bobby47

Our Denise has touched upon the inevitable outcome of all this illicit activity which, under the guise of democratic management of public funds, is dressed up as being entirely legitimate and lawful. Of course, despite what they tell you and what you really hope to believe, it's not. When you cut through the entire piece, its a bunch of people using cunning and guile to gain an advantage. That's really all it is. How do you get away with it? That's the easy thing. All you have to do is get into a position where you can exploit something. Then, once that's done, you convince others around you that all is well and the lie, the deception, is perpetuated until, very soon, it becomes a cultural practice. A way of doing things. It becomes the normal way of conducting business and the further 'they' slide down the hole, the more they need to know that what they are doing is good, honest and transparent for all to see. Of course, 'they' recognise that this transparency is a problem area and so, just like Hereford Futures and a raft of other things, they hide the process from you, thus making it impossible to uncover the lie. To justify this? Well that's easy to. Commercial confidentiality. That's the cloak they can hide behind. Mind they've got one single problem. Up and down this Country Local Authorities have, like Members of Parliament been playing the same game and not one of them, including Hereford Council, can legislate for the 'one' who finally, through fear, stress, guilt and anger falls from grace and favour and 'spills the beans'. It'll happen. It most definitely will happen. Someone, somewhere will step forward, report corrupt practice, an investigative agent becomes involved and off we go. Someone on high gets charged with a criminal offence, its publicised, others in different areas wobble and the whole pack of cards comes falling down. This will happen. It's all a matter of time. Time sorts most things out and our hope must be it arrives sooner rather than later. Remember, if something doesn't look right, it doesn't feel right and it doesn't sound right, its inevitably wrong. And if its wrong and it involves money, arrangements behind a cloak of secrecy, then its more than likely to be criminal.

I can't bloody sleep! Bloody Jarvis and his rotten Hereford Futures. Course, when I was at School we had it tough. Tough time! That's what it was. Bloody tough! We had buggar all. None of your mamby pamby School uniform. We were so poor we'd get kitted out at the Army & Navy stores in Town. I spent bloody three years dressed up as a World War Two Japaneese Sea Admiral, with a decorative bloody sword. Tough time. Tougher than today time. We used to get up for School half an hour before we went to bed, walk fifteen bloody miles to School and play bloody conkers whilst enroute and when we got into the classroom the teacher would head butt you if you hadn't done your homework. And there was none of this mixed education stuff. Women were a mystery to us. We had Latin, the Halleluzah Chorus, endless hours of religious education warning you that if ever you masturbated your soul would be consumed by the fires of hell and getting thrashed with the cane was a way of keeping bloody warm.

Who knows. I don't. I know buggar all and what I do know ain't worth a jot of notice but, a Director of Hereford Council, Jenny Lewis is about to jump ship and scurry off to join Hertfordshire Council. Why? I mean, huge salary, massive pension, do little or nothing all day long, attend a few meetings and create confusion amongst the staff beneath you, so why go? I think something's gone wrong and nows the time for her to go. But, what do I know? I know nothing!

Call me a 'patriot' and someone with an uncanny ability to spot discontent in others but Im saying that my dear friend Biomech ain't entirely happy or contented with the vehicular traffic within our fair City. How can I so quickly conclude this? When you've been in this blogging business as long as I have, you get to spot these things pretty much straightaway.

