO’, not because I am a champion of the 2nd Amendment – I’m not, it doesn’t even apply to me! The answer is ‘NO’ because taking guns away from law abiding people won’t stop the criminals or those with criminal intent.

It doesn’t take a genius to work that out, but no one in the gun-ban lobby is even asking that fundamental question. Nor do they want it to be asked!  

You see this is how gun bans work. I’ve seen them in operation in numerous countries.

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If gun ownership is banned, law-abiding Joe Public won’t be able to go to Walmart and buy a gun as before. And he won’t be able to buy his gun because all that gun-banning legislation does is to make sure that no law-abiding citizen can buy and hold a legal firearm.

Joe Public is buying his gun (99.99 percent of the time) because he uses it for sporting purposes, or because he is a collector, or because he feels he needs it for his protection and the protection of his family.

The criminals, on the other hand, who don’t shop at Walmart, but are more likely to deal out of the trunk of a car in some isolated spot well away from prying eyes, will still be able to buy their guns and use them how they please.

Why?

Because they buy illegal guns from illegal dealers. And illegal guns from illegal dealers are not part of these new proposals. As a matter of fact the illegal guns are already banned which in itself proves that banning does not work! 

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So what has to be the inevitable result of a ban on legally held weapons?

Simply this. When you ban law-abiding decent citizens from buying or owning guns all you can possibly end up with are armed criminals versus unarmed civilians, with the police (who would have been used by the politicians and bureaucrats to subjugate the law-abiding population and remove their protection) now being the only form of defense and they will be grossly inadequate in numbers to ever hope to do so effectively.

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As another example of just how far up their own asses some people can stick their heads and still think they are getting a tan, an idiot reporter named Dwight R Worley of the New York Journal News recently published the names and addresses, complete with an interactive map, of people in Westchester and Rockland Counties who owned legally held firearms.

Like all such journalistic crap it was parceled up in ‘caring for the community’ and ‘public interest’ wrappers, but all this article did was to point an accusing finger at law abiding citizens who had done nothing wrong.

Well, when I say “all it achieved” that’s not quite accurate, because it also gave the thieves, the home invaders, the rapists, the thugs, etc., a map of the homes that were protected BUT equally the homes that were not.  

Thanks to dickhead Dwight R Worley (who incidently owns a .357 Magnum himself adding the crime of hypocrisy to his stupidity), Mr. Thief and Mr. Mayhem now know which houses in Westchester and Rockland Counties they can attack with impunity and those that they should stay clear of.

As it turns out, the people who should be most upset by this article are the ones who don’t have a gun, not those who do!

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Zip this forward to a gun-ban country where all the law abiding people are defenseless targets for the criminals and there can only be one result. Not just an increase in violent crime but also a vast increase in petty crime. The detection rate for the latter is already minuscule, so think for a moment what it will be like when the criminals have little fear of their victims and even less fear of being caught.

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The truth is that legally held guns probably save many, many more lives than they harm, and in most cases they do so without ever being used. But there aren’t any statistics for that.

The truth is that banning legal weapons will not stop illegal gangland shootings, which constitute the vast majority of deaths by gunfire in the United States.

The truth is that banning legal weapons won’t decrease the number of illegal weapons in circulation.

And the truth is that banning legally held weapons won’t stop morons or mentally deranged individuals from going on a murder spree – a knife, a bow or a can of gasoline will get the same job done.

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The saddest thing of all is that the people and politicians who are calling for these bans know it. It would be nice to see them show a bit of backbone and integrity for once and attack the criminals and leave the law-abiding people alone. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. 

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Have You Heard Of The Herd?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today was originally scheduled for the latest part in the short series about the curious and amusing phobias some people seem to have. But it’s a holiday week for most of us and I have put that post back until next week.

Instead I feel the urge to say something else. Two things actually.

First one is, have you heard of the herd? In particular the herd mentality, where people do something they have no need to do just because other people are doing it?

It happens a lot. Far too much in fact.

We witnessed it during the recent election campaign where people formed opinions not on the basis of their own analysis of the candidates and policies, but because of something someone else said or something they heard on tv.

We saw it again very recently after the dreadful murders in Connecticut where the unthinking herd ignored the real problem and  jumped on gun control as a solution to senseless attacks such as this. They might as well call for a ban on knives, axes, chainsaws, bows and arrows and gasoline when they are at it as any of these could do the same job in the hands of a mental defective.

And on December 24 we witnessed another example in grocery stores throughout the country (throughout the world even) as hoards of the unthinking joined the herd and bought up bread and food supplies like the shops would not be open again for at least a month. They are open again today you dummies!

These three examples have been going on for years and people never seem to learn, they just keep on following the herd without a thought in their heads.

And this leads me on to point two which is how little thought most of us give to what we are doing and what we are buying the already well off and pampered.

I know for a fact that Santa had orders for laptops and ipads and iphones and all sorts of other expensive playthings. And I also know that he hadn’t the sense to say no, but just bought them anyway. Mea culpa as much as anyone.

