What price a small business sign?

IF you ever needed an indication of how stuffy officialdom is an increasing sign of the times then you could do no better than this cautionary tale about. . . well, a sign.

A business trying to survive from a site which was away from the main shopping area in Weymouth and also slightly hidden from view hit on a good idea for making more people aware of where it was.

Small information signs are dotted all over the town, so why not have one highlighting where they were?

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it, but the approach to officialdom produced a horrified response laced with all the stress-free enjoyment of having a tooth pulled without anaesthetic.

The business was refused permission to put up such a sign and officials clearly felt that saying no had ended their involvement.

They reckoned without the determined business which quite rightly queried why such a decision was being made when there was actually such an information sign for a different purpose right opposite their premises.

This caused officialdom to fluster and bluster, finally coming back with the classic answer that two signs would put an unacceptable strain on the support post.

I’ll let readers make their own minds up by pointing out that the post in question was very thick and made from reinforced concrete and steel. How that could be structurally compromised by a tiny sign is beyond me.

Our first line of defence will be . . . traffic lights!

WEYMOUTH and Portland is now, to all intents and purposes, on a war footing. Olympic bosses already plan to use the roofs of blocks of flats in London as missile platforms to counter possible terrorist threats and they haven’t forgotten this resort either.

All that enthusiastic publicity for the new laser lights on the seafront was actually a cunning ploy to disguise the fact that they aren’t really colourful lights but a deadly weapons system.

It’s designed to spear a powerful beam out to sea which will slice in half any Olympic yachtsman rash enough to try and win a gold medal by overtaking Ben Ainslie. If it nails a few terrorists as well that’s just a bonus.

And aren’t many of those other refurbishment projects just a bit suspicious too?

All that old artillery at the Nothe Fort has been spruced up so well it looks just like new... and that’s because it is new. The very latest in armaments with pinpoint accuracy able to cover the whole of the nearby Olympic sailing viewing area so it can take out anyone unwise enough to try and walk their dog with or without a ticket.

Yes, fellow residents, Weymouth and Portland has never been better protected. In fact, the Government’s key defence weapon of roadworks has been so successful that military experts feel confident any terrorist will stand out like a sore thumb... because they’ll be the only ones trying to visit the borough.

Soggy sites

PLANNERS are making plans to take more umbrellas with them when they go out on site visits.

One recent meeting found itself battling through some of the worst rain Weymouth and Portland had seen for a long time when councillors had to make not one but three site visits before they could start their committee meeting including one out to a very wild and wind-swept Portland.

It was so dreadful that the torrents of rain battering their visits led one councillor to tell me he felt they were the worst conditions he could remember for a site visit for more than 20 years.

All I had to do was cover the meeting but I got soaked to the skin just running from the car park to the council offices main entrance while a cloudburst practically turned day into night.

Fortunately I’d put my umbrella out for the day’s work. Unfortunately I was in a hurry and left it at home. Act in haste and repent at very soggy leisure.

Serves him right!

HOW many times have you seen drivers speed without getting caught, escape prosecution when using a mobile phone or thumb their nose at the law by jumping red lights?

So it really was nice to see one driver blatantly ignore the rules but get nailed for it with a £60 penalty ticket.

It happened in Weymouth’s multi-storey car park where the driver in question clearly felt they were entitled to way more space than the rest of us - so much so that they’d parked their car at 45 degrees right across two parking spaces and then simply walked off and left it.

Unfortunately for them, staff at the car park have seen it all before, so much so that there is even a notice warning that one of the ways to get a £60 ticket is to park incorrectly just as this driver had. 

He protested and threatened. The ticket stood.

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