Rich pickings in Norwich Council Trough

A blow was struck against town hall corruption today with the news that Kristine Reeves has been sacked. For those who missed the original Times report, Ms Reeves, Head of Neighbourhood and Strategic Housing at Norwich City Council, evicted 25 elderly residents from their city centre bungalows in October then moved into one herself at a greatly reduced rent.

To add insult to injury, the previous residents, many in their late 70s or 80s, had been required to live alone, but 37-year-old Ms Reeves moved in with her partner, a fellow housing officer, at a rent of £47 per week (her salary being £52,000). Although the city has a housing waiting list of 7,589 households, the bungalows were offered for rent to council employees on an internal website; 18 of them moved in, half of whom work in the housing department.

The reason given was that it was a temporary measure, prior to demolition and a new 100 home development on the site - recommended by none other than the delightful Ms Reeves, who described the need to 'decant' the existing tenants. And to cap it all, she was chair of the East of England regional homelessness advisory panel.

Alas, this may be only the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure Ms Reeves sincerely believed she was acting in the best interests of all concerned, and I am equally sure that her like can be found throughout the public sector. All it needs is a complete lack of imagination and an unshakeable belief in one's own (sadly limited) capabilities.

(Bulgarian Bush)Baby, It's Cold Outside

Some of the more exotic victims of the Russia/Ukraine gas dispute were shivering in their enclosures in a Bulgarian zoo yesterday. When gas heaters failed in sub-zero temperatures, zoo staff rushed to provide electric heating for 1300 animals including parrots, hippos, elephants and monkeys (reports fail to say whether they were brass ones or not).

Perhaps given a potential shortage off heaters, they could develop a variation on the animal adoption scheme popular in many zoos. For a small fee, you could be adopted by a bush-baby or armadillo and have a seat next to its enclosure, sharing the heat from its cosy electric fire. After all, they've got to pay the electricity bills somehow, or the inhabitants of Sofia may soon be wearing a lot of interesting new fur coats.

Meanwhile, in one of the oddest bits of timimg ever, London Zoo have started their annual census, a roll-call of every specimen in the zoo. It has to be done annually in all British zoos to keep count of births, deaths etc, but whose bright idea was it to do it in the second week of January? All over the zoo, shivering animals are being forced to stand by their beds while keepers with clipboards tick them off the list.

The meerkats, bless 'em, have flatly refused to cooperate. Hours before the survey began, a litter was born in a deep burrow inaccessible to staff where they cannot be counted and the tribe is firmly staying put in support, leaving the census-takers with the sort of unknown variable that gives obsessive bureaucrats everywhere the heebie-jeebies.

I've always felt a certain liking for meerkats - they have much in common with my childhood hero Rikki-Tikki-Tavi; it's pleasing to see they have a healthy attitude towards authority too.

Shoe tree mystery solved!

The £265,000 National Lottery funded project to investigate a tree full of shoes is causing much righteous indignation in Middle England.

A project spokeswoman described the practice of hanging paired shoes in the tree as 'an absolute mystery'. In fact, a quick trawl through Wikipedia offers a plethora of alleged reasons for shoes in trees, ranging from passing-out rituals for local squaddies to drug dens or gang murders, with a short detour into the occult (the departed need them for trips back home, apparently).

Other suggestions include a (very) public declaration of the loss of virginity or a celebration of marriage; the fact that shoes laced together have pleasing aerodynamic properties and you can get home without them (if comfortably intoxicated) makes them eminently suitable for the purpose. Using Wikipedia alone, the research team had enough possibilities to keep them busy for years, with the option of some nice field trips to the various (usually hot and sunny) locations round the world where similar trees are to be found.

The one explanation missing is the most obvious, at least to anyone who has observed the behaviour of human beings en masse (ever watched people at a conference deciding where to put their empty coffee cups?). The desire to conform is hard-wired into our brains at such a basic level that, as long as there are shoes there, other people will add more. The only shoes with a unique human purpose are the first pair put there in the 70's; all the rest belong to sheep.

Now can I have my £265,000 please?

All Aboard the Ghost Bus

Hands up everyone who has ever complained about public transport being late, overcrowded and expensive.

If that includes you, you might just like to take a trip from London's Ealing Broadway to Wandsworth next Tuesday. For reasons best known to themselves, the Department of Tranport (or rather taxpayers) are funding a 50-seater executive coach (at around £500 a time) to run a return journey once a week. The coach is immaculately clean and invariably punctual - because it never carries any passengers.

Nominally a bus replacement for a section of the Birmingham-Brighton crosscountry route which was 'suspended' on 14th December, the service is not listed on any timetable and station staff at Ealing Broadway are unaware of its existence. Every week, the driver makes the 70-minute journey, waits for two and a quarter hours, then drives his empty coach back again. When the 50-seater coach is unavailable, it is replaced by a 100-seater bus.

