Tales from Helminthdale

The year in pieces

2011-12-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not re-animating this blog. This is a coda or end-piece, or codpiece if you will, to explain why I feel that we have come to a close.

The world of Helminthdale Libraries is become a darker, more savage one than the one I had been chronicling. To be sure, there was always that cruel feral streak of the girls' playground about the place and there were always too many smiling assassins but things have grown appreciably worse as Call Me Dave's austerity measures have hit what was already a basket case of a local economy.

I was having a drink at Bronwyn's leaving do — the latest of many and only the last of this year's — and it was depressing to realise looking around that nearly all the people in the room were historical footnotes, at best, as far as the Library Service was concerned. Including myself.

And the real bloodbath has hardly started: next year, although no libraries are closing there'll be a major cull of front-line staff, books and other resources. Caretaking is already a thing of the past so God alone knows how the buildings will be staying open, what with hardly anyone to staff them and roofs held on with sticky-backed plastic.

For all his many and various faults it's hard to escape the nagging confirmation that the idiot T.Aldous presided over a Golden Age. Sadly, so much of the managed change that could have eased the pain of the new horrors, or even forestalled some of them, were blocked as efficiently and ruthlessly as were all the other grim realities of the new millennium.

But that's all history now.

I can't really bring myself to write about what's happening here. I'd feel like a hospital orderly describing the last days of a dying vagrant. And I'm not up for that.

It's been a great ride and it's given me the opportunity to chat with some lovely people. May Providence look after you. Thank you and goodnight.

I think I'll go home now.

Forever is composed of now

2011-04-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Yet another meeting where librarians tell me that they're too busy to put information on the web.

"It's easier if more than one of you are doing the job," I explain again, "that way you can divvy it up into more manageable workloads."

"But how will we know who's doing which bit?"

"if that's a problem you could always divide the work up thematically."

"That won't do: some themes overlap and some won't fit into the themes."

"Is it really that much of a problem?" I ask.

"The problem is that we won't know if somebody else has already done the job."

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is as clear a statement as to how we got up shit creek as you are likely to read.

I've got me tickling tackle and me nicky nacky noo

2011-03-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

Dennis is working with us on a six-month work placement at Umpty Library. Any ideas he may have entertained about libraries being sedate, genteel places have been shot to bits by some of the customers.

"Donny!" shouts Mrs. Tumbleweed, "I'm trying to remember the name of that book I had the other week. I can't remember what it were called but it were about a lass as was taken up the jacksy by a sheikh. It were a Mills and Boon. I have to have them in the large print these days."

Ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right decision

2011-03-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

A sign of the times: Maisie, who is one of the gentlest of creatures, has been on the warpath this week because Jack Harry and Milton did some clever last-minute ordering and then made themselves scarce when the time came to authorise the payments. I take a 'phone call from her:

"Are they in?" she asks.

"No," I reply, "can I help?"

"No, it's about that frigging, frigging, frigging, frigging, frigging invoice."

Hang out the aspidistras

2011-03-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

Mooching round the "all you can eat for a fiver" section of Hannigan's Truss Boutique, I bump into Ken Barmy. His council is very excited because they are to have a pre-nuptial visit from The Royal Couple. Their library overlooks the processionsary parade and they've spent the day being vetted by The Riot Police Of Hearts (P.C. Neddy Strangelove and a team of dog handlers, most of whom have been remanded pending medical reports).

"The Mayor and Corporation will be presenting the happy couple with three pounds' worth of Ann Summers vouchers," he tells me.

They're a couple of months too late in the efficiencies process to be awarded the freedom of the city's public lavatories.

His own white leather toilet seat

2011-03-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't be March without a few dozen new chairs in the fire escape corridor...

Today's special: monkeyhands and chips

2011-03-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

"Calling all librarians! Augmented reality app could save librarians hours," says the link.

Given some our librarIans' shall we say tenuous links to reality I think augmentation may be a step too far.

