Merry Bureauchristmacy
21/12/11 11:17 Filed in: DoSS Business
Subject: 2011 Departmental Christmas Card Directive
This year's seasonal missive from the Department of Social Scrutiny will, for the first time, be enabled by your colleagues at the Ministry of Festive Observance.
This means that, unlike previous years where individual Departments were responsible for sending out cards unilaterally, MoFO is at long last able to enforce the Government's policy on Multilateral Minor Package Reciprocation or MMPR.
Under MMPR, cards will only be sent in response to a successful application for festive communication being received by MoFO before the end of the tax year in which Christmas occurred and claims for back-dated Seasonal Felicitations must now be made within seven years of the final hour of the last day of the fiscal year in which a qualifying Christmas occurred.
An example of one of the new forms is reproduced below.
This year's seasonal missive from the Department of Social Scrutiny will, for the first time, be enabled by your colleagues at the Ministry of Festive Observance.
This means that, unlike previous years where individual Departments were responsible for sending out cards unilaterally, MoFO is at long last able to enforce the Government's policy on Multilateral Minor Package Reciprocation or MMPR.
Under MMPR, cards will only be sent in response to a successful application for festive communication being received by MoFO before the end of the tax year in which Christmas occurred and claims for back-dated Seasonal Felicitations must now be made within seven years of the final hour of the last day of the fiscal year in which a qualifying Christmas occurred.
An example of one of the new forms is reproduced below.
Comments
The Seven Signs of the Apocalypse
02/09/11 16:49 Filed in: Apocolympics
According to the Department of Social Scrutiny and the Apocalypse there are seven signs that the world may be about to end. Our professional eschatologists believe that the seven portents of ultimate doom - omens that signify that the End of Days is upon us - are:
1. The World of Furniture Sale comes to an end and the true, horrifying price of sofas and occasional tables is revealed for the very first time;
2. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs decline a self-assessment payment on account for the tax year 2012-2013;
3. The Gas Safety Inspectorate issue a certificate for the fires of eternal damnation;
4. The radius of Simon Cowell’s ego becomes so large, his X-Factor star dressing room spontaneously collapses to form a black hole;
5. No traffic cones are visible on the M25;
6. Cannibalism becomes fashionable. Heston Blumenthal flambés a stockbroker with the aid of a Eurofighter engine and Delia microwaves a dozen professional golfers in the Large Hadron Collider;
7. Barn Owls learn how to do quadratic equations.
1. The World of Furniture Sale comes to an end and the true, horrifying price of sofas and occasional tables is revealed for the very first time;
2. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs decline a self-assessment payment on account for the tax year 2012-2013;
3. The Gas Safety Inspectorate issue a certificate for the fires of eternal damnation;
4. The radius of Simon Cowell’s ego becomes so large, his X-Factor star dressing room spontaneously collapses to form a black hole;
5. No traffic cones are visible on the M25;
6. Cannibalism becomes fashionable. Heston Blumenthal flambés a stockbroker with the aid of a Eurofighter engine and Delia microwaves a dozen professional golfers in the Large Hadron Collider;
7. Barn Owls learn how to do quadratic equations.
Apocolympics News
04/08/11 11:01 Filed in: Apocolympics
In preparation for the coming Tribulation, DoSSA survival expert Beaver Mulcaire* passes on tips for dealing with flesh-eating members of the Coalition Cabinet and income tax.
When it all goes tits-up next year and the wolves of the Tribulation bay for blood, you might be surprised to learn that the Coalition are still planning to govern the country in a “business-like manner”. While there will inevitably be some loss of life in the Cabinet when strange uni-dimensional beings who live between the gaps in Conservative logic claim back Wild Gideon as their son, or when Vince Cable finally goes native with a fishing rod and a red cap under Westminster Bridge, it will inevitably come to wider public attention that most of the Government succumbed to the zombie taste for human flesh years ago and have just been patiently marking time, occasionally forming hunting parties to raid the monkey house at London Zoo or the odd middle class glamping site where the meat is more tender.
The main upshot of all of this is that HMRC will still be responsible for collecting taxes and Jobcentreplus still charged with investigating fraud. But with the treasury minister responsible likely to be one of the Living Dead, you might like to reflect on your survival as well as your accountancy and jobsearch skills. However, if a member of the HMRC or Benefits Enforcement Teams do call, here are some tips as to how to proceed.
* Beaver Mulcaire is the Shamanic Name of the Minister of Truth and Other Information, Sir Alan Bladder, MP.
