CONGRATULATIONS TO Irish Life and Permanent, which this week won the “best at Plain English” award from the Plain English Campaign. The financial institution won the award for the “clarity” of its language when doing business, apparently.
IL&P, you might recall, was the financial institution that parted company with two senior executives earlier this year after that very, very odd arrangement emerged whereby IL&P did their pals at Anglo a favour by hiding €7 billion of debt on Anglo’s books, with the effect that Anglo looked a whole lot healthier than it was – a state of affairs that remained totally unknown to hapless Anglo shareholders.
The IL&P two departed the scene garlanded in verbal bouquets from the ILP board to the effect they had “always acted with the utmost integrity and professionalism” and displayed “extremely high” levels of “integrity and professionalism”.
Plain English how are ya!
But the awards also included a well deserved Golden Bull Award for the Dublin Airport Authority for the following gem, a 109-word clause on contractors:
“(c) Neither the execution and delivery by the consultant of this agreement nor the consummation by it of any of the transactions contemplated hereby, requires, with respect to it, the consent or approval of the giving of notice to, the registration, with the record or filing of any document with, or the taking of any other action in respect of any government authority, except such as are not yet required (as to which it has no reason to believe that the same will not be readily obtainable in the ordinary course of business upon due application therefore) or which have been duly obtained and are in full force and effect.”
The funniest Golden Bull went to Balaclava Public School in Carlisle for its letter to parents about making iced cup cakes. It went like this:
“Dear parent/Guardians
“The Grade 7 Science classes are nearing the completion for the unit ‘pure substances and mixtures’. In this unit, students have been introduced to the ‘particle theory of matter’, and to some of the terminology related to the field of chemistry. They have also been given the opportunity to explore, and conduct experiments related to the properties of solutions and mechanical mixtures.”
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WHILE IT has all been about taking money away from us here this week, other places have been getting unexpected windfalls. Places named Douglas to be specific.
It seems that when a certain Eric Gordon Douglas from Edinburgh was contemplating his demise, he had almost £250,000 to spread around and wondered what he’d do with it.
He decided he’d dispatch lump sums to places all over the world that shared his name. His rather jolly wheeze came to light when Douglas Borough Council on the Isle of Man revealed it had received a cheque for £10,887.73, and wondered what was going on.
Council leader David Christian said lawyers could only confirm Mr Douglas’s home city, and that the Isle of Man’s Douglas wasn’t alone in its good fortune.
“Unfortunately the will doesn’t stipulate what we should spend it on,” said Mr Christian. “But it’s been left to the town so we will definitely put it to good use, a nice quiet area in his memory would be a good idea.”
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AND FINALLY, Italian police officers wrote off a €220,000 supercar given to them by Lamborghini when they smashed it into a row of parked cars.
The 202mph Gallardo coupe was one of two donated to police by the luxury motor manufacturer to help with high speed pursuits.
Witnesses say the police car had accelerated just before another car pulled out of a petrol station and forced it off the road in Cremona, northern Italy.
Embarrassed police tried to confiscate phone cameras from witnesses, but abandoned the plan when hundreds turned up to gawp at the smash. “They are supposed to be elite drivers but even the best can have an off-day,” said one colleague.
Wonder whether they have a scrappage scheme in Italy?