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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:59 pm
by FlammableFlower
Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:43 am
I rather like that. Nice example of public art.

Though I give it about a day before it gets attacked.
Yeah, I think it's a really good statue. I hope if it doesn't stay there then it gets its own plinth somewhere in the centre.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 8:11 am
by nekomatic
The city council have removed it to their museum, inviting Quinn to collect or donate it (and also to contribute to the cost of removing it)

Arguably fair enough given they have said they want local people to decide on the replacement, and possibly to pre-empt it being attacked.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:07 am
by plodder
Art twitter is calling the sculptor out for appropriating black culture (he is white), opportunism, cynicism and publicity seeking.

I think they're just jealous cos it's got loads of column inches and will undoubtedly sell.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:47 am
by Gfamily
plodder wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:07 am
Art twitter is calling the sculptor out for appropriating black culture (he is white), opportunism, cynicism and publicity seeking.

I think they're just jealous cos it's got loads of column inches and will undoubtedly sell.
Is this another instance where twitter is being used to promote division in the progressive ranks?

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:14 am
by lpm
There are tough, competitive, underpaid things to go in for, and sculpture is one of them. Opportunism and publicity seeking is required if you want to prosper. But you won't prosper, unless you are the lucky 1% of the 1%. You will end up teaching art to bored school kids.

You'd think we would all understand this. We grow up in a world of pop stars and can see for ourselves that musical talent is a pretty minor requirement - more important are looks, style, attitude, newsworthiness, ruthlessness, opportunity-seizing and niche-prising. So why don't people immediately recgonise that cynically appropriating the moment is a more valuable sculpting skill than doing stuff with a hammer and chisel?

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:55 am
by Tessa K
If the Council really wanted to save money they should have made him take it down.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 2:50 pm
by plodder
lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:14 am
There are tough, competitive, underpaid things to go in for, and sculpture is one of them. Opportunism and publicity seeking is required if you want to prosper. But you won't prosper, unless you are the lucky 1% of the 1%. You will end up teaching art to bored school kids.

You'd think we would all understand this. We grow up in a world of pop stars and can see for ourselves that musical talent is a pretty minor requirement - more important are looks, style, attitude, newsworthiness, ruthlessness, opportunity-seizing and niche-prising. So why don't people immediately recgonise that cynically appropriating the moment is a more valuable sculpting skill than doing stuff with a hammer and chisel?
Lol, this is other artists being bitchy, like the modern artists cartoon in Private Eye

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:05 pm
by dyqik
The speed with which they took this statue makes a rather important point...

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:55 pm
by plodder
That they don't want to talk about statues for a bit, because actually it's real life things that matter?

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:53 pm
by Tessa K
plodder wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:55 pm
That they don't want to talk about statues for a bit, because actually it's real life things that matter?
That they don't want to risk it being vandalized or causing any violence.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 8:43 pm
by jimbob
Gfamily wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:47 am
plodder wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:07 am
Art twitter is calling the sculptor out for appropriating black culture (he is white), opportunism, cynicism and publicity seeking.

I think they're just jealous cos it's got loads of column inches and will undoubtedly sell.
Is this another instance where twitter is being used to promote division in the progressive ranks?
I came across an iffy account today.

A new account of an anti-lockdown tweeter with 1 follower
Their follower was ostensibly anti-Trump

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:42 am
by plodder
Tessa K wrote:
Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:53 pm
plodder wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:55 pm
That they don't want to talk about statues for a bit, because actually it's real life things that matter?
That they don't want to risk it being vandalized or causing any violence.
It's not that. It's the subversion of due process that they're worried about.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:47 am
by dyqik
plodder wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:42 am
Tessa K wrote:
Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:53 pm
plodder wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:55 pm
That they don't want to talk about statues for a bit, because actually it's real life things that matter?
That they don't want to risk it being vandalized or causing any violence.
It's not that. It's the subversion of due process that they're worried about.
They were so worried about due process that they didn't even get competing quotes for removing it, and so paid way over the odds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-engla ... l-53449749

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:18 am
by plodder
I can understand why they didn’t want to spend four months procuring a crane and a contractor, and I can understand why they wanted to avoid opportunism and push people down the formal public consultation route.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:30 pm
by discovolante
plodder wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:18 am
I can understand why they didn’t want to spend four months procuring a crane and a contractor, and I can understand why they wanted to avoid opportunism and push people down the formal public consultation route.
Well it did take them several years to (not) remove the Colston statue down, maybe they were just learning from their mistakes.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:37 pm
by dyqik
plodder wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:18 am
I can understand why they didn’t want to spend four months procuring a crane and a contractor, and I can understand why they wanted to avoid opportunism and push people down the formal public consultation route.
Why would getting a few quotes take four months? We're not talking about a £100k plus open competitive bid that has to be published in the trade papers, just getting a price before you start from a couple of contractors.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:50 pm
by Bird on a Fire
dyqik wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:37 pm
plodder wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:18 am
I can understand why they didn’t want to spend four months procuring a crane and a contractor, and I can understand why they wanted to avoid opportunism and push people down the formal public consultation route.
Why would getting a few quotes take four months? We're not talking about a £100k plus open competitive bid that has to be published in the trade papers, just getting a price before you start from a couple of contractors.
Local government procurement processes are not always optimally efficient.

