Another Url, Another Planet

March 16

Mr Marsden,

Thank for you email, please accept our apology for the delay in responding to you regarding this complaint. Due to a new complaint system being instigated and problems arising from its application, your complaint was not allocated correctly, hence the delay in response.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope to resolve you complaint at the earliest opportunity.

Is this complaint with regard to Forking Noisy Bastards that you complained about in October last year? When I looked into this originally the company did have a 24hr operating licence, that being said if they are causing a noise disturbance to you we would be able to take some action. I have put a letter in the post to you detailing our service hours and contact numbers, please can you use our response service next time the noise is happening so that an officer can visit and assess the nuisance.

Once again, sorry for the delayed response.

Regards

Noise & Nuisance Officer


May 12

Thanks, Noise & Nuisance Officer.

Please find attached a scan of the Noise Disturbance Diary and a MP3 recording of the noise.

I haven't been able to get any of our neighbours to witness the noise. I believe that this maybe because our location is unique in that everyone else has some barrier between them and the source of the noise (e.g., the warehouse building itself or the surrounding fence). If you care to view Google maps you can see the view from the entrance to the works site straight through to our flat on the first floor, to the right.

I'd very much appreciate anything you are able to do to bring an end to this disturbance as currently my wife and I are having two or even three nights a week of interrupted sleep thanks to this noise.

Kind regards,

---

David Marsden


May 28



Could you please acknowledge receipt of my email of 12 May, below and let me know what the next steps will be?

Many thanks.


June 1

Further to this, please see this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMRCSwbkTb4), demonstrating perfectly the noise pollution I am complaining about and a what appears to be a perfect solution.

Note that I am emailing you at 1:54 am after being woken up yet again by this disturbance.


June 3


Noise & Nuisance Officer has not responded to any of my emails, below. Does she still work there?


10 minutes ago


Is there anybody out there?

Having been woken up by these forkers yet again on a Sunday night at 3am - and they are still going, started at 11pm - I am at the point of losing it. I commute for an hour and a half to work meaning I have to be up at 6:30. What are they doing that can only be done in the small hours? Drugs? Bombs? Anyone care?

From a Council Tax paying resident in the forgotten town of Shitton.

Good night, sleep well!

*Thanks to Andy C

Jonathan Naess writes in The Guardian on Christine Laird's "victory" over her bullying bosses at Cheltenham Council. His excellent piece highlights all the main issues around discrimination faced by people with a history of mental health problems trying to get jobs. But one thing stands out to me:

"She spent three months in a psychiatric hospital and is now permanently disabled."

I've heard other people say similar things about their own experience. One has always stuck in my mind:

"I know I had problems when I went into hospital. But when I came out, I was mentally ill."

I'm sure, or at least I hope, there are people who have spent time in psychiatric hospitals who have found that when they are discharged they are feeling better and recovered from their health problems. After all, that is what most of us would expect from treatment for a medical condition, isn't it?

But I also know that for many people, the traumatic experience of being removed (sometimes forcibly) from a relatively safe and supportive home setting to the prison-like confines of a mental health unit is a major contributing factor to their ongoing struggles to lead an ordinary life.

People seeking psychiatric help are likely already to be feeling frightened and distressed. Yet we expect them to "get better" by transplanting them into an alien environment surrounded by similarly disturbed people, where they are usually heavily sedated causing confusion and impaired cognitive functioning.

Any non-compliant or challenging behaviour is then likely to be viewed as symptomatic of illness. When people are discharged it is often to a lifetime of monitoring, control and maintenance of symptoms where any attempt to return to an ordinary life is also viewed with suspicion and as a potential risk for relapse by health and social services.

So all of these people, who from my experience of working with some of them and trying to help them to recover a normal life, whatever that may be, are often kind, warm, generous, creative and talented people whose confidence has been shattered by their experience - all of these people with so much to offer our society are in effect discarded by the broken system that is supposed to help them.

I don't know Christine Laird and I don't know any of the details of the case other than what has been reported. But she must have some pretty good work skills to be able to get and keep a job as Managing Director of a local authority. From my own personal experience, an unsupportive, overly-critical and discriminatory boss can make life at work hell. To my mind that is bullying.

The Cheltenham Council leader said that if he had known that Christine Laird had experienced episodes of depression when she applied for the job then he wouldn't have employed her. As Jonathan Naess points out in his article in The Guardian, that is discrimination. It's illegal. If anyone should be sacked and sued for wasting taxpayers' money, it's him.

I hope that Christine Laird can now get on with recovering her life and not end up as she is described now, permanently disabled. But as her husband said, it's not the financial cost that matters, but the human. Workplace bullying and mental health discrimination nearly cost Chrisine Laird her life.

"Doctors said many operations were for medical problems - but some patients were thought to be suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, a psychiatric condition...."

Last time I looked, Psychiatry is a medical profession and psychiatric conditions are medical problems.

Sun-like and discriminatory reporting in the London Lite rag tonight.

I tried to Spot The Pie in last week's edition of The Times in order to win a month's supply of Brampton's Pies.

How many pies is that?









I couldn't find the damned thing anywhere, though.

Who ate all the pies?















Then I looked at The Times' Football columnist Patrick Barclay.

Shocking news in the londonpaper tonight, which reveals Andy Murray's new neighbours to be "Ashley and Cheryl Cole, John Terry and Didier Drogba".

Meanwhile, over the page, we were treated to the sight of JT apparently taking out his own son who then proceeds to dive in the manner of Didier Drogba!