Modern Job

I need to get a grip. There's BUSINESS to be done and it's no good pining wistfully for 'Badge' on the telly when there's BUSINESS to be done.

There's plenty of modern jobs out there that need filling. This is the shortlist I've drawn up for this week:


Can you help us Build Pride and some Awnings in Essex?

Reporting to the Strategic Joining-In Manager: Equality & Participation, the postholder will promote and embed the County Council's Equality Scheme within Stakeholder Services; whilst ensuring Directorate equality objectives are met or something. You will take a lead role in monitoring service performance monitoring against the Equality Standard for Local Government Monitoring and project manage Directorate-wide initiatives to embed equality and diversity. The postholder will always be based in YORKSHIRE.

You must be able to demonstrate:

- Proven education to degree level or equivalent ('adding' and 'taking away' required, 'sharing by' and 'times by' optional).

- Proven experience of working with equality and diversity issues. Candidates who can produce diverse issues will be preferred.

- Proven ability to work effectively with diverse colleagues and equal partners at all levels and across service boundaries.

- Proven experience of monitoring project management monitors.

Closing date 5pm (packing up time), 5 January 2009.

Building Pride Up Your Street

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Can you take us to the next level?

This is an opportunity for you to have a lovely big significant impact - developing a brand new organisation brand with its own identity, objectives, priorities and brand-new brand. Brand.

Reporting directly to CHIEFEXECUTIVE, as a key member of the Corporate Management Team, you will lead and develop the Council's corporate policy and performance functions and inform and support strategic decision making while CHIEFEXECUTIVE watches you.

You will lead the Council's involvement in the development and review of Community Strategy, through partnership working, performance management frameworks and coordinating CAA. You will take a strategic lead in developing a neighbourhood working and citizen focussed approach to service delivery. Initial service delivery will focus on the issue-attenuation of uncollected refuse by helping to recruit further community refuse collector equality monitors, community refuse collector equality monitor monitors and uncollected refuse communication officers. At present, no budget exists for refuse collectors.

Our ideal candidate will have the ability to establish and maintain genuine, meaningful and ultimately futile partnerships with a variety of organisations, possessing considerable knowledge of performance management frameworks and regimes. Overall, you will help us ensure that services are configured around the needs and aspirations of customers and the wider community.

Laters, yeah.
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Who's the boss?

Supporting and caring for people who need it most.

Strengthening communities. Improving lifestyles. Widening choice and opportunity. Making hay. Keeping your head down. Hanging on.

Our new office of Adult and Community Services has been created to deliver this to everyone who lives in Surreyshire.

We need somebody exceptional to lead it.

You will have 580,000 bosses to please in the fastest growing County in England, with that number increasing every day. They will each have 1,200,000 bosses.

Surreyshire: inexorably growing exponentially.
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You?

There's a new confidence in Melchester. It's the confidence of a city that knows where it's going. It's going to Melchester. Then it's going to stay there.

Melchester is embarking on a 25-year journey - based on a 20-year vision that's being driven by all of the city's key organisations. And we're reshaping Melchester City Council to ensure we're ready to meet the challenges ahead.

So we're looking for two exceptional leaders, one mediocre and one who's able to turn up.

We need three strategic directors who will contribute truly innovative thinking, while making sure that we deliver world-class public services to our customers.

And we need a talented chief executive for our new economic development company, ensuring that the city and county make the most of increasing interest from investors.

So if you've got the passion, drive and energy to help us make our vision a reality, we'd like to hear from you and your friends.

Going somewhere? Go there confidently.
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Crush

Well Marty seems to be having the last laugh, I guess. His shows just seem to be so successful. I, for one, will be watching 'Celebrity Trowel Insertion' tonight. It's Natasha Kaplinksi, an oiled beach wood and copper eight-ounce broad-pointed hand trowel and, all the rumours are, this is the week where it will be the rectum.

Did you see 'Chef Abuse' last night? That's one of his, too. Every week it has a member of the public taken on as a trainee kitchen-hand who, for thirty minutes, is repeatedly and wordlessly kneed in the groin by TVChef, over and over and over again until the final three minutes where a handful of crumpled banknotes is thrown on the floor next to the writhing sous and TVChef runs through a quick filo recipe. Apparently, there's a two-year waiting list to get on the show.