Or, if my view is worth a jot of bloody notice, a violation of your human dignity. Whichever way the NHS dress this thoroughly brutal and unpleasant practice, its moreorless bloody Guantanamo Bay style Waterboarding except they don't ask you any questions other than,'who are you?'. Good bloody grief! I'd sooner eat the placenta of Kerry Katona's latest birth than submit myself again to this devilish practice. This is what happens. You go down to the Hospital and in my case my bloody wife went with me to make sure I didn't run off. You go in, your'e met by bloody shiney, happy clappy people who thrust a form in front if you that moreorless says, 'you gave us permission to do this terrible thing to you and, if you come out of it a vegetable and unable to control your bloody bowell movements, its not our rotten fault.' Course, I didn't want to sign it but bloody 'she' insisted I did or else she'd hit me in the face with a frying pan when she got me home. Then they say, 'you've got two bloody options. Firstly we drug you so that you're literally out of your mind or, if you choose,we can spray the back of your throat with a spray that'll give you a small anaesthetic. Having then learned that the drug was Rohypnol, commonly known as the preferred choice of Date Rape Drugs, I decided to have the spray. My thinking was I didn't want to end up on Youtube being violated by a dozen well endowed men who had me in the starring role of Bobby Does Hereford. Then, after the form filling and some bloody encouraging words, they sit you down in the waiting room where you get to listen to all those who are ahead of you in this process. It's like a bloody abattoir! My God, the sounds! Grunting noises, screams of, 'save me Jesus' and 'I want my bloody Mommy' all mixed up with the sound of people gagging on their own vomit. Then, I saw this sweet lady leave me and enter the room. Bless her! She'd handed her false teeth to the nurse. I saw this sweet child of God go in but the same person didnt come out. The woman who eventually emerged looked the same, probably was the same woman, but this woman I gazed upon had left her spirit and her soul behind in that godforsaken room. When it was my turn, I said, 'I've changed me bloody mind. I ain't going in. Never. I'll be damned if I allow this procedure to take place.' Course, she said, 'get in there you big Jesse if you know what's good for you'. I said, 'you rotten old cow' and I entered the room. Once therein, there were four of them. Two to hold you down, one to shove the entire camera crew down your bloody throat and one to tell you to 'breathe normally' while the equipment and the film crew travel down your gullet and onwards and downwards to your stomach opening. I'd like to say that I swore to find them all after I'd recovered from this dreadful ordeal but you can't swear. You can't bloody speak. All you can do is grunt, heave, gag and gurgle as the film crew hit four gag reflexes on their journey of violation. It's horrendous! You'd think that when they reached the bottom and the end of their journey you'd be relieved. You bloody ain't, because they then rotate the rotten camera and hit all four gag reflexes again as they begin the journey back up toward the entry point that is your bloody mouth. And then once it was done and I was invited to sit up and breathe for the first time in ten bloody minutes I looked all four in the eye, delivered them a volley of obscene expletives and left the building accompanied by my wife of forty years who had the temerity to tell me that, 'you made an awful lot of noise. I was so embarrassed'. If your General Practioners ever invites you to go to the Hospital for this procedure tell them to get stuffed! No good comes of it.

Councillor Chappell, They couldn't have chosen a better man. Despite your sharp teeth, I was pleased when I heard you'd been appointed to this role. You'll do a good job and Graham Powell, despite his political colours is a good lad and his heart is in the right place. I know a great deal about Advocacy work and speaking up for those less fortunate than you and I and so, if there is anything I can do to help you, just ask. That said, Im sure you've got all the tools to simply listen to the people who you now represent. It's the easiest thing to do Chris but moreoften than not, well intentioned people simply ignore the person with the disability and talk to the organisation because its the easier choice to make. My warmest regards to you.

Buggar the bloody button! Ignore the thing. I've stuck a tiny piece of tape over mine so that I never get tempted to press it. Pull yourselves together! When you've been down in the bloody thirties, then come to me and moan about the button. Until then, until you know how it feels to hit minus thirty rotten nine just ignore the blasted thing.

Good luck Paul. Mind, you've got problems and I suspect you know you have. For a starters you've got all the Partner Agents all nibbling away at the very issues you are addressing and worse, they all get funding which, unless you can get a slice of the cake, is going to make your aims very hard to achieve. The Police! This is a 'can do' organisation. If the Police are tasked with something they'll charge at it and do the very best that they can. Their problem is, they've got Partners and all these Partners are all riding on their backs because they are a can do organisation and these Partners are all involving themselves in areas of work they know nothing about and shouldn't ever have become involved with in the first place. Why did they ever get involved? Funding and a thirst to do interesting work rather than cut the grass and tidy the streets. Essentially, you've got the Police who do deliver. Then you've got the Council who hold the reigns, they hold the meetings, and there's lots of them, Probation who reluctantly go along with the 'game' but would rather be at work addressing their heavy workload, you've DASH who hold the recipe for Methadone and they don't like anyone getting involved in their Drug Work and historically they can't ever grasp why the Council employ a team of people to deal with alcohol and drug abuse. Then you've got a bunch of Voluntary organisations who all get involved in the areas of Mentoring work and consequently, the whole approach to Crime Prevention, Restorative Justice and all the other labels that they all pin to their jackets, becomes a mess without any joined up thinking. The consequence is by the time the 'suits' have taken their slice of the cake, you and the rest have attended endless meetings discussing 'blue sky thinking' and endless gimmicks designed to show something is being done, by the time the money hits the Tarmac, there's little left to do anything of any substance. In short, there are now to many people at the table and until we rid ourselves of the multi agency approach to problem solving, nothing will change because the Council and all the other agents riding on the back of the Police are very precious and don't want to let go of an interesting area of work that they no nothing about. Good luck with your business venture. You'll need it Paul.

