Coleridge misspelt Kublai’s name, but unlike someone getting the name of WB Yeats wrong in a speech on Australia day 218 years later, you can forgive Coleridge by granting him poetic licence as a poetry genius.
Like Mr. Ray Hooper, Mr. Kublai Khan insisted on building a stately pleasure dome, an edifice which was a monument to Mr. Khan’s ego. Sound familiar?
Like York, the fertile Xanadu went into ceaseless turmoil. This also sounds familiar. Within 167 years Xanadu had passed into history which we all hope is not a familiar pattern.
To be associated with idiots, liars and bullshit artists is what I consider to be a badge of honour. To be considered puerile and pathetic is also an honour. Although I suggest that the person who says this does not say it to my face!
Yes Perth does read the ‘Blog’, including the Premiers Office Media staff, who find some of it very amusing. The Auditor General is currently assessing how amusing, or not, were the actions of Public Sector Officers in the development of a stately sporting dome in the historic town of York.
So here it is- a new version of Kubla Khan dedicated to all those who may have over-reached themselves using the public purse- by David Taylor
HOOPER KHAN
In York did Ray Hooper Khan
a stately sporting dome decree
Where Avon, the sacred river ran
and finances measureless to man
poured from the money tree
A few hectares of fertile land
a crystal crypt it girdled round
a grubby plot with sinuous rills
where weeds spring fourth like daffodils
A fiscal chasm, now long since planted
a sepulchre for the disenchanted
an abyss with ceaseless turmoil seething
a vacant vault which has ceased breathing
More……………………………..
the dome of sport so much vaunted
The shadow of this dome of pleasure
casts a pall only time will measure
From afar Hooper Khan did hear
the ancestral tumult he should fear
to close his eyes with holy dread
he who- on our honey-dew hath fed
And drained the milk from Paradise
David, has the Auditor-General really committed himself to reviewing expenditure on the Wreck Centre?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair to Commissioner Best, I don't think he's ever said that we're liars. Idiots and writers of bullshit is what I'm told he said. I suppose 'bullshit' might include lies, but I've always thought it to be synonymous with 'nonsense.'
What really annoys me is his silly suggestion that we peddle 'negativity' to the detriment of York and frighten tourists away. Obviously he wasn't here over the Easter weekend. The town was bursting at the seams.
Well, Jim, how would you interpret Mr Best telling an official (as related to me) in the Shire Office that, if he reads the blog - in essence (as these may not be his exact words) - 'don't believe all he reads because it's not true'? Agreed, he didn't use the word liar, but....
DeleteYes it was busy in town on the weekend which is fabulous. Interestingly we paid for this privilege by allowing the Commissioner to "sponsor" the York Easter Fair. The fair organisers charged $5 per person to get in the door and this money goes into the pockets of the fair organisers. That's ok if the fair organisers are assisting to develop the economy with flow on tourism effects to other York based businesses.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if we are to sponsor events then the event organisers need to submit a budget, a risk management plan and demonstrate the flow on effects. Anythings less is absolutely negligible by the SOY as this is standard practice as is a sponsorship application process and an acquittal process.
Otherwise it is all just a case if if we like you we will support you regardless of best practices and the SOY continues to be run like a chook shed. Get a grip Commissioner Best this is hardly the practice of a Corporate Environment. SOY have a comprehensive Events Policy on hand, I know I wrote it. Start using it.
I would be loathed to associate 'bullshit artist' with any community member, after all, most have already been labelled as troublemakers, acolytes, perpetual agitators or whatever title the Shire Council ludicrously thought up at any given time.
ReplyDeleteThe ability to create ridiculous untruths is associated with irrational and calculating behaviour, bullshit is an art form and Ray Hooper was an 'Old Master'.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire
Perth does read this blog indeed.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that the icon agency of open and accountable government led by Ms Matthews and the probity king himself, backed by the intrepid investigators of a class of their own have not yet solved the case relating to the ex CEO at Kalamunda. You know, the one investigated by the CCC with a recommendation that the DLGC prosecute back in 2013.
So, it is still being vigorously pursued by the DLGC. But hang on, that involves a CEO, oh dear, cant have that, we are best at picking on councils and communities. Ok, bury it.