Then I got to thinking that life was a lot different when I was a kid. Yes we liked to get presents at Christmas, but they were a lot less sophisticated and a lot less expensive – even in relative terms. When I was eight, for example, I didn’t need a smart phone, or any phone come to think of it, nor was my social life so complicated and hectic that I had to have a chauffeur for all my must-do activities for every day of the week.

When I was a kid we had our toys, but we also had a thing called an imagination and we could make our own fun out of very little.

So what is the problem today? Why are kids so incapable of making their own entertainment? Why are they constantly “bored” without clicking a button on a computer consol or without someone else to do their thinking for them?

Like a lot of other things, it all boils down to money at the end of the day. Now I’m not advocating poverty as a solution to the world’s ills. Far from it. I like to make money, the more the better, and the thought of being, perhaps not rich, but comfortably well off is a very nice one. But if we had to we could all make do with a lot less. And I don’t think we would be any less happier in the process.

People in other countries seem to manage quite well. And they still seem to have the mental capacity to enjoy what little they have and make their fun out of next to nothing. In other words they are happy. If things do ever deteriorate to the extent that some of the doomsday preachers are telling us, there are a lot better prepared people in the world than there are in rich countries like America, or Britain, or Germany, etc.

Think about giving your kid or nephew or niece an old oil drum from the local garbage dump next Christmas instead of an ipod touch or some other overly expensive apple. I wonder how much music and entertainment they could get out of that?

Check out the video and you will see what I mean…

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It’s Black Friday, Shop ‘Til You Drop

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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They call it Black Friday nowadays. It could just as easily have been Red Friday or Purple Friday or Green Friday or Any-Color-You-Like Friday. But the marketing men called it Black Friday and we’re stuck with it.

This is the day when people queue up for hours in the hope of getting something they don’t really need at a discount price they can’t really afford. And sometimes they lose their minds and fight and trample on each other for the dubious privilege.

Ah, the dumbing down of the dumb and the dumber!

When I say dumb and dumber don’t just think I am talking about the uneducated. Not in the least. Some of those for whom schooling was anathema have a lot more street savvy than most, something they have learned in what is sometimes known as the school of hard knocks – in other words, life!

I have learned that idiots come in all shapes and sizes and with all forms of learning and skills. There are smart football players and there are dumb ones. There are smart doctors and there are dumb ones. There are even smart academics and there are the well educated fools who may be exam passing machines but who haven’t the common sense to go to the local store and buy a loaf of bread.

A friend of mine, let’s call him Fred, was a guy like that. He had degrees by the yard, undergraduate, master’s degrees and even a PhD. I suppose I should have called him Dr Fred.

Academically he was brilliant. And a great teacher of academic subjects. He traveled the world and lectured in various schools and colleges to great acclaim.

But Fred hadn’t the common sense of a gnat when it came to commerce. All his life he bought things far too dear but always thought that he had bought them cheap. He was a car salesman’s dream customer, manna from heaven for a realtor, and bread and butter – and chocolate cake with icing – for any shopkeeper selling computing or electronic gear.   

The reason Fred comes to mind today is that he was also one of the idiots who would queue up half the night for a sale bargain, particularly where rare books were concerned. Fred was an avid collector.

Every year our local University bookstore held a one day sale where most of their books were discounted by at least 10 or 20 percent, but where one in particular was discounted by a massive amount, at least by half and sometimes by even more.

One year Fred spotted a book he had been after that was in the sale. It had been reduced from $500 to little over $100 and Fred was determined to have it.

So he spent the night and day before the sale getting as much sleep as he could. Then he made a flask of coffee and a few sandwiches, got a sleeping bag and set off confidently about 3 am in the morning to go to the bookstore to camp out until it opened.  

When he got to the store there was no one around, in fact nothing at all on the street, except for a large cardboard box sitting at the entrance to the shop. Fred quickly surmised that it was extra stock that had been delivered after hours for the sale.

He rolled out his sleeping bag, climbed inside it and settled down for the night. It was about this time of the year and cold, but not freezing or anything too extreme. He was comfortable enough.

The time passed slowly as it usually does at night when you aren’t able to get to sleep or when you are nervously anticipating some event that will happen in the morning. Four o’clock and five o’clock came and went, and at around six o’clock Fred ate his sandwiches and drank his coffee. He was very content. Just another couple of hours to go and the book would be his.  

By seven-thirty it was just beginning to get light. Traffic had started to move along the main streets as people began to make their way to work. The side street where the bookshop was however was still deserted, apart from Fred and the big cardboard box.

And then about ten minutes before eight the staff of the bookstore started to arrive. They smiled at Fred as they walked past and opened the door of the store. They switched the lights on and closed the doors again. Fred knew that they would open them again soon, when they had got themselves organized. Just a few more minutes he thought. Fred stood up and rolled up his sleeping bag, ready to enter the store.

That was when he heard the alarm. It wasn’t very loud and at first Fred thought it was coming from another street nearby. It wasn’t. Then he thought it was coming from inside the bookstore, possibly part of their security system. But it wasn’t that either. And then, before he could think up any other possibilities the alarm stopped just as suddenly as it had started.