Chalet rash

2011-03-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

I take a phone call for Milton.

"Sorry, he's on leave this week," I explain.

"That bloke has more holidays than Thomas Cook," mutters the caller who's been trying to talk to him for the past month.

Brutish summer time

2011-03-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

They've put the clocks forward in Helminthdale. We're all very worried about That Hitler.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

2011-03-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

Ooh, there'll be some heads in Helminthdale this morning...

Yesterday evening we repaired to The Monkey's for Julia's leaving do. And very convivial it was, too. If, as threatened, she ever sets herself up on Facebook there'll be some explaining to do about the photographs.

Ours was not the only leaving do: most of the Engineers' Department was saying its farewells in the billiard room; the benefits advice team in the snug; the business advice team in the dining room; and the adult careers service on the main public bar.

Given the state of the borough before the ~~cuts~~ efficiencies, I can't say that any of this makes me optimistic for the future.

Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood

2011-03-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

These are difficult times and there are days when any of us can be a bit high-maintenance. It's Posy's turn all this week and she's going for it in a big way.

To be fair, she ended up being the one having to have the meeting with the bollock who wants us to give him a pile of money to "repurpose the reading library journey."

Vernalities

2011-03-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

You can always tell the approach of the end of the financial year as all the managers disappear like the last of winter's bramblings.

Consequently, there's nobody around to countersign any of the invoice slips for the as-per-bloody-usual last-minute spendings. And nobody to authorise the orders in the first place.

The good news is that this means that the year end process is a doddle because they say so and have never seen any proof to the contrary.

And to be fair, it mostly is. Because they're not involved.

Spirit messages

2011-03-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

I get a 'phone call from Milkbeck Library:

"I'm calling on behalf of the volunteer who's doing the family history session. He can't get any of the People's Network PCs to log onto the network."

Two points here: the person ringing was the member of staff responsible for that day's running of the library, including providing access to the Internet for the public; and it's their job to have logged those PCs on at start of play,

Sigh...

Infinite similarity

2011-03-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

I really am sick and tired of this fucking place.

Consecrating an armadillo for St. Swithin's Day

2011-03-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

Receive an email with the latest corporate exhortation to man the galleys for the glory of the nation.

"For fuck's sake, do they think I've nothing better to do?" I explode.

It turns out that on reflection no, I don't.

Trips around the lighthouse

2011-03-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

It's going to be an interesting week. Julia's demob happy as it's her last working week before taking the remainder of her annual leave then early retirement. Her resentment at feeling that she was not wanted on voyage is more than tempered by the relief she's feeling now she's had sight of the iceberg.

Most of the rest of the nonsense is ladies sharpening their elbows.

The hand of the world is wounded by its own skill

2011-03-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

The council's email servers are struggling because of overcapacity. Which is to say that they're full.

It probably doesn't help that librarians will insist on sending out 15Mb of high-definition photos that they've already put in the library folder on the intranet to 54 colleagues within the library service.

Or that half those colleagues don't check their email...

Hope is a waking dream

2011-03-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

"Council leaders to be axed!" cries the Catty Examiner.

Sadly, it turns out that a few of them are taking early retirement.

Four seasons in The Sound of Music

2011-03-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Nancy Clutterbuck is a lady "of an age" who has worked at Umpty Library for longer than a gentleman should tell.

Today she's covering at Gypsy Lane Library with Gracie. Nancy turned up five minutes before overture and beginners in a state of deshabille and with her hair in that style so beloved by haystacks. Especially with the straw in her hair.

Gracie sized up the situation, dug a clean t-shirt out of her car and tidied Nancy up.

"For God's sake, Nancy, will you look at the fucking state of you!"

"A lady can't help it if she is to be pleasured in the morning," replied Nancy.