Unfortunately for the DT, plucky Times correspondent Ben Webster actually managed to board the bus this week (fare £5.10) and disclosed that this surreal state of affairs covers a situation where a service is officially still running but the PTB want to close it down; the lack of passengers means that in future, the DT can subsequently claim there was no demand for the service and permanently remove it.

Meanwhile, the ghost bus continues to haunt the roads of west London.

Goings-on in Wasilla

In the confines of Newgate we seldom concern ourselves with goings-on in the far-flung colonies, but we are moved to comment this week on the arrest of a certain Sherry Johnston on drugs charges. Sherry is the mother of Levi Johnston, who is, you will recall, about to enter the state of holy matrimony with a certain Bristol Palin.

This upstanding young gentleman, who in his MySpace profile charmingly describes himself as a 'f***ing redneck', has had his own brush with the law after a youthful poaching exploit; this year, he found himself at the heart of a national scandal. The shock revelation of Bristol's state - forced on the family by media speculation about the parentage of young Trig - meant a damage limitation package involving happy plans for the future wedding which may have come as something of a surprise to the Johnston family.

It would be churlish to suggest that the 18-year-old, who says he doesn't want kids, found himself staring up the barrel of a metaphorical shotgun wielded by his future mother-in-law (whose unerring marksmanship is a matter of public record), but whatever the exact details of the case, it can scarcely be doubted that Ms Johnston has been under a certain amount of pressure over the past few months.

Once living in comfortable obscurity in Wasilla (pop.6,715), she has had her son's sex life and MySpace pages made a matter of public record (sample quote; 'You f**k with me and I'll kick [your] ass') and is about to see him led as a sacrificial lamb to the altar of Republican respectability. Now, in the ultimate humiliation, her arrest is reported throughout the world as 'Sarah Palin's in-law on drug charges'. Even when she breaks the law, they have to bring that woman into it.

And all over the US tonight political satirists are sighing into their beer over what might have been.

What's in a name?

As JM of Jonny Mac's Place has remarked, Bernard Madoff has rather dominated things here in Newgate over the past few days. Although there is little to add now that he is safely immured in his gilded cage, we have as yet left untouched the vast amusement being generated by his name and its easy incorporation into punning headlines.

Daniel Finkelstein in his Times blog goes one better and has collected his favourite examples of names suited to their owner's circumstances. I am sure even he was unprepared for the sheer volume of similar exmples his article has generated - the page rivals in size the 742 comments (and counting) clocked up so far by the Telegraph's petition against the sacking of Edward Stourton.

Although not in the same category as the solicitors Doolittle and Dally or the headmaster Mr Kane, I should like to offer for your contemplation the name Hugo Boss. If a focus group sat for weeks on end trying to think up a suitable name for a brand aimed at the go-getting professional, I doubt they could do much better, yet Hugo Boss was indeed a clothes designer in pre-war Germany - in fact, he had the dubious distinction of designing the black uniforms of the SS.

Sixty years after his death, the firm is still in business and is currently promoting the 10th anniversary of its fragrance range with a collector's edition - evoking the scents of apple and cinnamon with a hint of vanilla. So now you know, girls; get up close and the thrusting young executive smells of Apfelstrudel.

Madoff in Manhattan

Where is everybody? A week ago, the well-heeled of the US eastern seabord were queuing up to shake the hand of Bernie Madoff. They wined and dined his in-laws to secure an introduction, or stumped up thousands in golf and country club memberships in the hope of bumping into him in the clubhouse and being - oh joy! - invited to invest in his funds. He could pick and choose; only a select few were admitted to the amazing returns generated by BMIS.

And yet this sought-after man is now under house arrest in his Manhattan apartment, tagged like a common felon, because he cannot produce the four 'financially responsible' signatories needed for bail. His wife and brother have signed the bond, but he still needs two further signatures to guarantee $3m (remainder of $10m after Madoff put up the apartment). Of the numerous people once so keen to meet him, not one has come forward to put a name on the dotted line.

Admittedly, electronic tags aside, there are worse fates than being under house arrest in a $7m apartment, particularly given that if he goes out, even in the select enclaves of Manhattan's wealthy elite, his reception is likely to be on the frosty side. His 7pm curfew should give him ample time to reflect on his new status as social pariah.

It's a mad, mad, mad, Madoff world

The emperor's new clothes continue to unravel as bank after bank admits exposure to Madoff's investment services. As more details emerge, we are presented with a scenario which could have come straight from the pages of an airport novel.

From the mysterious offices on floor 17 to the locked filing cabinets and encrypted files, Madoff presided over an empire that was opaque and inscrutable even to the employees of other divisions. Only his close relatives and a select few others were privy to the workings of the organisation and the auditing was handled by an obscure three-person firm in a remote suburb.

