So what’s in your dustbin today?

LIFE AND OTHER BITS: ONCE upon a time it was only soggy, burned or wood chips that went into the bin but now they are joined by a microchip (and no, that’s not a tiny fried Maris Piper).

Councils tell us that it is to help us and them to manage our rubbish better. Common sense tells us that it’s the beginning of a not-so-subtle plan to start charging us for shifting our rubbish.

This smart chip can talk to a gizmo on the bin wagon and tell Oldham’s answer to 007 (001 and three quarters) in Gulag Charlie how heavy our bin is and, therefore, how much rubbish we are throwing away (unless, of course, we have put some of it next door’s bin on the quiet, as if we would!).

But this is only the start of it. How long will it be do you suppose, before this little chip grows into a bigger chip with three dumbed-down A* A levels and starts telling 001 and three quarters not only how much we have in our bin but what we have thrown away?

Our rubbish can tell people too much about us and so, before you know it, some clipboard carrying NHS Johnny or Jules will come knocking on your door to discuss your eating/ drinking/smoking/contraception habits.

And if you don’t improve your diet, your drinking, smoking and sexual antics, you’ll have to pay a surcharge to see your doctor.

It sounds like the thin end of the wedge to me, but don’t throw the wedge in the bin, they’ll bill you for it.


IT was a mercy and a blessing that Oldham Community Radio was banned from broadcasting the latest council meeting: it’s better that you don’t know what it sounds like or, with one or two notable exceptions, what it looks like if it comes to that.

It’s bad enough that we have to put up with their decisions without having to listen to the charade that is the decision-making process. Democracy in inaction.

Of passion and commitment there is little, most speakers being given a speech to read out by their party and generally making such a naff job of it they sound as though they are reading out a shopping list or a column from the telephone directory of some foreign country whose language they have not quite grasped.

Deputy Mayor David Jones, the council’s best orator by some miles, must sit in his lofty perch either cringing or wearing earplugs.

In other words, you didn’t miss much.


FINAL WORD: I DON’T know what all the fuss is about a council away day. We’d probably function better if they had an away year or two and left it all to Charlie and his team of multitasking, shedloads-of-money-earning execs.