We all have the power to exercise personal preferences. We choose what we want and reject what we dislike. From an early age we choose our friends and associate with them, while we reject others and distance ourselves from them. This choice is equally relevant later in life when we choose who we marry, live with or do business with. Sometimes price is the reason for our choice of business and sometimes efficiency or just because dealing with some is a more pleasant experience than dealing with others. However we do have the choice – or do we?

Some of us live where we choose and others live where they were born, never giving a second thought to moving. Deciding to relocate is a more difficult decision than deciding to change butchers or taxi service. In deciding to live in any particular town we are also handing a certain group of people the right to make decisions for us and there will be nothing we can do about these decisions no matter how ridiculous the decisions seem to us to be. Who are these people? They are council officers. No, not the people you and I vote in or out, but the “appointed ones”. People with the power to make major decisions and spend millions of pounds on your behalf. The ones who, when it all goes pear-shaped, report what a resounding success it has been. People who never get it wrong! I’m really looking forward to seeing how they get enough parking for six cars (Ramshill) into a space barely big enough for three (Royal Ave)!

Not so long ago I got quite excited when I heard that a new regime was taking over one particular council department. At last I thought! New help and guidance, fresh ideas and professional leadership! Silly, silly me! For help and guidance read more rules and regulations, for fresh ideas and professional leadership read yet more rules and regulations! Up the price! You will pay! You can’t do this! You must do that or you will be disqualified! Of course if you state that a new regulation is for the health and safety of the public you can even make a rule that says you must stand on you head twice a day!

So how do we exercise our choice here? We’ve been making choices all our lives and yet we may have finally come to the point where we just have to stand to attention, salute and say “Yes, sir”! or “Yes, Ma’m”!

I don’t like that idea any more than you but I don’t see any way around it!

We can’t all move house!! Can we?

Somewhere in a back office, deep in the E.E.C.H.Q. in Brussels………

‘Bon Dieu!’

‘Pierre! Have you seen zis?’

‘It is quite unbelievable!’

‘Not now, Jacques?’

‘I am busy wiz my dot to dot!’

‘Is it très important?’

Well, mon ami, maybe not très important, but I’m sure you will be interested!’

‘Alors, you have my undivided attention!’

‘For ze next 30 seconds!’

‘Do you remember, last month when Claudia came in with little Amie, and Amie sat in the corner next to my desk and did some crayon drawings?’

‘Bien sûr! We had a good day! Petite Amie is a charming child!’

‘You now have 20 seconds!’

‘Well it would seem that one of Amie’s drawings must have fallen in with the weekly suggestions we all have to send in to justify our existence here, and you will never believe what’s happened!’

‘Go on, s’il vous plaît, go on!’

'10 seconds!'

‘Well, Amie’s drawing has been taken seriously by some imbécile in England and he has used it to design cycle track markings on one of the busiest roads in the town!’

‘Mon Dieu!’

‘They must have more bicyclettes there than Versailles!’

‘Non! They rarely have any cycles using zat road and those zat do use the sidewalks; yet they have spent tens of thousands of Euros on painting green blocks, white lines, and sketches of bicycles on the road surface!!’ ‘It looks exactly like Petite Amie’s drawing!!’

‘Well, the British weell do anything if zey sink zay can get a Euro subsidy!’

‘This imbécile, is he not ze one who keeps buying traffic lights?’

‘Oui! Oui, zat’s him!’

‘I can’t imagine what he will do next!’

‘Ah! He’ll probably build a park and ride scheme in ze town instead of before ze town’

‘Mais non, non.’

‘Not even ze British would be so stupid!’

‘Er, …………Pierre,’

‘Oui mon ami?’

‘Have you seen zis park and ride plan zey have on the A64 near Scarborough …………………..?’