When it all goes tits-up next year and the wolves of the Tribulation bay for blood, you might be surprised to learn that the Coalition are still planning to govern the country in a “business-like manner”. While there will inevitably be some loss of life in the Cabinet when strange uni-dimensional beings who live between the gaps in Conservative logic claim back Wild Gideon as their son, or when Vince Cable finally goes native with a fishing rod and a red cap under Westminster Bridge, it will inevitably come to wider public attention that most of the Government succumbed to the zombie taste for human flesh years ago and have just been patiently marking time, occasionally forming hunting parties to raid the monkey house at London Zoo or the odd middle class glamping site where the meat is more tender.
The main upshot of all of this is that HMRC will still be responsible for collecting taxes and Jobcentreplus still charged with investigating fraud. But with the treasury minister responsible likely to be one of the Living Dead, you might like to reflect on your survival as well as your accountancy and jobsearch skills. However, if a member of the HMRC or Benefits Enforcement Teams do call, here are some tips as to how to proceed.
- As soon as you suspect that there may be a tax collector or benefit investigator outside your home you must take decisive action. Improvise a meat catapult at a first floor window and hurl steaks, opened tins of winalot and fresh pets away from your home. Enforcement teams can smell blood but are equally attracted to mature, slightly dodgy food. Kebabs send them wild.
- Fashion a spear or javelin from an old pool cue or a garden fork. Paint the tips red and yellow, to invoke the McDonalds paradigm of meat marketing and write the magical invocation “Dieu Et Mon Droit” down the shaft. None of this will help, but it will pass the time creatively.
- Wear a string vest and lederhosen - apart from making you look deeply unappetising, you will appear more difficult to unwrap to a hungry member of the Undead, who just wants quick “Food on the Go”.
* Beaver Mulcaire is the Shamanic Name of the Minister of Truth and Other Information, Sir Alan Bladder, MP.
DoSSPodCast & Espionage Forecast
30/07/11 09:58 Filed in: Podcast | DoSS Business
Statement to the nation
DoSS updates its name and logo
15/07/11 16:42 Filed in: DoSS Business
We have commissioned a new logo - right - which, we think, mirror the new responsibilities of the Department while still in the traditional DoSS Pantone colours of Selsey Flapjack and Vichy Whisper. The logo integrates an Olympic Torch and a large bolide into the familiar DoSS eye device.
Copies of the new logo are available to all right-thinking newspaper editors. But not the News of the World, because they were on holiday at the time.
An audio statement on the phone hacking scandal has just been issued by the Department. Download the podcast below. Contains the Espionage forecast for August.
Podcast
New Government logo makes everything ‘alright’ again
23/02/11 10:19 Filed in: DoSS Business
The Department of Social Scrutiny is delighted to announce the adoption of a new Royal Crest which, we believe, mirrors the true values of Modern Britain and is set to make everything OK again.
The new crest, however, contains a number of heraldic devices which it may be necessary to explain to people unfamiliar with the deep-rooted symbolism of power.
1 Lamb Rampant
The sheep's nature - that of a docile, fluffy and easily panicked animal that happily follows the crowd, bleating as it goes to be annually fleeced for its coat - has long symbolized the British people.
2 Ram Rampant
With its beard, hardened horn, fixed, dead and glassy gaze, the Ram symbolizes the meddling judiciary.
3 Coronation Lion
The Crowned Beast of Britannia which, since the onset of Avian Flu, replaces the Coronation Chicken.
4 Ombudslion
To ensure fairness and inclusiveness, the Coronation Lion is overseen, heraldically, by a further crowned lion, symbolizing the official Government Watchdog, the Ombudslion. The Government has obtained a legal dispensation from the Zoological Society of London to re-classify all lions as dogs.
5 Overlion
The Ombudslion is a wholly-owned Corporation of the Federal Government of Texas.
6 Insouciant Goat
The previously secret Cloven-Hoofed Beast that makes all the real decisions in Government is displayed for the first time here, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.
7 Deleted Reference
For reasons of decency, the Ceremonial Plate of Regal Turds cannot be displayed.
8 Cross, Pennant
Symbolizing the idea of nationhood - the crucifix that bears the nation's flag is hammered through the base of the brain of the people and exits through the chest, both stiffening the posture and acting as a crutch.
9 Ram's Gonads
This stands for the inalienable right of any members of the legal profession to display his or her genitals, the third Tuesday of every month.
