Mod Axe Tea And Biscuits

[Styron]

STORM IN AN MOD TEA CUP

Oct 11 2004

Daily Mirror

EXCLUSIVE

By Richard Smith


MILITARY top brass have been told not to help themselves to free tea and biscuits at meetings in the latest cost cuts.

Instead they will only get a cuppa at Whitehall HQ if a meeting will take at least two hours.

And a Ministry of Defence memo tells them to log all teas and coffees. They will then be charged to the unit using the conference room to stop visitors using the new refreshment machines.

A senior source said: "Officers who've led their men into battle are being treated like kids.

"We're just waiting for visiting American officers to have a bloody good snigger when they find out. This memo has torpedoed morale.

"We wondered if it was a joke."

But the rule JSP 462, Part 5, Chapter 1, Annex A on providing a £1.10 tea including biscuits is clear.

A MoD spokesman: "It's essentially ensuring tax-payers' money is used in the most efficient way."

[The Swinging Monkey]

I hate to say it, and I don't agree with it entirely, but well done!!!
If we can't afford a hot drink for the station guards through the long, cold winter nights, how can we justify it for the airships in their gin palaces??
Mind, we are going to look pretty pathetic when we host foreigners aren't we??

Kind regards
TSM

[Sideshow Bob]

Yet another fine example that our lords and masters have really got their fingers on the pulse. I suppose that if they save enough tea and biscuits, we may finally get some cost effective kit that is fit for the purpose it was procured for and not £750million over budget.

[BEagle]

And don't forget to sign for each cube of sugar!

If it wasn't so pathetic it'd be hilarious.....

[joe2812]

How do us English cut out tea?

It's, it's...barbaric.

[Eagle 270]

They are probably trying to pay for the chairs that were such a cheap buy just recently!!

I just love it when the priorities are the correct way round.

" MoD chairs £1,000 each as troops face axe
By Michael Smith Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 12/07/2004)

The Ministry of Defence has bought each of its 3,150 Whitehall civil servants a £1,000 chair as it plans the biggest cuts in the Armed Forces since the Cold War.

The Herman Miller Aeron chair, described as the "most comfortable office chair in the world", is also the most expensive.

It is the kind David Dimbleby uses on BBC1's Question Time and has been on display at the New York Museum of Modern Art as one of America's designs of the decade.

The purchase is part of a £342 million refurbishment carried out at the ministry."

http://www.furniturerental.ca/images/ergochairs/better%20herman%20miller%20aeron%20chair.jpg

[foldingwings]

It's "we English" Joe! Not "us English" but then I would know having been educated in that superior education system north of the border!

[Navaleye]

How many cups of tea does a Jaguar cost?

How many biscuits for an F3 Squadron?

Its just pathetic Get rid of some more civilians if need be..

[Lionel Lion]

Easy

Jaguar = 3 cups of tea, china mug, cream (GR3) milk(T4)

F3 = bourbons, 1 packet (Waitrose) (Amraam jet), rich tea (Coop) (Skyflash)

Simple.......I should work at the MOD baaaaa..........

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Will Geoff be paying for his tea and biscuits?

[adr]

Reminds me of a training establishment in the Midlands where the boss used to count the biscuits before and after the break, to see that the staff weren't having more than two each per break. At least there, the discontent was focussed on one man and his budget-obsessed control-freakery. If it's a matter of policy, people will feel shat-upon by the system itself. :(

adr

[Scud-U-Like]

Daily Mirror exclusive indeed. About as exclusive (and interesting) as my toenail clippings. Tough titty. Who cares? Next.....

It was worth reading the thread for adr's biscuit-counter anecdote though. Love it.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

adr

Isn't that sort of behaviour a sign of a personality disorder?

[adr]

Isn't that sort of behaviour a sign of a personality disorder? If he'd done it at every break, it'd have been compelling evidence (IMHO) of obsessive-compulsive disorder. His occasional biscuit-counting spot checks were taken as, ahem, an indication of congenital parsimony (shorter words were used at the time).

adr

[Oggin Aviator]

congenital parsimony

I'll admit I'm thick, but what does this mean ??

[Maaate]

I'll admit I'm thick, but what does this mean ??
"I'll admit I'm thick" means you have taken a long hard look at yourself and come to the sad but strikingly honest conclusion - albeit in a self-deprecating way - that you are not as bright as you would like to be.

:D :) ;)

Glad I could help.

Yours in innate frugality.

[Oggin Aviator]

Everyone loves a smart@rse :E

[BEagle]

'congenital parsimony' = inborn stinginess. Or in other words, the bloke was a tight-fisted bastard since birth!

'Everyone loves a smart @rse'.....is that a sea farer's thing?

:E

[MrBernoulli]

.......and he probably inherited it from one or both parents?

[Oggin Aviator]

'Everyone loves a smart @rse'.....is that a sea farer's thing?

I wouldnt know - havent been to sea for ages! Not much water where I am at the moment.