The Sunday Ramble: Onny in the Black Country

I had two text messages yesterday afternoon one after another; from Black Country Si. Who’s rattled his cage? I thought. For a moment I thought it might be something serious, like Banks’s running out of mild…

Incidentally, he’s available now to open fetes and things around the Black Country. He’s even cheaper than Black Country Gaz. Well he would be, wouldn’t he? He’s from Willenhall.

Big Ron

I had just finished reading those texts when I had an email from Big Ron. Bleedin’ Hell, I thought; Big Ron… I thought he would be down the canal on a Saturday afternoon; he’s into huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’. They say he’s got a sawn off fishing pole…

Anyway, it was all about these proposed parking charges down Sandwell Valley. A bleedin’ pound to park your car at Forge Mill, Swan Pool, Sandwell Park Farm or Dartmouth Park. I aye sure about the Crematorium; now that would upset Big Ron, he’s always down there…

Express ‘n’ Star

They were right. When the Star came, it was in the paper! They want you to pay a pound to park your car for 5 hours and then you can’t come back for 3 hours. I don’t usually stay that long. Can’t I just park for an hour for 20p? It’s 20p up Wednesbury at the back of Iceland…

Anyway, they want to introduce these parking charges in April 2015 just before the local elections and the General Election. I wonder if their esteemed leader Ed Miliband knows about this brilliant election winning policy? You couldn’t make it up could you? It seems it could cost £165,000 for the machines and they will make £42,000 from the charges. I suppose it will give the traffic warden a bit more work…

Nurses

“A £1,400 fee for a single agency to cover one shift sums up everything that is wrong with the health service.” says the Express and Star comment column. The nurse didn’t get that bleedin’ money. The nurse might have earned more than usual for the twelve and a quarter hour shift, but probably deserved it. Half that probably went to the agency and a good chunk of it went in tax. Anyway, how much do all the executives in these health trusts make in a week? How about reporting that? How much do the doctors make?

Chief Executives

It’s a pound to park your car for 30 minutes at most hospitals. You can see where the council got the idea from. Anyway, it seems we have until Black Country Day, the 14th of July, to complain according to Big Ron. The chief executives of the Health Trusts and Sandwell Council can afford such charges when they earn over £3,000 a week. That’s as much as an agency nurse doing 12 hours shifts and the executives never see a catheter…

The Guardian

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the Queen is getting an inflation busting pay rise that will cost us the oiks and minions a penny a week each. The problem is all these pennies for royalty and pounds for parking all mount up, especially for people on benefits who might happen to have a spare bleedin’ bedroom…

Do you have an opinion? Please share it in the comments box. I’m off down Sandwell Valley this afternoon, before they introduce loss making parking charges. I’m already saving up for the parking at the hospital in a couple of months time. I’ve been on the list since 2012, thank God it ain’t more often…

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