The moon and half a sixpence

It's a bit difficult to write this blog at the moment. Not because there's not plenty to write about; and not because I don't need to write the worst of it out of my system. It just isn't quite right at the moment:

• There are the self-imposed strictures on other people's personnel issues. We're public sector workers working for a council that was announcing swingeing cuts to budgets and services before the General Election papers were being sent out so you can make a few guesses there.
• Many of the people I work with are readers of this blog. These are sensitive times, I need to be more careful than usual. I don't want anybody feeling even more fretful or vulnerable than they are already on account of a daft after-dinner story.
• I suppose I need to be careful on my own account, too. These are interesting times, I'm in a tricky position personally and I'm pushing my luck a bit with The Powers That Be concerning some of the stuff that's being proposed. And let's face it, I'm not exactly under deep cover here: at least two people have deduced who and/or where by piecing together the clues in the narrative. So I really should be careful. Actually, if it were only me in the firing line I wouldn't give a monkey's but at the moment it wouldn't be, so I do.
• There are tiny slivers of hope in all this mess. If the library service really does go down the toilet it will be because of an unholy combination of ignorance, arrogance and lack of imagination. I personally have an unholy combination of ignorance, arrogance and overly-active imagination so I'm putting a lot of my energies into trying to support people who are fighting for more positive outcomes. I'm not being awfully effective at it and need to get my act together, I'll admit, but I need to be careful not to compromise even those meagre efforts by telling the wrong tales out of school at the wrong time.

So I'm having to be a lot circumspect at the moment. Apologies and all that.

A brief recap of the last few weeks: next Summer I might or might not be working for the library service or, indeed, the council; as indeed might or might not some of my colleagues. Libraries might or might not be closed next year or the year after. We might or might not be taken over by outside forces or contracted out or something. And most, if not all, of the organisations we work with or provide facilities for, are in the same boat.

Put like that it sounds like business as usual over the past twenty years...