A place I worked at even outsourced part of the procurement process to Capita, which went about as well as you might expect.

Four months is probably a bit of an exaggeration, though.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:20 pm
by dyqik
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:50 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:37 pm
plodder wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:18 am
I can understand why they didn’t want to spend four months procuring a crane and a contractor, and I can understand why they wanted to avoid opportunism and push people down the formal public consultation route.
Why would getting a few quotes take four months? We're not talking about a £100k plus open competitive bid that has to be published in the trade papers, just getting a price before you start from a couple of contractors.
Local government procurement processes are not always optimally efficient.

A place I worked at even outsourced part of the procurement process to Capita, which went about as well as you might expect.

Four months is probably a bit of an exaggeration, though.
I work in a US Federal government agency that has three separate processes for spending Federal, Trust and foreign donation dollars. Please tell me about your bureaucratic and overly long procurement processes.

I could still get this though purchasing in under a week, with three quotes.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:39 am
by Martin_B
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:50 pm
Local government procurement processes are not always optimally efficient.

A place I worked at even outsourced part of the procurement process to Capita, which went about as well as you might expect.

Four months is probably a bit of an exaggeration, though.
My cousin worked for Scottish Water a while ago. Their procedures for a leak from a water main were:
- A Scottish Water work group goes out to investigate the leak, digging up the road if required, and assesses the damage.
- They go back to the office and fill in a work scope which gets sent to local companies to bid for.
- They wait a few days until all companies have either bid or confirmed they are not bidding. (Note, road still has hole in!)
- Successful bidder notified and they do the repair work.
- Scottish water come along and make site good (eg, fill in hole in road).

It struck her that in this Scottish Water were employed both as road diggers (no idea why that wasn't sub-contracted out!) and damage assessors, but not as actual repairers, so she organised business credit cards for each work crew and the procedures became:
- A Scottish Water work group goes out to investigate the leak, digging up the road if required, and assesses the damage.
- Senior man in work crew (with credit card) goes to B&Q or other hardware store and buys what they need.
- Come back to site, fix, make good and off to next job.

She said that there was talk of her getting chastised for changing procedures and potentially exposing the company to corruption charges by giving purchasing powers to non-authorised people, until they worked out how much money they were saving.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 8:31 am
by plodder
Agreed. For little jobs just do them yourself or direct award, especially if you're in a hurry.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:03 am
by discovolante
Martin_B wrote:
Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:39 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:50 pm
Local government procurement processes are not always optimally efficient.

A place I worked at even outsourced part of the procurement process to Capita, which went about as well as you might expect.

Four months is probably a bit of an exaggeration, though.
My cousin worked for Scottish Water a while ago. Their procedures for a leak from a water main were:
- A Scottish Water work group goes out to investigate the leak, digging up the road if required, and assesses the damage.
- They go back to the office and fill in a work scope which gets sent to local companies to bid for.
- They wait a few days until all companies have either bid or confirmed they are not bidding. (Note, road still has hole in!)
- Successful bidder notified and they do the repair work.
- Scottish water come along and make site good (eg, fill in hole in road).

It struck her that in this Scottish Water were employed both as road diggers (no idea why that wasn't sub-contracted out!) and damage assessors, but not as actual repairers, so she organised business credit cards for each work crew and the procedures became:
- A Scottish Water work group goes out to investigate the leak, digging up the road if required, and assesses the damage.
- Senior man in work crew (with credit card) goes to B&Q or other hardware store and buys what they need.
- Come back to site, fix, make good and off to next job.

She said that there was talk of her getting chastised for changing procedures and potentially exposing the company to corruption charges by giving purchasing powers to non-authorised people, until they worked out how much money they were saving.
Useless anecdote alert: a couple of weeks ago Scottish Water turned up outside my house, dug around a bit around the pipe, turned the water off for an hour or two, turned it back on and left. Then that evening a contractor turned up and put up cones and temporary traffic lights in prep for work. The next day SW came back with a contractor and did the work (turned my water off again without telling me, grr!). However I went out to speak to them (to find out how long the water would be off) and from what they said it sounded like the work might have been pretty urgent, so I'm not sure this is useful info.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 11:04 am
by Lew Dolby
plodder wrote:
Tue Jul 21, 2020 8:31 am
Agreed. For little jobs just do them yourself or direct award, especially if you're in a hurry.
and, for FSM's sake, don't outsource bits of your core business. And supplying water would be part of Scottish Water's , wouldn't it.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:44 pm
by plodder
It's terrifying how little understanding there is of how the world actually works. Only the very simplest jobs are done "in house" - standing around, looking at holes or things that how blown up, that level of simple. Everything else is contracted out.

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2020 7:51 am
by shpalman

Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2020 9:06 am
by OneOffDave
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:50 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:37 pm
plodder wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:18 am
I can understand why they didn’t want to spend four months procuring a crane and a contractor, and I can understand why they wanted to avoid opportunism and push people down the formal public consultation route.
Why would getting a few quotes take four months? We're not talking about a £100k plus open competitive bid that has to be published in the trade papers, just getting a price before you start from a couple of contractors.
Local government procurement processes are not always optimally efficient.

A place I worked at even outsourced part of the procurement process to Capita, which went about as well as you might expect.

Four months is probably a bit of an exaggeration, though.
They'd probably have contractor who could do this on call-off contracts anyway. I know the LAs I've worked for did.