Shame and nausea

You know, perhaps it is the approach of my seasonal depression or the arrival of another cynical issue of The Planner - the Business Monthly for Planning Professionals (Consultant Editor Huw Morris) that triggered it but I've been feeling a bit down this week. Quite honestly I blame The Planner with its nauseating stories of and by smug folk including President in the Wings, Big Cath Ransom.

The Planner devotes four self-serving pages to this insignificant person's life on the greasy pole - it's full of talk of  'performance appraisal', 'stringent checks', 'personal development plans' and 'taking ownership'. If I had been in Aberdeen I would have gone to Boots to see if they could give me something to take away the image in my head of a gravestone with 'RIP RTPI' written on it.  I settled for being sick in the car park.

Then someone has dragged Michael Heseltine - sorry Lord Heseltine - from the edge of his grave to talk about regeneration. There's a wee photie of Ed Balls and another of Planning Minister Nick Boles and two photographs of cows. That's it really. These good people are not hungry are they? The stench of elitism catches my throat hundreds of miles away here in Auchterness. I'm just grateful that we have decent well-intentioned folk up here like Sir Ian Wood, Dr Donald Trump and of course the man with the big pencil, John Halliday to make a real impression on our environment.

Once upon a time, town planning was considered to be a worthwhile activity and a respected profession. Now it is people orientated - but it isn't about communities or ordinary folk. It's about the people in the RTPI and the ridiculous idea that we planners want to hear about them. The Planner reflects this - it is full of strutting peacocks who slide up and down the greasy pole at the RTPI in their Marks and Spencer suits. I know it is hard to imagine a peacock sliding down a greasy pole in a suit - and I apologise for this - but while they are doing this, they are also bowing and scraping to folk with titles, money and power. They are busy feathering their own nests while the profession goes to cats and dogs.  The amount of brown-nosing in this rag is completely revolting.  You know, it gives me the dry boak to read about the selfish and pointless lives of the people in this journal.  

I was given custody of the boy for today - he was passed to me by an intermediary at 10:00 am. I know he can't be bothered with me any more - there was a time when we used to go to retail parks and enjoy every minute of it. Today he only wanted to talk about his Christmas present - he wants a Quadcopter and a GoPro Hero Video Camera.  I'm sure this isn't a good idea but I have said yes perhaps. He will be up to no good with it but anyway I decided that as a special treat for him we would drive to Elgin's magnificent Springfield Retail Park and see what we could find.

But first, I insisted that we drove to Moray Council's new Civic Amenity Site or Recycling Centre with The Planner Journal and cast it into the general household refuse container - it's the best place for it. Huw and the gang have now nestled down with the rest of the rubbish there and I'm sure feel completely at home.

The trip to Springfield was a disaster and so embarrassing. The boy was apprehended by a security official at a store that will remain anonymous and told he was banned for attempted shoplifting last month. This is typical of him, his mother (my beautiful wife) and her young lover. We drove home in silence - but more of this later.