Golden Bull award winners 2015

Here is the worst of this year’s written communication. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

• Thanks to Kevan Moll for this ‘Guarantor Agreement’ from Finlay Graham (estate agents), a purposefully dull and incomprehensible stream of words. It’s an obviously rushed outpouring of gibberish which contains a sentence running to 274 words – say no more.

I do hereby for myself and my heirs executors administrators and assigns guarantee to you and your heirs executors administrators and assigns and the owner of the premises for the time being the punctual payment of the said rent payable by the tenant and any reduced rent or as same may be varied by law and for mesne rates that may accrue due until full clear and legal possession of the said premises shall be delivered up and I agree to indemnify you and your heirs executors administrators and assigns and the owner of the said premises for the time being from all loss damage done to the said Premises Furniture Fixtures and Effects by the tenant or through his negligence or by reason of the non-fulfilment of any of the stipulations and conditions on the part of the tenant in the above agreement contained and for all costs of proceedings for the recovery of the rent or possession of the said premises and should Notice to Quit be served by the Landlord or Tenant or Ejectment Summons issued or Eviction Decree obtained in respect of the said premises and afterwards withdrawn or waived by either party with or without my knowledge my liability under this guarantee shall not be affected, it shall remain in full force and effect in respect of any new tenancy thereby created nor shall my liability under this guarantee be affected by giving the tenant time to pay the amount due by him or agreeing to accept same by instalments nor shall this guarantee be determined or my liability thereunder be affected by the bankruptcy of the tenant. And if the tenancy shall be continued or extended or renewed my guarantee will apply to the additional term or terms. And if this guarantee is signed by more than one person my liability hereunder shall be joint and several.

Signed:

Date:

• Here’s a puzzling email response sent to a supporter who wishes to remain anonymous. The supporter had emailed ‘PDR Boreholes’ for an explanation about the Department for Communities and Local Government’s unreadable ‘Amendment to permitted development rights for drilling boreholes for groundwater monitoring for petroleum exploration’. Far from clarifying the situation, the email response made things even less comprehensible…

There are permitted development rights allowing certain permitted development rights for mineral and exploration (set out under Part 17 of the General Permitted Development Order, and reproduced at Annex A of the document). These pdrs allow the same sort of development, but for different time periods - upto 28 days (Class J), or upto 6 months, or more with mineral planning authority agreement (Class K). Both Classes J and K allow as pdr development the drilling of boreholes for the purposes of mineral exploration – but the drilling of boreholes for petroleum exploration under Classes J and K are not permitted.

“The proposed changes are effectively “restricting this restriction”, and allowing as permitted development under both Classes the drilling of boreholes for petroleum exploration to allow for groundwater monitoring (which was subject to the March consultation, and which Government will take forward) and for seismic investigation/monitoring and locating and appraising mine workings (which are subject to consultation ending on 24 September). The intention would be to apply the restrictions and conditions, with some small amendments, that currently apply under Classes J and K, to the proposed changes. Some of these restrictions and conditions are different – for instance, under Class K, the mineral planning authority have to be notified first of the intention to carry out the pdr - but the net effect of these restrictions and conditions are pretty much the same. For example, were all the proposed pdr changes for drilling of boreholes for groundwater, seismic monitoring and shallow mines to go forward, they would still not be permitted in an AONB because of the restrictions that would be applied under what is currently Class J1(c ) or, for Class K, under article 5(2); planning permission by the mineral planning authority would need to be obtained instead.”

• Here’s some classic East Riding of Yorkshire Council bull courtesy of Geoff Pickering from their ‘Public Consultation update’.

The purpose of this public consultation document is to set-out the Council’s interpretation of the potential Intervention Areas for superfast and basic broadband. This is to enable the public and market players to comment on the Intervention Area proposals and in particular, to provide an opportunity for telecommunication providers to review the Council’s representation of their commercial plans provided through the OMR and ensure these are correct. A final Intervention Area proposal is then submitted to the BDUK National Competence Centre for approval, taking on board the outcome of the public consultation. The State Aid Framework requirements which guide the determination of an Intervention Area for the purpose of public sector intervention in the delivery of broadband infrastructure are provided in the document below.

• Aqua Shard’s response to Philip Bowden’s email wasn’t what he was expecting…

We have previously offered a very small service for the request of vouchers for use at our restaurants, but due to a successive number of new requests being received the first week of December, which surpassed any possible projections we had held for the demand for gift vouchers, this significantly impacted on our ability to process and complete requests.
Whilst, I can certainly appreciate that you would have preferred that we contact you to advise on whether there was a potential delay, the priority across the last week was actually to try to complete the requests, and I fear trying to make contact with hundreds of guests when every moment was crucial to trying to honour the original request for vouchers was counterproductive.

The voucher request service has since been suspended, because we were unable to continue to accept requests when we were struggling to honour existing requests, and ensure we were able to complete the requests within the essence of time it was required for, and to also guarantee the quality of the vouchers when trying to honour the mass production of a small service.

• Here’s West Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s baffling response to Deborah Pearson’s query about NHS Continuing Healthcare.

In deciding whether a person has a primary health need the representatives will consider whether the nursing or other services required by that person are:-

1. where the person is, or will be, accommodated in a care home, more than incidental or ancillary to the provision of accommodation which a Local Authority is, or would be, but for a person’s means, under a duty to provide; or
2. of a nature beyond which a Local Authority whose primary responsibility is to provide social services could be expected to provide

and if it decides that the nursing or other health services required do, when considered in their totality, fall within paragraph (a) or (b), it must decide that the person has a primary health need.