It is a truly horrid building. Why couldn't they have done better for us? I never used to think a great deal about architecture but since I've read the thoughts of Grid Knocker, Megilleland and TwoWheels I've got a better grasp on why its so important and, more importantly, what it says about us, the ones who live in this once fair City. This new construction seems soulless. Just a series of boxes intended for one simple thing. A quick and efficient way of carrying out a financial transaction. With the kindest and most blinkered eye in the world, you wouldn't describe this place as a beautifully designed building. When I look at it, other than ranting about the salt on the walls, I see it as place that doesn't warrant a second glance. It has no warmth, no character, nothing that allows light in and seems like one of those drab places that'll make you feel depressed and want to get home as quickly as you can.

Well here we are. Teetering on the brink of madness and War. All you ever needed for war was a collapse. A collapse In either a political system, an economy or social order. That's it. Nothing else. The Ukraine ticks all these boxes and a lawfully democratic elected Government has been overthrown by a mix of people who have many different agendas, though they have two things in common. They want to cut the ties with Russia and they want the European Union. For my part, I don't see the Russians as the sinners in this debacle. They want to protect themselves, protect their Russian speaking Ukraine citizens and like all empires, they want to hand onto what they've got and maybe even increase their lands. They are doing exactly the same as us in the West. When we do it, it's a holy crusade and right is on our side. When the Russians do it, they're a threat to order and peace. If ever these two nations do start fighting, and lets face it, there's plenty of firepower and weapons floating around the Ukraine, it'll be a blood bath. These are tough, tough people's. Tougher than us and if it starts, and there's every likelihood it will, it'll be a slaughter. To think that Hereford Council were actively pursuing the Ukraine to come to Hereford, invest and build a weapons factory at Ross-on-Wye. It's true! Hereford Council wined and dined them for ages. The Hereford Times reported extensively on this issue. They said, 'it'll be a thousand jobs' and a great thing for Hereford. For some reason, the whole thing fell through and thank God it did. Mind, bloody Councillor Roger Phillips is deployed in Europe and its not beyond the realms of possibility that he might strike a deal with the Facists who, if they survive this forthcoming slaughter, may be keen to lay some bricks at Ross and allow us to build some bombs and bullets and deliver the Council promise, 'A thousand Jobs'.

No Dippy. I'm far to aggressive. You and others make your points with a light touch and I should do the same. Mind, I ain't apologising to bloody Jarvis. Never! I'd sooner engage in acts of illicit love with one of his grazing bovines than ever do that. Never!

Mr Willimont, I've just revisited this thread and read my response to you. It reads terse, its probably rude and, with hindsight I should have thought a little before I pressed the button. For my rudeness, I offer you my sincere apology. I am genuinely sorry for my aggressive writing style. Im wrong.

Brilliant Dippy. Truly, brilliance! This offering is up there with anything else you've ever done. Well done mate.

All these things that they've given away, sold or plan to dispose of are the wealth gifted to all of us by the hard work of our ancestors. Our Great Grandparents, our Grandparents and our own Parents grafted hard to recover from the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars and they bequeathed all these things to us so that their descendants, us, could care for and add to the wealth that they created. They never thought that all their work, all their achievements and their labour would benefit chancer's, asset stripping suits and a handful of well placed individuals who profited from being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. When the Wars finished and the Governments of the day decided to provide our nation with a vast housing programme that would benefit all of us for generations to come, they'd roll in their graves to learn that all our social housing has been moreorless handed over to private companies who now manage these homes that were intended for us to have. Now they stand available for anyone who can tick the right box and worse, this huge property portfolio provides a lot of people with huge salaries all taken from the pot of wealth that we inherited. The promise that was, 'it's been left in your care' has been replaced by an ethos of greed and entitlement taken by the few who have their hands on power and either give it away, sell it cheap or give some profiteer a lease of time that moreorless means, 'they now own it' and local people no longer matter.