Marty said that that was nothing, though, and the real big earners this year are going to be 'Good Chef, Bad Chef', 'Chef Probe' and 'Dancing Chef Property Makeover Bingo in the Sun Challenge'. That man really has his finger on the pulse, I tell you.

You know, I'm not so sure about the whole Hokey meat juice franchise now. Marty was really dismissive of it. He just clapped his hands to his face in exasperation while his immense Ukrainian squeeze crushed the salt and pepper shakers in her massive hands.

Finding the Niche

By the way, talking of Marty Parmesan - I saw him the other day to discuss another business proposition. I've got a cast-iron business plan for a new franchise. It's like Starbucks but, instead of coffee, will be serving beef tea. Not just beef tea, of course, there'll be other drinks like porky cola and goose juice on offer, too. We'll have a silver-plated monkey called 'Hokey' as the corporate mascot and I can get Thermo King and Queen of the Speedboats to promote the first opening.

I thought we could maybe even get Action Charlie, too, but a bit of bad news there, I'm afraid. I spoke to his agent and, apparently, AC is uncomfortable with endorsing a grinning, be-fanged, carnivorous shiny monkey - especially as Action is focussing on promoting his lead in 'Hard Guts III: Dropped Guts' which is coming out next month. He thinks it could give the wrong message to his vegetarian action fans. I explained that we'll be offering spicy vegetable polyhedra but he just wasn't interested. I don't know, it seems like political madness gone correct, sometimes, it really does. Thermo King, though, is totally on-board and even suggested the possibility of taking on Hokey as an official sidekick. And Queen of the Speedboats said she would be able to get a troupe of her pneumatic artistes to water-ski up the Thames in formation, wearing patriotic leotards and smeared in dripping. Now, she is a true professional. So it's really starting to take off. I'm going to see if I can get any press in this week's episode of Rancid Mate and Schwy Boy.

Marty looked amazing, by the way. He was dressed in a glossy grey suit and was wearing huge chunks of platinum jewellery. He's just signed a five-year deal on 'Cash Up Your Mouth' and found a new bleached toothy bint with a splendid shitter to front it. The boffins say that it will be very successful.

Ah, me and Marty go way back but when I mentioned Chozza and Spang from the old days he spat out his drink and frantically used both hands to repeatedly flip the bird in wild frenzied arcs, knocking over all the glasses on the table. I really think that we may have gone too far with our silly impersonations of him back then. The time when we all wore wigs like Marty's big curly mop, in particular, comes to mind. I regret that now. I also met Marty's girlfriend. She's Ukrainian and incredibly tall with massive, solid tits. She's also got huge hands with bulging blue veins. Reminds me a bit of Trudy Truffiturd. Marty told me that she can tap out a rhythm on her knees and she could. Then she tapped out a rhythm on Marty's knees while he snorted snuff from his big ruby ring.

Hawkbusy

I'm still trying to get the green light for 'Badge'.

Channel 4 said they're interested but they want to make Terry into Tina Flange - a female lawyer who lives in a fashionable townhouse with a Pekinese and who paints portraits in her spare time - and no monkeys, either. I don't think they understood it at all, so I told them to stuff it and stormed out, turning only briefly to pocket their plate of biscuits.

I've approached Marty Parmesan recently, you may be acquainted with his work. More4 will be doing a Parmesan retrospective next month. Obviously they'll have all the usual stuff like 'Slot' and 'Knockercake' as well as 'Cash Up Your Mouth'. But Marty has done some quality productions, too, like the little-known 'Cable the Baker' - his award winning documentary on that poor woman from Hartlepool who couldn't stop herself squatting over slumbering artisans and squeezing them out a hot dog.

Vision

As the theme music fades out - first shot is of a pair of battered old work boots suddenly obscured by a close-up of a heavily laden dustbin thump down onto the road. A voice out of shot chastises Terry for his momentary laxness: "Oi, Badge, get a moov on, mate." Pan up to Terry, his face hidden by his mop of long shaggy hair and the upturned collar of his worn denim jacket as he attempts to tap the keys of his palmtop computer with one hand and shift a large rubbish bin with the other - trying to juggle his two day jobs of dustman and software developer which allow him the means to buy the free time he craves. The time to sit on his boat in peace, his keen mind completely ensconced in the rarefied world of higher mathematics, have a nice sit down, a cup of tea and an orange 'Viscount' biscuit.

