7 March 2005
Dangers of dispensing with diversity training
You get some funny people in Norfolk, don’t you? The other day I read that these three outwardly respectable guys – middle-classish, whitish, foreign-looking in an English sort of way – had refused to take part in council diversity training.
I mean, whatever next? How are they possibly going to be able to deal with things like ethnicity, gender, disability, age and sexual preference without it being laid on the line by some high-powered consultants with tickable boxes? I mean, before consultants, neither my wife nor myself had any idea what gender we were, how old we were getting and what sort of sex we preferred. But no sooner had we ticked the boxes than it all became clear.
It’s a jolly good job that there are a huge number of quangos around to put these minority men right – and most of them quite rightly broke all known speed records in an attempt to be helpful on this occasion.
There was the Wonderful Standards Board for England, pronouncing the old-fashioned classroom virtues of punishment and disqualification; the Cuddly Commission for Racial Equality, pointing out that we had no choice but to do as teacher said; and last but certainly least, Anne Matin, director of the Norfolk and Norwich Race Equality Council – who blew the whole thing by declaring unhelpfully that Norfolk had always been diverse.
Well, quite. We Norfolk people are known to be gracious and helpful to allcomers, whether Anglo, Saxon, Jute, Viking, Norman or Mancunian. So who benefits from diversity training?
Is it experienced councillors, who have always dealt with diverse people? Is it members of diverse groups? Is it the Government? Is it the huge number of people who find gainful employment in quangos that make sure we’re all behaving – and of course thinking – correctly? Or could it be the distinguished Blairish consultants of the Grass Roots Group, and others of their ilk? Of course not. Perish the thought. They’re probably very cheap anyway.
Hang on – I think that was a knock at the door.
Disturbing geographical anomalies in Norfolk
It started with a passing reference to the precise location of the delightful Norfolk hamlet of Irmingland. I suggested, obliquely, that it might perhaps not be five miles north-west of Hunstanton – as was stated by a handy guide.
I was going to leave it more or less at that, but others rode in and have discovered disturbing geographical anomalies in the said guide, which had, it must be admitted, a restricted circulation, certainly in its first, flawed edition. Reader Tony Foulke wonders if these anomalies may be more than “geographical dyslexia” on the part of the authors and relate to real space-time distortions on the ground. He notes an apparent “magnetic field running north-east to south-west” and a five-sided triangle centred on Knapton which appears to have displaced five key villages: Crimplesham, Felmingham, Shimpling, North Wootton and Knapton itself.
In the guide, these appear as three miles east of Dereham, 13 miles east of Norwich, four miles north-east of Dereham, four miles due north of King’s Lynn and eight miles south-east of Norwich respectively.
Traditional cartographers may be unhappy with such concepts as five-sided triangles, but Prof V A R Scheinlich of the Autonomous Republic of Hingham reassures me that they are quite common in his area. He mentions that similar phenomena have recently been observed near Fustyweed, which is not mentioned at all in the guide. I owe it to the very thorough Mr Foulke to give the other villages and hamlets omitted – Bradenham East and West; Braydeston; Drymere; the Little London between Little Hautbois and Little Massingham; Lyng Eastaugh; North Acre; Puddledock; Ragmere; Smallworth; Stackmere; Stow Bridge; Syleham; Thorpland and Tyby. If they no longer exist, I hope they will have the decency not to mention it. Secret burial ground of petitions
A 2000-signature petition calling for a care unit to in North Walsham to be kept open was left behind by health officials after a public meeting recently. This was described by different people as crass, insensitive, arrogant and unintentional, and it was clearly a mistake. But where do petitions normally end up?
Len “Kissme” Hardy, of Hindolveston, formerly a whole food chef, has for some years now run Petitiongate, a company that aims to handle petitions painlessly and effortlessly. “Our prime aim is to file them carefully and keep them available,” said Mr Hardy yesterday. “But of course most of our customers just want us to lose them.”
Asked how often people came to look at petitions, he said: “I’m not sure I can remember the last time. I think it was a Thursday, probably a leap year.” He did not encourage that kind of thing, he added.
His main customers, he said, were local councils. “We have a very big transport section, and of course the Government has a whole building to itself, near Scarning. Very lucrative, that. We call it The Black Hole. Don’t quote me.”
He denied rumours that he used signatures from old petitions to create new ones for councils who wanted to push through unpopular measures.
Thin end of the scarlet woman
Following shock news last week that shooting woodpigeons and crows would only be permitted in future if scaring them had been shown not to work, there are widespread fears around the country that the Government may be planning to shoot people generally.
Our loose ends correspondent, Mrs Taverham, writes: “Clearly the Government has done its very best over many months to scare us all. But we are still here. Scaring has not worked. Some feel that this woodpigeon thing is a signal. It is the thin end of the scarlet woman.”
Meanwhile several crows and woodpigeon have been admitted to the trauma room at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Our Taverham correspondent, Mrs Loose Ends, said: “They looked terrified. Totally shot.”
Fast bird fined
A Ford Fiesta driven by a small owl along Dereham Road has been clocked by a speed camera at 743mph. A spokesperson for the Norfolk Camera Safety Partnership said: “We are totally satisfied that our cameras are carefully checked and infallible. It probably picked up some vibration in the rear window. “The bird was definitely going too fast anyway. So is everyone else.”