Our new Wankers of the Week are Broxbourne Borough Council, who are displaying the kind of mind-numbing stupidity and blind obstinacy that only very small-minded local government officials are capable of. Oddly this story hasn't had the national coverage one might have expected, although it did make the pages of the Telegraph. I imagine everyone has got so used to this sort of lunacy by now that it doesn't even serve to raise an eyebrow. Unless you're a Telegraph reader, of course, in which case your eyebrows have probably migrated permanently into your hairline.
In 1986, vet Geoffrey Oliver attached a 25-watt wall light to the side of his veterinary centre, and for twenty years it did its job of illuminating the entrance step and providing security quietly and efficiently.
But then in 2007 he was issued with a Light Trespass Abatement Order by Broxbourne Borough Council after a neighbour complained the lamp was shining through the Venetian blinds of his window - 20ft away and three storeys up. The council said the neighbour was being disturbed by a "bar of light running across the ceiling and around the edges of the blind". Ah, bless.
Mr Oliver offered to attach a £22 hood over the lamp to stop it shining into the air but the council said that was not enough and he had to switch off the light - probably so people would trip over in the darkness and they could then prosecute him for endangering members of the public or something. Mr.Oliver refused.
The issue went to court and seven months later Hertford magistrates finally decided the light could stay, concluding that in the context of a built up area the light could not "constitute a nuisance to the extent of it being virtually non-existent".
Mr.Oliver had racked up more than £12,500 in costs - and the council about the same - all of which the court ordered should be covered by the taxpayer.
But the father-of-four's ordeal is not over. The council has now decided to fight for a Judicial Review over the magistrates' decision at the High Court, which is likely to add thousands more to the bill.
"It is an absolute incredible nightmare, " said Mr Oliver yesterday. "I cannot believe in a society such as ours that is supposed to be intelligent that this is happening."
Well, Mr.Oliver, you need to be a bit careful - you almost qualify for Wanker of the Week yourself if you seriously believe that you live in a society that can still be described as "intelligent". Which dark corner have you been hiding in the last few years?
Have you not heard of Big Brother? Do you still think your local council exists mainly to empty your dustbin once a week? Have you tried to creosote a fence lately? You've got four children apparently, so have any of them done their SATS tests lately, and if so did you know the papers were marked by other children? Have you tried to take a photograph of your kids in the local park at all? Did you know that nursery workers are soon to be told to report to the council any three-year-old child who says "Yuk!" when given foreign food? Have you reported a crime to the police, and if so how long did they keep you locked up for and did they take your fingerprints? Are you a certified lunatic, perhaps? - because if so the Labour government is rather keen you should run for parliament.
No, mate, this is nothing like an intelligent society. This is a very stupid society indeed. And the most stupid people of all, the ones who are too thick and useless to get a proper job and make some proper money, work in the Town Hall. They like it there because it's warm and dry, there's no heavy lifting and sometimes they get to make miserable the life of some naïve oik like yourself. Then they retire and get a socking great pension.
Actually, I think I've changed my mind. Broxbourne Borough Council are NOT Wankers of the Week.
They are stupid, vindictive jobsworths, true enough. But for seriously believing that you can win, that intelligence and common-sense will ever triumph, that sweet reason can ever run the world, or that your local council are going to take any notice of something as simple as a court ruling, the real Wanker is you.
Which is a pity, because actually we're on your side.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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