We follow Terry back to his boat, moored on a quiet island in the Thames by Hampton Court in the south west of London. It's still early - a summer morning and, as he trudges back, clusters of pointy-headed BUSINESSmen dart about, on their way to do BUSINESS in big banks. As Terry arrives, his dog Gizmo hears him and, with a joyful bark, leaps over the side of the boat to greet him. As Gizmo bounds over the threshold of the boat's rails, it automatically activates his electro-collar and, with a loud yelp, the little mutt drops to the ground, involuntarily defecating with unwholesome spasms and smoking slightly.

"Ah Gizmo, you never learn, do you," Terry chuckles to himself as a stunned Gizmo zig-zags his way back to within his electronically delineated boundary of the boat's gunwales.

Terry settles himself down in the galley, placing a battered old copper kettle on the stove and taking out an orange 'Viscount' biscuit from a scruffy wooden cupboard which is completely full of packets of orange 'Viscount' biscuits and nothing else. He takes off the bright foil wrapper, tosses it out the galley window where it lands in the river and is immediately pecked up by a large swan covered in oil, and pours himself some tea. Gizmo scuttles over to his food bowl and starts munching on some broken up 'Viscount' biscuits. As Terry sips his tea, he wanders over to his workbench, which is covered in various mechanical parts and tools, and whips off the dust cover of Mark.

At this stage, Mark is merely a skeletal torso with only one arm and a head casing partially covered in stretched monkey-skin with one camera lens eye and one dark, dissected gorilla eye. Activated by the incident light, Mark judders falteringly into life, servomotors whirring. The noise alerts Gizmo who gives a low, suspicious growl.

"Morning, Mark," Terry says cheerfully, putting down his mug of tea to make some fine adjustments to Mark's wiring.

"Cunk cunk cunk.. de... deactivate me... whirr... free me, free me!" Mark replies in metallic, mournful tones and then stops altogether, slumping back down in silence.

Terry makes a couple more adjustments then violently pumps a large lever by the side of the workbench. There is a loud bang from Mark's innards, the gorilla eye explodes and the single arm falls off. Cursing, Terry starts to reattach it when his attention is diverted by the barking of Gizmo at the approaching sound of short, sharp footsteps. Gizmo excitedly scrambles up the wooden steps of the galley onto the deck. Terry smiles knowingly to himself, revealing that the sound of those measured clipped steps are familiar to him. He slowly shakes his head with a rueful laugh as the footsteps stop and are punctuated by a female gasp of shock and a loud canine whine as Gizmo's collar kicks in and the involuntary defecation begins again.

"Badge, I got your monkey parts, just like you wanted," comes the authoritative but mellifluous voice of Eleanor Tight as her shapely legs teeter down the steep galley steps.

Dressed incongruously in a dark short-skirted suit and heels, she hands over a large black plastic bag to Terry. He thrusts his hand inside, pulling out a smaller transparent bag of what looks like offal and puts it into the fridge alongside other similar bags, bottles of milk and more packets of 'Viscount' biscuits and throws the black bin bag out the galley window. Terry then mutters something to himself about Mark needing new eyes before taking a chilled biscuit from the fridge and offering it to Eleanor with a cheery "Viscount?" She takes the biscuit and crams it in her mouth in one go, without taking a bite, throwing the discarded orange foil wrapper out the window to where the oily swan, now entangled in the black bin bag, pecks it up.

"Terry, we've got something for you. Something strange. Something that might need those higher-order Bessel functions again."

Terry turns sharply to her, jabbing forward an accusatory finger. "Listen, Eleanor - I told you before - I'm not touching Bessel functions again - not since those complex Hankel derivatives and the Stepney stabbings. No more, Eleanor - I'm done with all that." Angrily, he turns back to the copper kettle as it boils.

"Cup of tea?" he offers.

Eleanor accepts the proffered mug and quaffs the contents down in one, also taking another 'Viscount' and cramming it in at the same time.

