Socialholic

I have put my head above the parapet on something and it seems from my inbox that I am not alone on it!

Over the past few weeks, a campaign has been running to raise money for the Christmas lights in Exeter City Centre. The main focus of the campaign is to get money out of city centre businesses – and, in particular, the banks.

On Twitter, the City Centre Manger, John Harvey (who, I want to put it on record, I like a lot) has been attacking various targets for not putting money in to the pot.

Due to the deficiencies of Twitter (140 characters and all that), it’s not easy for me to put my point across on this and I feel a bit like I’m talking in soundbites. So I thought a blog might be in order to put some flesh on the bones. So, here we go…

This year, for various reason, there is no money for Christmas lights. Traditionally, this was something paid for out of the Council’s budget and it appears to cost somewhere in excess of £50,000 to put on. The lights are lovely.

Exeter City Council is, at the moment, making some big cuts to services. The pressures are coming at them from all angles – losing money in Icelandic banks, general Government cuts, spending on failed unitary bids and so on. But, at the same time, they are also writing off over £600,000 of unpaid rent and Council Tax. So they are obviously in no position to put their hands in their pockets.

Neither is Devon County Council. They are under pressure too.

So, the campaign is targeting the city centre businesses.

Now, maybe I’m looking at this a bit too simplistically but, if the Councils have no more money, why go after the businesses? Why assume they have money? Or that we are somehow entitled to it? Given how difficult it is to walk through Exeter without getting attacked by dozens of chuggers, it is possibly not surprising that they same tactics are being used now against the city’s businesses.

The level of vitriol being directed to these companies is simply wrong. They have already paid what has been asked of them. They have put in their contribution and now they are under attack.

I also do have a problem with a non-elected, predominantly publicly funded person attacking private companies for not donating money to something – whatever it is. It is their decision and they are not required to donate – respect that and don’t call them out. To read “Unacceptable that other #HighStreet banks haven’t yet come forward to support” on Twitter from the City Centre Manager is, I think, really unacceptable.

It is not right that organisations in Exeter do not feel they can speak out about this for fear of getting cast as the bad guy or somehow mean-spirited. And trust me, from the contacts that I have had that is exactly how they feel. They should feel free to speak and feel free not to contribute without fear of retribution.

I am now going to say something really unpopular but I hope that the illustration I give makes the point:

It is not mean-spirited to say that we have priorities and, when times are hard, maybe a few Christmas lights aren’t that important.

We are in the middle of an economically difficult period – possibly the worst there has ever been – and there is not an awful lot of money floating about. If we cannot afford Christmas lights, it will not kill us to go without them until there is enough money to pay for them. And if we can afford them, in the circumstances, maybe giving the money to one of the many organisations who are facing cuts that protect and support the most vulnerable in society would be a better use of it.

In fact, wouldn’t not having the lights and giving the money to the most vulnerable be in the real spirit of Christmas?

—

This attack on Exeter businesses has been very public so far and, therefore, I think it is only right that this discussion of the counterpoint is in the public domain too. I would welcome your contributions to this – especially from you, John! This is a discussion and I hope that you will take it in the manner in which it is meant. Your right of reply is absolute!

Is there anything funnier than a bit of old fashioned rape?

Sorry. Did that shock you? It’s a serious question. Believe it or not, there is a steady trade of amusing rape-based t-shirts in this country at the moment.

Marketed as ‘funny’, they are aimed at the assortment of weirdos who would not think twice about wearing them down the pub on a weekend where they would be joined by other halfwits who think that wearing amusing ‘rohypnol’-based t-shirts is a jolly jape.

I noticed one of these companies, 1stoptshirtshop, on Saturday. After a very short period online where fellow tweeters started pointing out who their commercial partners were, 1stoptshirtshop decided to remove their selection of rape tshirts from their website. Which was a shame because I had not taken a screenshot to prove that they were on sale. Rookie error on my part.

And it puts me in a difficult position because if I started to call 1stoptshirtshop sick and weird for selling them, what proof do I have? I could get in all sorts of trouble. Especially as I thought it might be an idea to contact some of their suppliers including Play.com, iWoot, Sky and others, to let them know who they were being linked to.

Shame.

Anyway, fear not because you can still buy your rape tshirts online! I found them! (I can hear your sense of relief!)

And you can still get them from 1stoptshirtshop (or at least on their Amazon store)! Yep, you too can be the proud owner of a “Funny Rohypnol can be persuasive baseball style t-shirt white with black sleeves“. Or, for the ladies, there is the “Funny Rohypnol can be persuasive ladies fitted t-shirt – Black“.

Incredibly, 1stoptshirtshop has a list of ‘partner’ companies that it displays on their website. For ease of reference, these include:

Expedia

iWOOT

Comet Electricals

InterFlora

LoveFilm

SkyTV

Play.com

Red Letter Days

CD WOW

Zavvi

You may know that the co-owners of Red Letter Days are Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones. We think that Peter, being a massive name on Twitter, would be a great person to help us spread the word about this company and maybe put a little pressure on 1stoptshirtshop to stop selling these tshirts. If you are on Twitter, you can send the following tweet to Peter Jones just by clicking it: “@dragonjones Did you know that 1StopShirtShop sells ‘rape’ tshirts and says that Red Letter Days is a partner company? #Stop1Stop”

If you can follow up with “@DragonJones You can see the rape tshirts here http://amzn.to/pl1cYd and the partner page here http://bit.ly/qvOcmp #Stop1Stop”

There are other companies who are selling these. Chargrilled have a selection of rape tshirts, there’s a rib-tickling “It’s not rape if you shout surprise” from Offensive TShirts UK and there are others too. They are next on the list…

Brown Sauce – it’s just for northerners and the Welsh, isn’t it?

Discuss.