Saturday, November 11, 2006
Whine continued
In the olden days we had council works departments. OK so some of their people were a touch lazy. But some of them cared. And I am not at all sure that they cost more than our shiny new private sector contracts (the costs of which need to include the not small costs of adminstration and mangement by the council).
And if you are going to contract out, maybe you don't have to let the contract to the lowest bidder - although doing this saves paperwork. Maybe you take all that stuff about best value for money seriously.
And when you have contracted out, maybe you should manage the contract. And this does not mean sitting in the office fiddling with a bunch of performance indicators. No substitute for getting out there are seeing what people are doing. Never mind the small print in the contract... I could go on for ages but will save that for another day!
Continued with removal of willow. More bean poles, more row markers and seven more wands. Maybe I should plant some upsidedown, having claimed that they take just as well this way on more than one occasion. And have remembered about an earlier scheme to grow a very tall runner bean. So I shall save the longest poles and construct a sort of wigwam to grow beans up. Next stop a 20 foot scaffold pole.
Continue to wonder about the edibility of the bind weed/convolvulus roots of which I am turning up lots. (And there are lots more if I want them. Bind weed grows very well on the piles of rotting leaves left by the council in the Autumn (some of them clearly from cemetaries or crematoria) and getting the roots out is easy). They are very white and succulent looking - a lot more appetising than say couch grass or nettle roots which are similarly energetic. But how does one find out whether they are edible? Not sure that I am up for just giving it a go on the basis that it is unlikely to make me very sick.
And if you are going to contract out, maybe you don't have to let the contract to the lowest bidder - although doing this saves paperwork. Maybe you take all that stuff about best value for money seriously.
And when you have contracted out, maybe you should manage the contract. And this does not mean sitting in the office fiddling with a bunch of performance indicators. No substitute for getting out there are seeing what people are doing. Never mind the small print in the contract... I could go on for ages but will save that for another day!
Continued with removal of willow. More bean poles, more row markers and seven more wands. Maybe I should plant some upsidedown, having claimed that they take just as well this way on more than one occasion. And have remembered about an earlier scheme to grow a very tall runner bean. So I shall save the longest poles and construct a sort of wigwam to grow beans up. Next stop a 20 foot scaffold pole.
Continue to wonder about the edibility of the bind weed/convolvulus roots of which I am turning up lots. (And there are lots more if I want them. Bind weed grows very well on the piles of rotting leaves left by the council in the Autumn (some of them clearly from cemetaries or crematoria) and getting the roots out is easy). They are very white and succulent looking - a lot more appetising than say couch grass or nettle roots which are similarly energetic. But how does one find out whether they are edible? Not sure that I am up for just giving it a go on the basis that it is unlikely to make me very sick.
# posted by Jim @ 2:45 AM 