Mr Willimont, My very warmest regards to you. When you claim that the equipment paid for itself because it was used successfully several years ago, its you using desperate old, tired and worn out public service mantra. It is Marc! It's complete rubbish! Outside of the public service bubble it's rubbish. Undiluted liquid excrement. That's all it is and nobody outside of the bubble you occupy would ever claim that the Bird Scarer paid for itself years ago when it was switched on by some fool and a host of distressed birds flew South to Gloucester. It is complete rubbish. Within the public service sector, facts, figures are spun around, twisted, tickled and turned upside down to produce a 'factoid'. A load of rubbish that, once committed to paper it then becomes the 'truth' and all those within the bubble march behind this truth that just happens to be a load of rubbish and codswallop. Finally, in response to your quote that from hereon you'll think twice before engaging in dialogue within these pages. I'd respectfully suggest that its unwise to place limits upon yourself. Take as much time as you need.

I ain't sure Im following the logic of this. Im being told that because of past murmurings created by Starlings within and above our once fair City, the Council sanctioned the purchase of a piece of kit to 'distress' Starlings. This piece of equipment is, I understand, reasonably described as a piece of kit called a 'Bird Distress Caller' and its purpose is to distress the Starling, or, if you choose, distress some other bird that features on the dial of this equipment. A Wren or a troublesome Sparrow perhaps! Now, if I have got it right and Im reading all this correctly, it now seems that the Council have concluded that its not good to use this equipment because it'll distress the birds and bring these creatures torment. Given the bloody equipment has the word 'distress' incorporated into it and its fairly reasonable to conclude that 'it ain't good for birds', why buy the bloody thing in the first place. Basically, we are now the proud owners of a piece of expensive kit that because of issues of cruelty, we'll never use. Good grief! The same rationale can adequately describe a bloody nuclear missile. 'We've got one but we'll never use it. It's a bloody deterrent'. Of course the real problem here is, not the acquisition of this pointless purchase but the thinking, the planning and the consultation that would have gone into the decision that was, 'lets buy a bloody Distress Caller.' I'll bet my neighbours left ******** that before the Council committed themselves to this purchase, they'd have done a number of things. They'd have held meetings. Lots of them. A great deal of paper traffic and electronic traffic would have been generated and there would most certainly have been a couple of trips away to see how the equipment worked, would it provide good value for money and, more importantly, would it scare the life out of the troublesome birds. Yeah, I know! It's just a Distress Caller, probably purchased for less than a grand, unless they've purchased a bunch of them, but its yet another tiny example of the areas of business the Council have slid into. Pointless issues that are highly interesting to their staff, very expensive to fund and of no consequence to you and I who fund this madness. This Council should rid themselves of the gimmicks, the foolhardy slide toward areas they've no business getting involved in and get back to bloody basics. Provide us with our dull and uninteresting highly valued public services and get shot of the rubbish.

Well, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has begun. They are there to protect their own interests and to provide support to the vast numbers of Russian speaking Ukraine who sincerely wish to be tied and bound to their Mother country. In the meantime, an international warrant has been issued for the arrest of the democratically elected President who didn't want to get tied up with the European Union. This President stands accused of sanctioning the murder of near on a hundred Ukraine civilian protestors. Ain't it strange how politics works. They'll drag this fugitive President to The Hague, if he's lucky enough to avoid being executed beforehand, yet the very same political elite will allow the liar Tony Blair, who has the blood of a hundred thousand civilians from Iraq on his hands, and he's allowed to build up his property empire from Connaught Square and not a single thing is done. Now investigative journalists on the ground in Ukraine are only now discovering that huge numbers of the demonstrators are actually fascist neo nazis who despise Jews, Russians and many other minority groups who are living in the Ukraine and more worrying for us, once they get into the EU, and they will, they'll be heading to the United Kingdom where they'll be asked to put aside their bigotry and hatred and live happily ever after within our tolerant multi cultural society. Neighbouring economies, particularly Poland are now feeling the full impact of this event. Huge numbers of Ukraine are fleeing into Poland to escape the carnage which 'may' unfold. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the arrivals, the Polish economy has taken a hit and once more the curse of the European Union has bitten our buttocks as we slide ever closer to yet another man made crisis shaped and formed by the grand idea that we can become the United States of Europe. One flag, one political ideology, one way and no other, no borders, no nationality and no say in anything that relates to your hustory, your culture and your distinctive British way of laughing and looking at the outside world in a mocking manner.