Then to Fred’s complete and utter amazement the flaps of the cardboard box flew open and a head came out. It was a young man and as he got to his feet and stretched his arms he looked over at Fred and said, “Morning. You here for the book sale too?”

It was a classic ‘WTF’ moment. But Fred was having trouble grasping what had just happened and he couldn’t get any words from his brain to his lips. So he just stood there, mouth slightly open, trying desperately to piece together what was happening in front of him.

“I’ve done this before,” the young man said cheerfully to Fred. “Best place to be on a cold night is inside a cardboard box. Those old homeless guys know a thing or two I can tell you.”

This time words started to come to Fred. “Were you… did you… have you been… were you in that thing all night?” he eventually spluttered the question out.

“Sure thing,” the young man replied. “Had to get that first edition of..” and he named the book that Fred had his heart set on. “There’s only the one copy, you know.”

Fred did know, boy did he know. But it never occurred to him that someone else might know the value of the book or that they might want it too. It never occurred to him to look at the cardboard box, even though he had been there beside it for most of the night. And it certainly never occurred to him that there might be somebody inside it!

“FFS!” Fred exclaimed, more to himself than anyone else. He didn’t say another word after that. He didn’t go into the bookstore either. He turned and walked away, still not entirely sure, I think, what had just happened.    

 

As for me, you wont get me near a shop tomorrow, bargains or not. If you are going shopping then good luck, this might be what you are letting yourself in for.

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CLASSIFIED: For Your Eyes Only, Part Three!!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today we have a third installment of those classified ads we all love to read. As usual, pick your favorite or just enjoy them all.

It’s great when people think they said what they meant to say but actually said something completely different.

Enjoy!

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When Your Bank Gives You A Load Of Sh1t, Just Give It Right Back To Them!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It isn’t often that there is the opportunity to report a victory of the common man over the banksters. But a few years ago one did happen when a 71-year-old British farmer, from Northumberland, won a £300,000 settlement from his bank after what he described as years of frustration and pain.

Although the bank settled, shortly before the case went to the British High Court, the farmer, Mr David Cannon, said he still felt as though he had not got justice. “They could give me every penny on the planet, but it still couldn’t put it right. It’s taken 10 years away from me. To them it’s monopoly money, but to me it’s all I’ll get.”

His problem was with the National Westminster Bank plc, and began in May 1990. It centered on £70,000 which Mr Cannon claimed went missing somewhere between his own account, his son’s personal and business accounts and an account belonging to his son’s business partner.

He is convinced the money had disappeared gradually during “dozens and dozens” of transfers between the accounts. Naturally the NatWest Bank always strongly denied that the money went astray.

The legal proceedings started way back in 1991, and the Cannons were forced to sell their 300-strong herd of prize-winning Ayrshire cows to fund their case. Mr Cannon said: “It was heart-breaking having to sell the herd, and soon I, and especially my wife, had problems with our health.”

After four-and-a-half years of deadlock with the legal proceedings Mr Cannon decided enough was enough. He borrowed a muck-spreader and chugged into Newcastle-upon-Tyne on his tractor.

In a little over two minutes, he blasted four tons of slurry over NatWest’s Mosley Street branch.

Phew!!!

Stonemasons spent two weeks clearing up and Mr Cannon was fined £2,000. But undeterred, a year later, he subjected the bank’s Ponteland branch to the same exterior decoration.

He really was giving them shit!

Still the dispute dragged on, until December 1998, by which time Mr Cannon had lost patience once again. This time he blocked the door of the Grey Street branch of the bank with his tractor.

Ten months later he returned to the Ponteland branch, baffling staff by measuring the entrance. The next day he forced the doors open with his tractor and barricaded himself inside, nailing fence rails across the doorway. This bank job cost him another £600.

His final fling occurred the following June 12, when he dumped a five-ton load of shit on the doorstep of the Ponteland branch and returned to his farm – pursued by police. Amazingly, he managed to reload and chugged back to the bank, where he made a second five-ton deposit. A low-speed chase ensued, the police puncturing the 10mph tractor’s tyres with a ‘stinger’.

Mr Cannon was charged with criminal damage, dangerous driving, driving without an excise licence and failing to stop for a police officer. He was given a 60-day suspended sentence and ordered to pay £845.60 compensation plus £250 costs.

Mr Cannon, a former bare-knuckle boxer, said: “But fortunately it was in my nature to fight them. Breeding cattle was my life.”

The bank, NatWest issued a token 63-word statement which denied any admission of liability. They refused to add to it when questioned by reporters.

Simon Pitkeathley of the British Bankers’ Association, says angry customers would do better to follow the conventional complaints procedure or move your account elsewhere, said: “Mr Cannon’s behaviour obviously can’t be condoned.”

But I liked it. Good one Mr C.

The big question is, by awarding £300,000 to a man who has taken direct action, has the bank set a dangerous precedent for those distressed customers contemplating direct action? Wouldn’t it be great if they were in for loads more shi……I mean, bother?

 

Farmer David Cannon giving his bank some shit