The complaint filed on December 11th makes no bones about it - it states that Madoff 'employed devices, schemes and artifices to defraud' and -rather picturesquely - seeks an order 'directing the defendants to disgorge their ill-gotten gains'. Alas, therein lies the rub; these ill-gotten gains have presumably been disbursed either in the high returns which so delighted Nicola Horlick or among the $200m Madoff announced he intended to pass to associates before giving himself up.

Since the whole reason this alleged fraud came to light is that the pyramid was on the verge of collapse, it is unlikely that investors will see much of their money again. Those who were in early enough to reap the artificially generated returns are better off than recent investors lured in by the unwitting shilling of their predecessors. The fairy-tale promises were false; yet again, the goose's golden eggs turn out to be addled.

If John Grisham doesn't want to write the script, I'm free!

Madoff - the movie

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is nothing new but the scale of Bernard Madoff's alleged pyramid scheme is almost beyond comprehension. Even in less straitened times, it would be difficult for most of us to resist a frisson of schadenfreude at news of substantial losses for 'some of the most prominent and wealthy Americans'.

UK citizens have also been affected; city superwoman, earth mother and general Mother Theresa-alike Nicola Horlick - among those who invested heavily - endorsed Madoff in an interview in May, citing returns of 1% to 1.2% per month (see alphaville). In a display of handwashing worthy of Pontius Pilate, her company this week deplored the criminal activity and questioned a regulatory system which could allow the scheme to work unnoticed for years - did they never wonder how those returns were being consistently generated in the economic climate of the time? As a financial commentator wrote yesterday 'Even the savviest investors tend to look the other way when extraordinary returns are being made'.

The fact that Madoff's prominent firm used an obscure accountancy practice in Westchester and employed many of his nearest and, presumably, dearest in senior positions adds to the air of intrigue and speculation. Combine this with the high-society connections and country club lifestyle and you have a Hollywood blockbuster in the making - all we need now is John Grisham to write the screenplay.

Woolworths Sale - update

A pleasant surprise this morning that, despite the media attempts to create a feeding frenzy, the closing down sale at Woolworths began with a whimper rather than a bang. Footage on the BBC website, presumably garnered from camera crews sent out at dawn to catch the expected stampede, shows shoppers waiting patiently in line before filing slowly through the opening doors, some of them even giving way to others. The atmosphere was friendly and even a little solemn; appropriately funereal for the demise of a once-loved high street fixture.

Perhaps it should have been complemented by suitable music for the occasion - Pachelbel's Canon or Barber's Adagio - rather than the Christmas tracks I mentioned recently. Following that post, I have to admit that Kirsty MacColl/Shane McGowan's Fairy Tale of New York is more than acceptable and I would be happy to shop anywhere that played Cerys Matthews/Tom Jones, even if they're singing Baby It's Cold Outside.

Pride of place, however, goes to lampoonmeister Tom Lehrer for the following:
Christmas time is here, by golly! Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the hall with hunks of holly, fill the glass and don't say when;
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens, roast the goose, drag out the Dickens;
Even though the prospect sickens, brother, here we go again!

Woolworths Sale of the Century

The word has gone out - closing down sale at Woolworths tomorrow after 99 years of trading. All round the country shoppers are girding their loins for the struggle, ready to brave the hordes to secure...what? If you really wanted/needed it, surely you bought it last week when they knocked 50% off.

Woolworth's is struggling because it sold stuff people didn't want to buy. So what's changed? Why was it bursting at the seams last week? Has the stuff suddenly become irresistible? Or is it simply that we are programmed to respond when a retailer cuts prices? How much will be spent tomorrow on things people really don't want or need?

And as you jostle through the masses tomorrow to join a queue of Ouroborian proportions, spare a thought for the poor beleaguered staff. Already uncertain of their future prospects, they will tomorrow find themselves confronted with an army of ruthless bargain hunters, and, if the media succeed in whipping up a frenzy like that seen in a New Jersey Wal-Mart after Thanksgiving, facing the potential hazards of an undisciplined mob.

Dr Who versus the Clangers

Sad news today of the demise of Oliver Postgate, whose instantly recognisable voice accompanied the adventures of the Clangers and Noggin the Nog to name but two. Not only were the Clangers inherently delightful, they also conveyed a strong eco-message. Who could forget their ill-advised meddling with agriculture (in 'Sky-Moos') or the machine that produced useless plastic tat?

In fact, it's difficult to decide whether the most evocative voice of the seventies was that of Oliver Postgate or the mellifluous rasp of Jon Pertwee as Dr Who. To listen to either is to be instantly transported back in time. In fact, as austerity brings a resurgence of the tastes of that era (shops full of Angel Delight and Wotsits, a musical based on Abba songs), perhaps it's time for the BBC to bow to the inevitable and offer the role of the next Dr Who to Sean Pertwee, that gravel-voiced chip off the old block.

PS Was Bernard Cribbins actually reprising his Dr Who role from the Peter Cushing film when he appeared with Catherine Tate or was it just a weird coincidence?