Today, its my understanding that the head of Hoople has resigned. Yes, Mr Mike Dearing has thrown his hand in. How this ends up being dressed up, I've no idea but one thing is for sure, things are not going well for this private limited company that was created by the Council hierarchy. If, as I hope, this is the beginning of the end for this entirely unsatisfactory commercial venture, I hope it begins the beginning of the new reality that this Council must face up to, grasp and act upon. That is, they've got to stop haemorrhaging jobs and services to Hoople, they've got to stop funding the chaos that surrounds this company, and simply allow the Council to deal with these services directly instead of employing the middle man. It's never profitable. It's never in our interests. It's not helpful to staff who don't know what's going on and it makes no commercial sense to fund this stupidity any longer. I say, cut the cord. Cast Hoople adrift. Safeguard our much cherished public services and the jobs of the Council front line staff and lets return to a place where commonsense reigned and the Council and their employed staff delivered the things our society needs to prosper and recover from these past years of mismanagement of public funds, staff and our public services.

Oh, I had a bit of the usual trouble last night. I was sat upstairs becoming highly aroused as I watched the execution of Saddam Hussein on Youtube, when all of a sudden my eyelids began to droop as the affects of the ale began to kick in. I quickly got into bed and realised that I'd forgotten me Lords Prayer. Of course, my nemesis the wife said, 'you've not done your bloody Lords Prayer'. I said, 'I bloody know you rotten old bag' and so, I got out of bed, knelt down and got to the bit about trespassing and I forgot the next bit. I said, 'what comes after trespassing' and then, the strangest thing happened. I passed out! I did. I'd completely passed out and went into a deep sleep where I began to dream. And there I was, stood in a boxing ring in the middle of High Town surrounded by thousands of Herefordians who were chanting, 'knock his bloody head off'. I said to them, 'who's head?' They howled, 'yours you canvass kissing, yellow bellied coward'. And then I saw my opponent. It was only Vitalli bloody Klitscho. Good grief! The size of the man. Fists like shovels. Anyway, the bell went, Klitscho raced toward me and began his onslaught upon my fat face and my ale bloated torso. In the first round, he cut me below the left eye. In the second, he cut me above the right eye and in the third round, after he cut me again, I said to the Ref, 'bloody Klitscho is going to kill me. Take that knife off him'. Then all of a sudden as I was bobbing and weaving trying to get a shot away, it happened. He hit me. Smack on the chin. He hit me so hard I had to pay to get back in. The changing rooms were miles away and Im only glad that I didn't have to walk there.

I've got it all wrong. The whole slice of cake. It's rubbish. It ain't Wvladimir at all. It's Vitali and worse, they are twins. There's two of them and both are equally capable of turning you into a vegetable.

I've just read the post from my dear friend magicroundabout. Bloody hell! It could have been Minus 50! I hadn't realised that. I was oblivious to that slice of good news. Im drowning and magicroundabout is painting the water. Who are these fifty? Right, I've never pressed the button once in all the years I've been tapping and anyone who says I have has been hiding in my house watching me at my keyboard. From hereon, Im fighting back. I ain't taking this any longer. Im going to be pressing that button whenever I choose to press it and I've no concerns that my future actions may depress another. That its come to this! Minus fifty! It's wholly unfair, it ain't right and Im going on the offensive. If anyone on here gives me a 'minus' then they are getting three minus votes back.

