Sunday, October 29, 2006

Baaad News

I wish I could make up stuff like this, but there is baaad news from England.

It appears that during a serious and somber city council meeting discussing a permit to park a trailer on a farm which raises exotic horses and sheep, a councilman surreptitiously emitted “baa-ing” noises disrupting the proceedings. Possibly the first ever Sheep Heckling.

Outraged, the council launched an enquiry and after a year and many thousands of dollars (pounds) later…well, read for yourself from The Telegraph.co.uk:


It has taken more than 12 months and cost about £10,000 but a council is finally on the verge of discovering the identity of a man who kept saying "baa" during a planning meeting.

After a wide-ranging investigation, Havering council, based in Romford, Essex, has prepared a 300-page report, according to the Romford Recorder newspaper.

Unfortunately, the downside is that the prime suspect is no longer a councillor and is, therefore, beyond the scope of any punishment that it might want to mete out.

The incident has it roots in a planning meeting in September last year when an application was being heard to put a mobile home on a farm housing rare breeds of horses and sheep.

The solemnity of the debate was, apparently, interrupted by a male councillor making unhelpful "baa-ing" noises.

This so enraged Coun Jeff Tucker, who represents the area where the farm is, that he reported the incident to the Standards Board for England which, in turn, referred it back to Havering council for investigation.

Now, after a probe estimated to have cost £10,000 in staff time, the list of suspects has been narrowed down to four, who will be quizzed by the standards hearings sub-committee in November.


The perpetrator should come forward and confess, although he’s probably feeling sheepish about the whole matter. This issue has really served to knit the community together, though. Ever mindful, this Council, you’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull the wool over their eyes.

And, finally, in the words of the Bard from Othello, I think, where the shepherd boy croons

“I may look at other sheep but I’ll always be in love with ewe.”

4 comments:

Foo said...

This sounds suspiciously like the minutes from a Dallas City Council meeting.

Foo said...

One thing is for sure, the sheep is not a creature of the air. They have enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perching.

Anonymous said...

It was well worth it for just the phrase that the culprit was "sheepish on the matter."

Thanks for your comment! I'm hoping also that with NaBlogPoMo I'll come out and comment more and not be the lurker that I usually am. *raises glass* Here's to that.

Lastly - dear me, no you're not alone:
http://indecisivepeach.wordpress.com/2006/10/30/and-also/

Bret said...

Personally, I think it was Aldo.