Call Centre Charter
23/02/11 10:18 Filed in: DoSS Business
It is with great pride that the Department of Social Scrutiny unveils its latest Customer Service Charter today - the Blue Charter Mark, which consolidates our previous Brown Flag for Cleanliness and the Silver Earplug Award for Telephone Attention into one unbeatable service package.
This exciting package rolls many features into the Service Charter bundle, many of which are outlined below in the Customer Service Checklist.
Customer Service Checklist.
This exciting package rolls many features into the Service Charter bundle, many of which are outlined below in the Customer Service Checklist.
Customer Service Checklist.
- All telephone enquiries will be routed to Outer Mongolia via a 4,000 kilometre loop of bell wire.
- Our contractors action your enquiry in Central Lowland Scottish accents to a call centre in Fife, who escalate your support request by staring out the window and visiting websites for the remainder of the day.
- If you have a further enquiry, your call will be placed on hold while employees of our Fife call centre send one another emails containing slightly off-colour jokes featuring some degree of racial or sexual stereotyping and far too many exclamation marks.
- You will then be played music on a poorly-edited 31 second tape loop that you will find yourself whistling at your grandmother's funeral six year later, having eventually seeped into your subconscious mind as a response to unswerving anger and sorrow.
- If you are unsatisfied with our response to an automatically answered call, you can lodge an official appeal by recording the full conversation and playing it backwards at full volume to our Customer Defusing Centre, located at your local Mental Health Centre.
- Our staff have the right to work without fear of encountering pushy people like you who want more than they can provide which is, by and large, nothing.
Welcome to the new efficient DoSS 2.0
18/01/11 13:00 Filed in: DoSS Business
Hello and welcome to the new rationalised Department of Social Scrutiny website. I do hope you enjoy using it, within the agreed levels of excitement as outlined in the 2009 Draft Orange Paper Framework of Permitted Exhilaration. Now let me briefly outline why the new Government has decided to dramatically improve the web presence of the Department of Social Scrutiny by spending less money on it.
When we came into power, it was incumbent upon us to change the incumbent way of doing things, thereby creating an incumbency loop that changes things in the way that they have always been changed: the progressive status quo, the new same old, the static leap.
It’s an exciting prospect and I’m not just talking about a semantic shift of priorities, but a real movement, like a large and heavy box full of, for example, hammers. I might be new to this Internet 2.0, but I’m sure that even in a digital Britain, we will always need hammers and they won’t always be exactly in the place we need them to be and so need to be moved around, by the box load on digital trolleys. Staff here at the Department have now informed me that the digital trolleys that move information around the internet (I am told that http stands for ‘hi-tech trolley protocol’) were insufficient for the considerable demands placed upon them by DoSS 2.0. On the advice of senior officials, this department has now purchased a new set of trolleys (and forklift trucks for the ‘backend’ FTP) from the very latest Nigerian entrepreneur.
I do hope that you understand the enormous breakthrough the staff here at DoSS have made in explaining this to me. So, as we say on the internet ‘taut cables and super surfing!’
About our wide-ranging reforms
17/01/11 13:31 Filed in: DoSS Business
"The Government, your Government, has had its difficulties recently. There have been accusations of sleaze, spin, whitewash and, most recently, less than wholesome conduct with a dead rhinoceros, but these setbacks are really just issues of presentation and the Government remains adhered to its policy of muscular modernisation.
Only one thing stands in our way: the political will as well as precision of thought, and let us not forget what might be referred to as that quality which is known as a clarity of expression.
New plans
That's why we are introducing our new plans. They form part of the Government's wide-ranging sweeping reforms which will overturn and build on the successful wide-ranging and sweeping reforms we introduced last year.
One of the problems with the successful old reforms was that people were uncertain of their position within society. Furthermore we are faced with the need to reformulate our, and by our I mean your, civil liberties in the context of a world where our, and by our I mean my, authority is under threat and where that threat is clearly and without a shadow of doubt, you. We want to change that by screening the population and assigning you, the person, a position in society based on objective rules rather than wishy-washy ideas about aspiration and hope.
New process
This new process will be known as Serf Assessment. The first step in this process will involve a series of short interviews to determine whether you are exempt from applying. These interviews will occur at DoSS offices in London over the course of the next few weeks.
People attending from outside the Home Counties will be allowed into the application office after inspections for head lice. Applicants using foul language outside the context of a discussion about art will be issued vouchers for oven chips and asked to leave.
We do commend these changes to you and I do hope you approve of them, because your future is certainly bleak if you do not. One can't make an omelette without cracking eggs, after all. Now all that's left for me to do is to beat one off."
