Apparently rock bottom has a basement . . .

[DRiddle]

I get sent a lot of stuff from people within HBC. Sometimes it's so savage even i think twice before i pass it on to a wider audience.

This is one of those times.

A nadir moment or nadir point is derived from the Arabic word nazir, and basically means the opposite of something. It's used in astronomy to indicate the part of the celestial sphere located directly below the zenith. More recently the word nadir is used to describe the lowest point in someone's career or life.

Last Saturday and Sunday, we may well have witnessed the nadir moment in the calamitous reign of council leader Christopher Akers-Belcher and his entourage.

The 18th and 19th August encapsulated, in just one weekend, everything that has been wrong with the shambolic five year tenure of the ex-benefits clerk who somehow still inexplicably runs Hartlepool Council.

Billed rather fancifully as 'The Hartlepool Horticultural Show', tax payer's money was channelled into an event on the windswept Rift House Recreation Ground, known locally as 'The Rec'. 

Like a lot of local people, as a younger man I spent many a Sunday morning attempting to stay sure footed on the rec, dreaming of being the next Gary Lineker. In the winter, 'Deep Heat' kept your thighs warm as your bollocks froze. I personally hogged the left touchline attempting to emulate John Barnes, as I pondered with curiosity whether Mickey Fisher did indeed eat a pair of socks.

Never once in those days did I imagine that one day the Akers-Belchers would arrange for that very same temple of football, to be the location for carnations and cucumbers to be judged for both foliage and girth.

Yet less than one week ago, such a surreal a situation as that outlined above did indeed come to pass.

Older Hartlepudlians will remember the halcyon days of The Hartlepool Show back in the 1970s and 80s. Held in those days at Grayfields, it was an annual event that drew in thousands.

Back then school boys queued to buzz down the zip line erected by the army, allotment holders from across the town proudly displayed their vegetables, local bowlers competed for silverware as motor cycle display teams wowed the crowds with pyramids and leaps through rings of fire. Police dogs demonstrated guile and agility to the gathered crowds. There was also the opportunity to win a car with the 'simple' task of rolling six sixes with six dice. (The actual chances of doing so are 0.01286%, making it slightly more likely to occur than Carl Richardson getting a proper job).

In many respects, the renaissance of The Hartlepool Show was potentially a good idea. Alas, like anything with the finger prints of the Akers-Belchers all over it (including panthers and leopards), it was never going to end well.
The event, not to put too fine a point on it, was an unmitigated disaster. No amount of spin from the councils press department could hide what was plain to see to any of the few dozen people who made the mistake of trudging across the rec last weekend.

It was a bizarre concoction of car boots sale stalls hawking tatt, colourful gladioli, burger vans, £300 a day stilt walkers and the opportunity to have the inauspicious honour of formally owning Hartlepool's longest cucumber (as pulled and washed). Throw in the chance for local residents to stroke a snake or have your six inch bush judged, and it became very evident this whole shambles was thrown together on the back of a fag packet.

Little or no blame must be laid at the door of show secretary Tom Hammond though, nor any of the council officers tasked with trying to pull together this shambles. An event this bad, this poorly marketed, this bizarre, this wrongly located can only be the work of Hartlepool's most inept group of councillors in living memory.

The particular event itself has seemingly morphed from being an annual family fun day put on by Stephen Akers-Belcher and other councillors in and around Manor House. In essence, calling it The Hartlepool Show is passing it off as something it is most definitely not. At best it was a small, poorly attended, village style summer fete. It is in no way an event, in its recent guise, which should warrant carrying the name of the town in its title.

The event is passing itself off as something which it is patently not.

Much like our council leader.

Christopher Akers-Belcher is not a leader.

Giving himself the title of leader is fooling no one, in much the same way as calling last weekend's shambles on the rec The Hartlepool Show is fooling no one.

It may have taken many of Hartlepool's voting public longer than others to realise it, but make no mistake the current council leader has been well and truly found out.

As the circling sharks within his own party smell blood, Christopher each day shows a greater facial resemblance to haunted Tupperware than he does a political leader.

He's aged more rapidly than Billy Idol doing a paper round in Fallujah.

In closing, it's perhaps worth noting, category 102 in the general exhibition rules of the 2018 Hartlepool Horticultural show invited residents to enter a 'Misshapen vegetable'.

The latest joke doing the rounds amongst 'hofficers' in the civic centre is that Christopher Akers-Belcher did not submit an entry into category 102.

Instead, he married one and made it Chair of Neighbourhood services.

Ouch.

[kevplumb]

 
keep em coming 

[Inspector Knacker]

The bleached  poseur of local politics summed up nicely

[fred c]

What boils the urine of the ever growing list of disgruntled residents is not just the problems the town has had during the 5 years of the Deary Me Leaders disastrous reign, but the complicity of his fellow labmob councillors and certain persons employed by HBC.

HBC and CAB operated the Defcon system.......Defcon 1 (least severe) was the formation of his coalition with Wells's Tories, it escalated to Defcon 2 with the make up of the various committees, it then moved up to Defcon 3 with SAB becoming Mayor........It then escalated straight to Defcon 5 with the MRA Scandal quickly followed by the Cafe in the Crem, Big Tin Shed and Carpetgate.

The Big Red Button was eventually pressed by CAB with the full support of his yesmen and women with their commitment to a 31% increase in the councillors allowances and 4.9% bump in CT.

Those decisions caused a massive explosion of discontent to 1000's of residents, social media exploded with angry voters who had finally come to the conclusion that enough was enough, the inevitable has finally arrived the end is nigh for the SCABAL.

[Stig of the Seaton Dump]

Interesting that on Facebook, Hartlepool Post has three times the followers as Hartlepool Labour Party.

I think some people are members if both pages for the wrong reason.
Some want knitting patterns on Hartlepool Post,
Done want socialism on Hartlepool Labour.

Still, a useful tool to reach voters.

[admin]

Interesting that on Facebook, Hartlepool Post has three times the followers as Hartlepool Labour Party.

I think some people are members if both pages for the wrong reason.
Some want knitting patterns on Hartlepool Post,
Done want socialism on Hartlepool Labour.

Still, a useful tool to reach voters.

Our Facebook page is growing rapidly - well over a hundred new members in the last week or two. Here's a link, for those who haven't already seen it:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/273708489455822/


Although we don't mind what colour rosette someone wears, civil discussion & mutual respect are expected (as on this forum). We're well aware that there are those who have their own agenda, and prospective members are screened (on average, for every two people we accept, another is turned away). We know who are on the 'naughty list' and can spot a fake profile from a hundred yards ... 

[kevplumb]

and prospective members are screened (on average, for every two people we accept, another is turned away). We know who are on the 'naughty list' and can spot a fake profile from a hundred yards

can't be that good you let me loose on there 

[Inspector Knacker]

What boils the urine of the ever growing list of disgruntled residents is not just the problems the town has had during the 5 years of the Deary Me Leaders disastrous reign...

Only five years! Really? It seems like a lifetime. I'd got the to the stage where I thought he was appointed just after the Magna Carta was signed and I'm sure he was on the Bayeux Tapestry.

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

What boils the urine of the ever growing list of disgruntled residents is not just the problems the town has had during the 5 years of the Deary Me Leaders disastrous reign...

Only five years! Really? It seems like a lifetime. I'd got the to the stage where I thought he was appointed just after the Magna Carta was signed and I'm sure he was on the Bayeux Tapestry.

Could this be his version? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ4mxOluXY4