"Listen, Badge," she replies with an angry hiss, bits of chocolate coating and crumbs flying out the sides of her mouth, "you want your primate pieces - you help us out here." She puts down the empty mug. "So how is..." she pauses, "Mark these days, anyway?"

Terry's shoulders slump and he shrinks visibly in shame. "Mark is almost finished, Eleanor. He's almost free."

The embarrassed silence is broken by the ringing of Eleanor's mobile 'phone. She breaks her gaze from Terry and answers it.

"Tight here. Yeah. I'm on it." She hangs up, puts the 'phone away, then hands Terry an envelope, addressing him in a softer tone. "Look Terry, just take a look. Tell me what you think, okay?"

She rises to leave. Terry takes the envelope, crumpling it tensely in his hand, still staring at the floor. "No more Bessel functions," he whispers.

At the top of the galley steps, Eleanor pauses. "One more thing, Terry. This involves Barry. Barry Vadge."

Terry's jaw tightens and he clamps shut his eyes in apparent pain, crunching the envelope into a tight ball as the sound of Eleanor's sharp steps echo from the deck onto the quayside, followed by a startled cry and loud thud as she slips in the viscous remains of Gizmo's previous convulsions.

As Terry slowly opens his eyes, a single tear falls and the camera zooms in to the crumpled envelope in his hand as the sound of Gizmo's curious paws are heard scrambling up the steps, followed by a loud electric crackling buzz, a yelp and a further dismayed shriek from Eleanor.

It's the start of another Terry Badge adventure!

Metre

I've got a theme tune all sorted out:

Terry Badge,
He’s alright.
He lives on a boat with Gizmo and Mark.

Terry Badge,
He’s well smart.
He’s solving the crimes with his head.

Terry Badge,
He's well fly.
He exchanges clues for dead monkey parts.

Terry Badge,
He means well,
Inadvertently tormenting strange consciousness.

Terry Badge,
He helps Tight,
But sends her ballistic,
(Doesn’t notice her lipstick)
Solipsistically grinding her down.

Telly Gold

Do you remember 'Terry Badge' from the late '70s on British TV? It was one of the lesser-known detective dramas but I loved it. Terry's unique angle was the way he would solve crimes by applying complex mathematical formulae.

I have had a fantastic idea to update the show a little and bring it back to our screens, where it rightly belongs.

It goes like this:

Terry Badge is a physics PhD with a brilliant academic record and promising career which he has chosen to abandon in order to enable him to concentrate on his obsession of building a robot called 'Mark'. Mark is human-shaped as all good robots should be. Human-shaped, monkey parts. Terry works on Mark on an old narrowboat moored along the Thames in South West London where he lives with a small dog called Gizmo.

Terry kind of represents that 'everyman' character in terms of his isolated mental anguish, scraping along making a living by writing the odd bit of computer code freelance from his boat and working part-time as a dustman. Every week, the stunning, power-dressed Eleanor Tight comes to see Terry. She's an old college friend who has ambitiously worked her way up the police ranks since graduating first at Hendon - 'Top Truncheon'. She always finds Terry tinkering with half-finished bits of Mark and brings him various cryptic unsolved crimes and freshly scraped ape offal, in exchange for which he solves the mysteries by applying incredibly complex bits of non-linear mathematics.

Top scientists try to lure Terry away to the world of high-energy weapons research. Yes, top scientists, lure away, every week. As the theme music fades in, you see white-coated boffins being chased off the boat by Terry at the beginning of each episode. It remains just Badge and Gizmo and Mark. Terry wears denims and has long, shaggy hair. Gizmo has an electronic collar that activates whenever he strays over the sides of the boat, delivering an electric shock so strong it makes him involuntarily defecate. Mark is never finished. Never.

Each episode ends with a solved case which Terry nerdily explicates to the foxy cop amid painfully unrequited sexual tension while a surreal and profoundly unsettling quip from the half-finished module of Mark lying in bits on the workbench sets off the whole gang guffawing at the ironic way in which Mark's unremitting existential horror always seems to provide a humorous backstory to the sleuthing events of the week. Freeze-frame on the hearty laughter and into the soft rock outro.

This is gold - pure liquid tellygold.