Who wants to be British?

My ongoing battle with British Telecom following a mistake on their part that has seen not only my ex-directory residential phone number but also my address assigned to a corporation has prompted me to think about the company in a new light. Not only has considerable time and patience been needed to persuade their various departments  to rectify the error but I have needed to fend off a number of prospective customers for the corporation who are probably as bemused as I am as to how this situation should have come about. To compound the error BT have also sold my phone number to any number of companies prompting a deluge of calls from various businesses keen for me to take out advertising space in their respective phone directories.

There was a time that the word 'British' attached to a company name was a symbol of excellence. These days the word is synonymous with poor service, delay, waste, expense, mistakes and shoddiness. Just look at the companies in question:

*  British Telecom

*  British Gas

*  British Airways

*  British Aerospace

*  British Petroleum

*  British Rail

*  British Steel

*  British SKY Broadcasting

*  British American Tobacco

*  British Nuclear Fuels

*  British Leyland

As a British taxpayer, and a British citizen, dealing with any of these companies makes me feel decidedly uneasy. What makes me feel even more depressed is the fact that few, if any, of the above can claim to be British owned.

The Leaning Tower of Westminster

The deteriorating state of the Houses of Parliament is causing increasing unease to its present occupants. Of particular concern is the Neo-gothic tower that houses Big Ben has suffered cracks and crumbling for decades which has caused it to tilt in the direction of the more recently built MP's offices across the road in Portcullis House. Originally completed in 1858 to the design of architects Charles Barry and  Augustus Pugin the tower has suffered subsidence due to the amount of building work that has taken place in that area.  A recent survey estimates that the top of the tower is now one and a half feet off perpendicular, enough to be visible by the naked eye. It has also been calculated that it would take a further 4000 years, if left unchecked, before it reached the same angle as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. How very typical for politicians to get their knickers in a twist over something that may not happen for the next 4000 years when they have no idea how to get to grips with the present day troubles.

The fact that it is leaning at all does however coincide with my own mental images of the Palace of Westminster. Since school days I have viewed our seat of government with a high degree of irreverence.  I think it must have been the Monty Python influence that inspired me to view  the workings of parliament being driven by a crusty, old street entertainer churning out a tune on an ornate, Victorian hurdy-gurdy musical box. While he cranks the  wheel the tower rises and falls as the automatons of that period used to do and the bongs of Big Ben would drown out the metallic noise emanating from inside the palace.

I realise now just how fanciful my ideas were since I have subsequently seen the tower in my dreams suffering a serious case of 'Brewer's droop', buffeted around in the wind like a ladies nightie hung out to dry on a blustery day.

I am far too old to take politics or politicians seriously. As long as they continue to wave their papers, jeer at each other and  behave like a group of yobs from the Lower 6^th  form, I shall hold on to the images that the very mention of the Houses of Parliament conjures up in my mind, that of a flaccid phallus wafting in the breeze, cocking a snoop at the rest of the world.