this morning, postie brought me a lovely letter from my longtime friends at manchester city council [previous posts: 01, 02, 03]. beautifully adorned with the council crest - a steaming turd flanked by two fuckwitts rampant - and printed with no expense spared when it came to the red ink, the letter informed me that i was behind with payments on my council tax [aka. "poll tax", aka "nearly £60 a month purely for the privilege of living in this scally infested shit-hole" ].
the glorious epistle stated - “the amount you should have paid so far £235,45 less your actual payments so far £177,45″ and went on to threaten dire consequences involving liability orders and magistrate’s courts if i didnae come up with the money within seven days. all fine and good and a stirring example of local government at its most stern and no-nonsense-standing-for. only one ever so slight problem tho’. i checked my email receipts for council tax payments i’d made this tax year and found i’d coughed up the following:
£58,00 on 28 may 2005
£58,00 on 24 june 2005
£58,00 on 25 july 2005
which, even with my limited mathematical ability, i make add up to £235,45 - er… wasnae that the amount i should have paid? - why, yes. it was! what an incredible surprise, the city council have fucked up again! what’s that now - three times?… four?… on my account alone over the past year or so. multiply that up by the couple of hundred thousand people resident in manchester and beholden to that shower of eejits and it would be laughable if it wasn’t so fucking annoying.
i’ve just emailed them to point out their mistake yet again but, considering that they’ve given me seven days to pay up and their usual response time to any correspondence sent them tends to be measured in ice ages, i’m not too hopeful of resolving this problem before their deadline. although to be fair, most of the delay in their responding doubtless involves the problems associated with one of the city council staff having to evolve some kind of rudimentary limb with which to type, as well as having to learn to read and write - so perhaps i shouldnae be too harsh on them! still, look out for further fuckwitt escapades in weeks to come as i inevitably receive my court summons for not paying the non-existent arrears within the seven days allowed.
… and meanwhile deep in the town hall, the primordial soup bubbles and ripples and flatulently belches forth another council tax reminder notice, addressed to some poor sod who died back in 1643.
13 August 2005 at 12:05
this morning [sat 13 august] i received another letter from manchester city council. this time it was about my housing benefit. the letter told me that my housing benefit had stopped because i hadnae renewed it when it expired last. on the face of it, deceptively logical - if it weren’t for the fact that the council stopped my housing benefit several months ago, because they said id been earning too much money to qualify for it. so they’ve effectively sent me a letter to tell me that i’m no longer getting the housing benefit i wasnae getting in the first place, because i didnae fill in the form to renew it …er… even tho’ there wasnae any point filling in the form to renew it coz i wasnae getting it in the first place!
18 November 2005 at 17:39
I too am suffering the incompetence of Manchester Shitty Council - same deal, i’ve paid the reminder/threat/court order/bailif notice/ *in full* each time and they’ve still sent yet more letters.
What more can I do than pay the fscking thing, *IDIOTS*.
19 November 2005 at 13:41
you could always try the local government ombudsman. i managed to get a grovelling apology, my arrears written off and £200 compo from ‘plankton HQ’ when i set the LGO onto the fuckwitts a few months back.