Bats & Badgers
If there was ever a session that summed up the essential ENGLISHNESS of the Public Enquiry then this was it. As a spectacle, it was just perfect, a microcosm of everything quirky, eccentric and, yup, Pythonesque about the national character. Men in suits and ladies in cardies formally and politely discussing and minuting the mating habits of the common pipistrell, while Albion fans in assorted shapes, stripes and sizes sat bemused in the public gallery wondering what parallel universe they'd suddenly been teleported to. You HAD to be there.
First, the badger. There aren't any sets other than in the railway cuttings. So no impact there. Unless they get hit by a train of course...
Bats were more of a contentious issue. Three seperate surveys were carried out, two months apart. The NIMBYs defence bloke in the bad mullet took issue with the first survey which took place one evening in (I think) March and started 'at dusk' and ended at half-ten due to bad weather.
Bad Mullet asked what time 'dusk' was. Ecology Bloke said it was a standard term. Bad Mullet said yes, but what time. Ecology Bloke didn't know. They left it at that.
And then came the giggles, spreading like a Mexican wave through the public gallery. The question was asked, how are the bat investigations carried out? To which the answer is by visible inspection and by using a 'bat detector'. Oo-er, there was a lot of people in trouble at this point cos shoulders were shaking in unison, faces were going purple, your humble reporter was in tears. As he was when the phrase 'bat vehicle collision' burbled up at some point during a discussion on the implications of parking on the bat population. Some impact there, eh...
On the flora and fauna issue (is plants flora?) a well-fed bloke from the League Of Sussex Woodland Folk or whatever drew himself up to his full weight and asked what the implications would be of the proposal to plant three layers of ecologically-sound woodland plants and trees to replace the existing area which would be disturbed by the building. To which the bemused Ecology Bloke replied with words to the effect that there's nothing there at the moment worthy of the term woodland, it's being used as an unofficial car-park and whatever the proposal, er, proposes, it can only be of ecological benefit to the area. That shut him up quick.
Have to say I would have found the whole episode quite charming in a bumbling, parish-council kind of way, were it not for the fact that the club is being bled dry by the expenses involved in this theatre of the absurd. Superb entertainment mind...
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If there was ever a session that summed up the essential ENGLISHNESS of the Public Enquiry then this was it. As a spectacle, it was just perfect, a microcosm of everything quirky, eccentric and, yup, Pythonesque about the national character. Men in suits and ladies in cardies formally and politely discussing and minuting the mating habits of the common pipistrell, while Albion fans in assorted shapes, stripes and sizes sat bemused in the public gallery wondering what parallel universe they'd suddenly been teleported to. You HAD to be there.
First, the badger. There aren't any sets other than in the railway cuttings. So no impact there. Unless they get hit by a train of course...
Bats were more of a contentious issue. Three seperate surveys were carried out, two months apart. The NIMBYs defence bloke in the bad mullet took issue with the first survey which took place one evening in (I think) March and started 'at dusk' and ended at half-ten due to bad weather.
Bad Mullet asked what time 'dusk' was. Ecology Bloke said it was a standard term. Bad Mullet said yes, but what time. Ecology Bloke didn't know. They left it at that.
And then came the giggles, spreading like a Mexican wave through the public gallery. The question was asked, how are the bat investigations carried out? To which the answer is by visible inspection and by using a 'bat detector'. Oo-er, there was a lot of people in trouble at this point cos shoulders were shaking in unison, faces were going purple, your humble reporter was in tears. As he was when the phrase 'bat vehicle collision' burbled up at some point during a discussion on the implications of parking on the bat population. Some impact there, eh...
On the flora and fauna issue (is plants flora?) a well-fed bloke from the League Of Sussex Woodland Folk or whatever drew himself up to his full weight and asked what the implications would be of the proposal to plant three layers of ecologically-sound woodland plants and trees to replace the existing area which would be disturbed by the building. To which the bemused Ecology Bloke replied with words to the effect that there's nothing there at the moment worthy of the term woodland, it's being used as an unofficial car-park and whatever the proposal, er, proposes, it can only be of ecological benefit to the area. That shut him up quick.
Have to say I would have found the whole episode quite charming in a bumbling, parish-council kind of way, were it not for the fact that the club is being bled dry by the expenses involved in this theatre of the absurd. Superb entertainment mind...
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