Its Difficult to Dance in Concrete Boots

09-07-2009

{IMG}

Ã¯Â¿Â½Organised crime targets waste recyclingÃ¯Â¿Â½ Ã¯Â¿Â½ The Guardian, dateline July 2009

As part of my training and development in Ã¯Â¿Â½How to become a successful business manager', I was once sent out by my boss to collect a cheque from an errant customer in the wilderness that is North London. Tooled up in my best designer shades and scuffed leather jacket, I arrived unannounced at the reception desk only to watch panic and chaos erupt in front of me. And thus Ã¯Â¿Â½ immediately - was the debt settled.

And I thought - in the heart-breaking words of Peggy Lee; Ã¯Â¿Â½Is That All There Is?Ã¯Â¿Â½ Do you just turn up looking like a hitman for the mob (regardless of the fact that it was the way I dressed most of the time Ã¯Â¿Â½ says he, with the dull realisation that he still does) and people give you money? If I hadnÃ¯Â¿Â½t been brought up to be a good Methodist, I could have been tempted. But as it was, for once I remembered what my old mother told me Ã¯Â¿Â½ and went straight.

Now it looks as though the crime bosses have turned their steely gaze in our direction and are exploiting .... (roll of drums / screechy violin bits) ... the WEEE Directive. Now Ã¯Â¿Â½ I have no desire to end up face down in the Thames, or face down in the Frome come to that, but I wouldnÃ¯Â¿Â½t have thought it was up there with prohibition, drug cartels and gun-running. Can you imagine Capone or Dillinger (not even Johnny Depp), getting excited about Ã¯Â¿Â½assorted electrical wasteÃ¯Â¿Â½, as described by The Guardian.

I mean, of course, I can easily imagine Joe Pesci shoving someone elseÃ¯Â¿Â½s head into a computer monitor and then doing a bit of word processing - but knocking off someoneÃ¯Â¿Â½s old Amstrad? I mean ... really. When Cody Jarrett made it to the top of the world, he wasnÃ¯Â¿Â½t standing on the top of a mountain of white goods and electronic consumables Ã¯Â¿Â½ now was he?

You remember when the idea of the WEEE Directive was first mooted. Friendly faces from the industry turned up in magazines and on the telly, saying how important this initiative was going to be, and how it wouldnÃ¯Â¿Â½t really increase the cost of supply and the rest of us glazed over because we couldnÃ¯Â¿Â½t believe that anything as boring could ever be thought up by anyone, anywhere, anytime. But how wrong we were. And how many of those industry figures have had their heads nailed to the floor, or are sleeping with the fishes, or have found new accommodation in several suitcases Ã¯Â¿Â½ all at the same time?

Does anyone want to know? Exactly Ã¯Â¿Â½ my thoughts entirely. Now step away from the guy in the shades and leather jacket.