What a load of rubbish

July 19, 2010

Picture the scene.  A bag of rubbish lies dormant outside Attinger Jack interactive’s office waiting to be picked up by Camden’s finest.  No problem there, after all rubbish bags are left on the kerbside around London every day.

In Camden, however, the practice is illegal and a clever ruse for the council to raise extra revenue.   Fines and penalties now make up a greater percentage of many of London boroughs’ revenues than the council tax itself.  Westminster, as an example, issued over 680,000 parking and penalty fines in 2009 raising a tidy £400 million. 

Fascist councils aside, a Camden rubbish detective – he’s not rubbish, he’s a detective looking at rubbish – found an errant black bin bag outside Aji and promptly delivered an £80 fine to Alex Attinger.  How did they track Aji down?  Deep inside the bag, next to Andy’s week-old baked beans, Ovie’s used green tea bags and Adam’s penicillin spotted bread, lay an invoice from…..Active You, one of the UK’s biggest special offers websites. 

The fine has been swiftly re-routed to the desk of the Active You account manager, a certain ballroom dancer from South London.  And, if she’s reading, no it can’t be ‘added to expenses’.