Shahid Naqvi: Tough job, being a serial moaner, but someone has got to do it
It’s easy to criticise. Not so easy to do. Take New Street Station. The £600million plans for its revamp have been dubbed “cosmetic” and inadequate by a bunch of MPs sitting on a Government transport committee.
Could they do better? Would they have the skill and patience and attention to detail to pull together something on this scale? That, however, is not the point.
Some people’s job in life is to criticise. Us journalists are an example – we approach everything with a critical, sceptical eye.
It’s our job – and somebody’s got to do it. If we didn’t, the corrupt and the power-mad would run riot over us all.
So, in the spirit of healthy (or not so healthy) criticism, here are a few things that currently really annoy me. On the subject of transport, why is it that Birmingham, the country’s transport hub, is so rubbish at it?
We’ve got no underground nor the will or the ambition to make one, unlike other cities.
Metro plans seem to have come to a standstill and the buses are confusing and not very pleasant. I’ve been here 13 years and there are whole areas of the city that I have never been to because Birmingham has no sense of movement. Minister for the West Midlands Liam Byrne’s big thing was to focus attention on one single project, New Street. Seems like we can’t even get that right.
I’m no transport buff, but reasonably up-to-date with current affairs. So if I’m not aware of any coherent plan for the city then I’m sure not many other people are. Where’s the vision and ambition from our leaders?
What we need to hear is something clear and simply communicated in a way that fires the imagination. Which brings me to another thing that really annoys me: people who make things more complicated than they are. There’s a whole industry in it and it’s particularly rife in the public sector. I remember once meeting someone with some obscure title who worked at the council who drew a diagram to explain where his job fitted in relation to other roles. He never managed to explain what he actually did. I suspect ‘not much’.
Much of public policy is peppered with over-complicated concepts and strategies and partnership initiatives that us journalists laugh at. But when it boils down to it, what does it actually all mean? How does it translate into action that makes a positive difference to people’s lives?
The weather annoys me, obviously. It’s July for goodness’ sake!
We’re supposed to be basking in daily sunshine to make up for all those miserable winter months of slog. It should be our birthright, at this time of year, to sit outside with a glass of wine when we get home from work. Every evening. Especially when we live in such a work-orientated country. Global warming in this respect, has proved a huge disappointment so far.
That ridiculous beach at Chamberlain Square in Birmingham annoys me. Who’s daft idea was that? It’s a borrowed unimaginative concept that doesn’t work here. Apart from anything else it just serves to remind us how far away from the sea we are.
Extra tight jeans – skinny fits they’re called – worn half way down a bloke’s backside. Even worse when the offending chap is old enough to know better. A horrible sight.
Pedestrians who cross the road without looking and expect cars to stop for them. One day they’ll learn the hard way. People who call up Radio One and think they’re part of some hip and cool in-club. Career monsters, speed cameras, elderly people who don’t like children, pompous self-promoters, the institution of royalty, inequality, Big Brother’s Little Brother, being permanently skint.
But more than all that, the thing that annoys me most of all is people who just won’t stop whingeing. Have a nice day.
Share