Good Lord! The size of the man. Wadimir Klitscho! Seven foot tall, nearly twenty stone, solid muscle with the punching power to quickly pulverise your brain, confine you to a wheelchair and see you sipping scotch broth through a straw for the rest of your life. Good grief! This is a tough, tough man and to think he was the smallest from his village. I wouldn't fight him. I wouldn't! I see no shame or dishonour in refusing to fight him and saying, 'Get stuffed. I enjoy eating solid food and being able to complete simple arithmetic. Find someone else.' And I've boxed. Drew one, lost two and chickened out of twenty five. No! He's just to big and powerful and I'd urge anyone out there considering travelling to Kiev to fight Klitscho to stay at home and eat your kebab. I see Baroness Ashton has arrived in the Ukraine. After cuddling up to the former leader Yulia Tomichenko, she announced to the world, 'you know me. You know my views. I want to see the Ukraine having good relations with Russia and the European Union'. That's bloody wisdom for you. You don't gather wisdom like that without having a very unusual approach to foreign affairs. I bet the citizens of this steaming cauldron of civil unrest were mightily impressed with that little offering from her. Bloody Ashton! Course, now the Ukraine need near on twenty five billion quid because their economy is collapsing. Lovely! Just what we need. Another bloody Greece. We'll be paying a huge slice of that despite the fact that we've no money ourselves. Next up will be Belarus. Just as corrupt as the Ukraine. Slightly less violent but equally as skint as their neighbours. All of this is going to go on and on and in time, probably very quickly, it'll all develop into a type of Arab Spring. Some states will want to cling to Mother Russia and others will thirst to be affixed to the European Union and be free to leave their homeland and travel to the West. In the meantime, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that this Council are still harbouring dreams of getting the Ukraine to build their weapons factory at Ross-on-Wye and thus creating the 'thousand jobs' that are often promised whenever a brick is laid. It'll all end in tears and the worst is yet to come.

I've just walked past and yes, there are a huge group of young men and women who are gathered at this location drinking. From what I heard, these young people are not English and they've probably no idea of the laws relating to this issue. Im guessing that they are a part of the growing number of migrants who've no home, no job and little likelihood of ever getting out of the rut they find themselves in. Perhaps if they understood the impact they were having on the way in which they were being perceived they'd drink somewhere else and abide by the rules. Why don't the Police, the Council and anyone else who has a vested interest publicise this issue and let these people understand that we don't do this in Hereford. If they don't know and nobody is communicating with them, you can't blame them for getting on the pistol and numbing the pain of life with no job and no prospects of getting one. Im guessing the Police now turn a blind eye to it all because its quite understandably seen as too much trouble to enforce. Whilst interpreter fees are high and they are having an impact upon public funds, it might help if they were employed to trudge around the City with the Police and tell them. If they don't know and nobody ever tells them then the problem ain't going to go away.

Hello Pauline. I recently plummeted on the Hereford Times to minus bloody thirty nine. That's a record. That'll take some beating. Imagine, thirty nine people out there who either hate me or hate whatever codswallop I've transmitted. Now, how do I deal with this open rejection of me and the pigswill I shovel out? I simply ignore it Pauline. That's the way to deal with it. I take no notice at all. It doesn't bother me. Mind, in my darker moments of contemplation,when it does bloody bother me, then I pray to the God that slew Kane and Abel that their bloody fingers drop off and they spill their rotten coffee all over their keyboard.

What next? Here's my shot at answering my own question. There'll be a short period of calm as all involved within the Ukraine political system jockey for position. In the meantime the outgoing leader will be supported by Mother Russia. Arms, will start pouring into this corrupt and volatile state, all involved will get themselves organised, and the Russian military will ratchet up the tension by deploying their forces to the east of Ukraine. The internal fighting will begin, it'll all descend into a civil war, though it'll be sometime before its ever acknowledged that its a Civil War, and eventually Mother Russia and the European Union will agree to share the spoils of war, the place will get divided up and as soon as its reasonably safe to travel, bloody Councillors Jarvis and Phillips will travel to the newly created West Ukraine where they'll beg them to revisit Hereford, all at our expense and build their subsidised factory that'll allow us the pleasure of sitting on one of their production lines that make a bomb that might one day be used to kill a British soldier. But that ain't the worst of it. All the other impoverished nations like Albania who've been patiently waiting in the queue to join this Empire of Dirt will have their noses pushed out of joint because West Ukraine were fast tracked into the political union in an effort to be a part of the great and welcoming peace deal that wins Baroness bloody Ashton the Nobel Peace prize. They, feeling somewhat hurt and angry that they have to remain in poverty and are unable to leave their dust bowl of hunger, well they'll kick off, they'll start fighting amongst themselves and eventually they to will be quickly signed up and before to long another 2.5 million people have left their homeland to another place that promises so much but delivers very little in terms of sovereign wealth and happiness.