• According to Origen Private Client Solutions, all you have to do is…well, we’re not sure. What, for example, is a ‘platform’? ‘Bundled funds’? See if you can figure it out – the anonymous contributor who sent this in understandably struggled…

All you need to do at this stage is to confirm our ongoing adviser charge for the bundled funds we advise you on, by completing the enclosed Affirmation Form. The form can be found in this pack and we have prepopulated it where we can for ease. We have also enclosed a pre-paid envelope for you to pop it back in the post to us. Your platform will then write to you later this year to confirm your funds have been converted to their ‘unbundled’ equivalent.

• Gordon Minto was understandably baffled and annoyed by the following offering from Land Registry (Wales Office). Spelling mistakes and various errors are not ours...

I refer to your application for registration affecting the above property received on 5 August 2015.

You have applied for adverse possession of freehold land and as you only acquired the freehold of your property on the 25 April 2013, the 12 year period for adverse possession starts to run from that date .

Any interest you may have acquired in the claimed land whilst you were a tenant under the lease dated 9 August 1937determined on merge of th lease and any interest in the claim would have devolved to your vendor, Lorton Investment Limited .

No fee accompanied your application and a fee for adverse possession of unregistered land id £70.

I am therefore rejecting your application. Please renew your application once you have corrected the defect(s) referred to. The documents lodged with your application have been destroyed after being scanned in line with current policy. We enclose official copies of the documents which may be re-lodged for registration.

• An anonymous supporter sent us this email she received from Regen SW, which is apparently about ‘Renewable Heat Incentive’. We’ll take their word for it...

Domestic biomass growth indicates degression in April

Forecasting expenditure for biomass is over its degression threshold at the end of November 2014 and therefore requires a 10% degression in April. The question is whether we might see the schemes first 20% degression due to the ‘super trigger’ being hit.

This would require forecasted expenditure for the third quarter of 2014/15 to increase by 61%, which is higher than the previous quarterly increase of 45%. The final decision depends on deployment figures in December and January. We expect December’s deployment to be high, due to the increase level of sales in advance of the degression on the 1 January 2015, but this may also mean January’s figures will be much lower.

• Here’s a textbook-gibberish job advertisement for a ‘Creative Writer to Develop Archive Narrative’ position with NHS Research & Development North West and North West Commissioning Support Unit. Note that the job ad suggests that ‘Full proficiency in English’ is a requirement...

The post is to co-create an archive of NHS R&D NW’s work over the last 10 years. The archive will utilise the professional skills of Knowledge and Evidence staff to deliver an innovative and simple to use, information architecture using state of the art Open Source tools, working together with a creative writer to develop narrative content.

Key elements of the repository are the implementation of core metadata standards and techniques to enable maximised, simple and precise location of materials throughout the repository. Using innovative content display techniques e.g. content enriched timelines. The process will be explicitly captured and shared as part of the development process.

• ProFinda sent Phil Wainright an email containing the following. The service itself is almost as questionable as the language used to tout for business.

ProFinda is engaged with the largest knowledge driven companies helping them transform the way their employees collaborate, breaking down silos and creating a flatter more dynamic organisation that better leverages the thousands of staff that they have.

• A supporter keen to remain anonymous wanted to share his confusion over the following paragraph, which he tells us he read ‘half a dozen times and I’m still none the wiser’. We also haven’t a clue, Paul, sorry – and we doubt those responsible, the Government’s Homes & Communities Agency, do either.

The regulator has given consideration to the balance of the additional regulatory control that would be achieved through these proposals to achieve its aim of protecting social housing assets against the impact of operation. It has concluded that it will not implement this proposal.

• Anne Duffell found the following book blurb from Palgrave Macmillan completely incomprehensible. We can’t argue with her assessment.

Thinking Through Digital Media offers a means of conceptualizing digital media by looking at projects that think through digital media, migrating between documentary, experimental, narrative, animation, video game, and live performance. Hudson and Zimmermann analyze projects at the intersections of imbedded technologies, transitory micropublics, human-machine interface, and critical cartographies to forward a set of speculations about how things work together rather than what they represent.

• David Simpson, a rugby coach of six years, was understandably unimpressed by the following email from the Rugby Football Union.

Age Grade Competition Review

The RFU Council meeting of 17th April agreed key actions to drive implementation of the Age Grade Competition Review (AGCR) from September 2016.

The AGCR Implementation Action Plan, which also includes a new strategic direction for Under 16 representative rugby, has foundations based on the firm principles that the game must be player-centred, development-driven and competition-supported, in that order. This ensures that the motivations and welfare of all players, no matter their experience or ability, are the cornerstone of the game they play week in week out.

The plan includes, from the 2016-17 season, consistent age bandings and incremental player progressions for all Age Grade Rugby; a nationally consistent playing menu and calendar that increases inclusivity, clarifies player priorities and dovetails club, school, college competitions; an integrated England Rugby Player Development pathway and representative framework and training and Continuous Professional Development for coaches, referees, parents, teachers and others. It will support and work with counties, clubs, schools and colleges over the next 16 months to make the changes.

• Alun Owen forwarded an unreadable NHS East Coast Community Healthcare leaflet, from which this is the worst example...

To act as an expert resource to support patients, families, carers, health professionals and social care staff in the optimum management of those with Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis and Motor Neurone Disease by providing support, training, education and information within the community and hospital setting. The aim is: ‘To provide a seamless supportive service between primary and secondary care offering optimum evidence-based disease management with a well informed, empowered patient at the centre.” The nurses will co-ordinate care through all disease stages from diagnosis, manage medication regimes, and provide specialist assessment. They can provide holistic support, and link with other health and social care services and the voluntary sector to enhance multidisciplinary team working and increase awareness. They will also work with the Parkinson’s Disease Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.