Eurovision: ‘Live’ from Scarborough

Eurovision: ‘Live’ from Scarborough

• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, commenting on a ‘dress rehearsal’ Zoom meeting (ahead of next Monday’s virtual meeting of Full Council).
  

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Entirely predictably, today’s ‘dress rehearsal for next Monday’s virtual meeting of Full Council went down in accordance with the laws of gravity – i.e. 32 faux pas per second, per second.

A constant stream of telephone calls from attendant members confirmed that the Mayor (even with a carer close by) was overwhelmed by the complexity of the technology.  *To speak or not to speak?” – that was the question. The roll-call rolled on interminably, partly due to the absence of faces to voices and vice versa.

The concept of the mute button (provided as an easy option to switch off one’s microphone) was too avant garde for more than a few members, with the result that disembodied voices from off-screen, in widely differing acoustic environments –  bathroom, a kindergarten and a penny arcade sprang to mind), seemed to issue from the closed mouths of seated tailors’ dummies in a cacophony rising panic.

Mrs DIXON’s remarks (as shown above, and below) ill-befitted the gravity of the occasion. It may have been only a ‘dress rehearsal’; nevertheless, these people are elected and paid public servants called upon to make serious decisions – like the borrowing of £22M to demolition a building and erect in its place a £7½M building – not to parade their incompetence.

• “It’s a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest. I don’t know who will win, but it won’t be the UK!”

Scarbados – null point.

Well, it certainly will not be Scarborough Borough Council, many of whose members were on different song sheets and some of whom had forgotten, having dressed the part for a waist-up performance, that standing up (to slip off to the kitchen, perhaps, or to the loo?) would expose their nether regions. No names, no packdrill.

One, apparently, slipped out to the offy.

Quite how CEO Mike GREENE expects the Council to conduct important business via a re-enactment of the Muppet Show, only he knows.

My thanks to my cross-party sources, without whose openness and transparency the public would no nothing of this most recent demonstration of haplessness.

Readers who anticipate a vast improvement on this ‘dress rehearsal’ when it comes to the grand opening on Monday 27th July 2020, at 2:00pm, may wish to tune in to the Scarborough Borough Council YouTube Channel, where it will be streamed live. (Incidentally, the same link will take you to an archive of amateur dramatic productions unworthy of Kermit and the gang).