Frequently Asked FAQs
16/01/11 13:35 Filed in: FAQs
Can you tell me a little bit about the DoSS website?
This website incorporates 150 cubic yards of JavaScript sprayed onto a lightweight superstructure of broken promises and Cryptically-Encoded-Hyperbole (CEH) - the new super-smooth non-stick material that lines the Space Shuttle lavatory and the press briefing room at Downing Street.
Where does all the money go?
You've mentioned chairs twice. How come?
In our full accounts, the additional office chair is balanced on the credit side by the presence of a chair fashioned from anti-matter. If we were to show both the chair and the anti-chair on the same graph the damage to the pie chart would be colossal.
The graph only adds up to 80%. How come?
Oh, it's you again. This is a bug in your web browser that is unable to handle modern accounting, particularly the new technique of bent numbers • the practise of plotting four different axes onto a three dimensional graph on a two dimensional surface. The accountant bends two copies of the graph and plots points using polarised light and a pair of specially adapted cheap sunglasses.
I have applied for a job with DoSS. How will I know whether my application was successful?
DoSS regularly communicates with its agents in the field via messages left in their household refuse. If you have not thought of going through your bin for secret mail from the Government, then we're sorry, you are simply too mentally stable to work for us. Thank you for your interest.
I'd like to write some favourable and compelling copy about DoSS. Where do I get your graphics from?
You can download both of our logos here.
Terms of use:
I agree to these terms:
This website incorporates 150 cubic yards of JavaScript sprayed onto a lightweight superstructure of broken promises and Cryptically-Encoded-Hyperbole (CEH) - the new super-smooth non-stick material that lines the Space Shuttle lavatory and the press briefing room at Downing Street.
Where does all the money go?
You've mentioned chairs twice. How come?
In our full accounts, the additional office chair is balanced on the credit side by the presence of a chair fashioned from anti-matter. If we were to show both the chair and the anti-chair on the same graph the damage to the pie chart would be colossal.
The graph only adds up to 80%. How come?
Oh, it's you again. This is a bug in your web browser that is unable to handle modern accounting, particularly the new technique of bent numbers • the practise of plotting four different axes onto a three dimensional graph on a two dimensional surface. The accountant bends two copies of the graph and plots points using polarised light and a pair of specially adapted cheap sunglasses.
I have applied for a job with DoSS. How will I know whether my application was successful?
DoSS regularly communicates with its agents in the field via messages left in their household refuse. If you have not thought of going through your bin for secret mail from the Government, then we're sorry, you are simply too mentally stable to work for us. Thank you for your interest.
I'd like to write some favourable and compelling copy about DoSS. Where do I get your graphics from?
You can download both of our logos here.
Terms of use:
- The two colours used in the DoSS logo are "Selsey Flapjack" and "Vichy Whisper".
- When using the chartermark, you must position it not more than 30cm away from a Government Minister at all times.
- You may face criminal prosecution if you use any of these logos in a way that reflects badly on DoSS: ie - pornography, pyramid schemes, negative news stories.
I agree to these terms:
Terms and Conditions
15/01/11 13:38 Filed in: Terms and Conditions
For your own safety and psychiatric wellbeing, please read the following terms and conditions carefully
Definitions.
These terms and conditions (hereinafter referred to as 'terms and conditions') form part of a contract between you (hereinafter referred to as 'you') and us (hereinafter referred to as 'Sir').
Jurisdiction.
For legal purposes, this contract shall be governed by the Laws of Canasta.
Privacy policy.
Information that you share with us may be used, at our discretion, by other Government Departments, other Governments, intelligence organisations, local councils, the Post Office, your neighbours, your friends, colleagues, business partners and lovers. This is what we mean by Open Government. Additionally, we may, in times of National Emergency, take out newspaper adverts featuring a picture of you as a child with a caption that reads: "Member of the Axis of Evil" or "Escaped Loony".
Definitions.
These terms and conditions (hereinafter referred to as 'terms and conditions') form part of a contract between you (hereinafter referred to as 'you') and us (hereinafter referred to as 'Sir').
Jurisdiction.
For legal purposes, this contract shall be governed by the Laws of Canasta.
Privacy policy.
Information that you share with us may be used, at our discretion, by other Government Departments, other Governments, intelligence organisations, local councils, the Post Office, your neighbours, your friends, colleagues, business partners and lovers. This is what we mean by Open Government. Additionally, we may, in times of National Emergency, take out newspaper adverts featuring a picture of you as a child with a caption that reads: "Member of the Axis of Evil" or "Escaped Loony".