Time-share sandcastles

2011-03-14T14:44:00.000-07:00

There's no money about so there are plans afoot to knock down the west wing of The Edie Grimshaw Memorial Market Hall (don't get excited: it's two stalls selling tubular bandages and a greengrocer's) and the car park so as to open up the culverted area and retrieve the local reaches of The Majestic River Helminth back into its pristine sunlit glory. The old bridges are to be restored so that the main roads can cross this babbling brook and passing gentry can spend their time counting the trout a-frolicking amongst the shopping trolleys.

This news has caused celebration in one part of the Engineers' Department at least. Staveley Fleetwood's the only person who can remember where the old bridges are, so he reckons his job's safe for a few months at least.

Wouldn't it be nice to sabotage a hotpot supper

2011-03-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

You know how there's always someone worse off than yourself? Well, like as not they work for Benchmark Library Service.

They've spent the past ten years in perpetual reorganisation and penury (not necessarily in that order). The first thing that went was the Chief Librarian, which God knows isn't always a bad thing. Since then various combinations of poor devils have tried to keep the wheels on the tricycle (a handcart being beyond their means), in between cut-backs and culls of anybody who may want anything above the minimum wage.

I notice they're advertising the Chief Librarian's post this week. To oversee the latest round of reorganisations and efficiencies and Call-Me-Dave's Big Society.

Interesting to see that we've not entirely abandoned human sacrifice.

The Heft Of Cathedral Tunes

2011-03-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

Talking of singing, I forgot to mention the new community singing sessions at Catty Library every Monday afternoon.

The more forward-thinking of our staff have suggested that they should start practicing for a performance of "Nearer My God," to be sung as the library slides under it's own weight into the local river.

Look mum, it's the singing gynaecologist!

2011-03-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

News from Catty Library's staff meeting.

Julia had gone through the corporate briefing and news of the latest round of ~~savage cuts~~ minor efficiencies that do not affect front-line services and asked for any other business.

"There's the issue of access to the safe key during the lunch hour," says Agnes.

"Why would you want the safe key at lunchtime?" asks Julia. "Cashing up's done at the end of the day."

"We might need it," insisted Agnes.

"What for?" asked Julia.

"Well, what happens if an armed robber comes into the library and demands to get into the safe?"

Julia, to her immense credit, kept her composure.

"If any armed robbers come into the library you might want to not tell them about the safe," she says, quietly.

So that's why you're wearing that rah rah skirt

2011-03-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Today is International Hug A Librarian Day.

There's never a lump hammer around when you really need one.

Suspended animation

2011-02-24T08:38:00.000-08:00

Bad news: the lift's stuck with someone in it.

Good news: Seth knows how to bring the lift down manually.

Bad news: it's Seth who's stuck in the lift.

A few words from a graduate from the Rank Charm School

2011-02-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

We're not allowed to fill vacancies at the moment, in case the jobs need to be ~~needlessly destroyed in response to a doctrinaire hatred of public services~~ displaced as part of the efficiencies. But we still need to keep the doors open so we're using people from an employment agency. Unfortunately, this means that we're starting to employ women below the age of fifty at Umpty Library.

A customer greets a new, young, face at the counter:

"Hello love, I've not seen you before, are you new here?"

Bunty leans over and says:

"Don't get used to her. She's a temp."

I've seen some of the lads there sobbing their hearts out, at least that's what I think they were doing

2011-02-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

Sally walks into the staff room at Umpty Library. She sniffs and is not impressed.

"My God! This place smells of boy!"

Pavarotti's ferret

2011-02-21T12:26:00.000-08:00

I'm definitely due some holiday...

Three 'phone calls about paper jams in the lending library printer.
A 'phone call about a print job that wasn't being printed (because of one of the paper jams)
A 'phone call asking what is meant when a book is marked "unavailable" on the catalogue
A 'phone call asking why a lost book isn't available for to fill requests
A 'phone call to say that there'd been a mistake typing in a borrower's name and address and what was I going to do about it
A 'phone call asking what Milton was doing about a project I hadn't previously heard about

I want to shout: "for God's sake, get a grip!" but seeing as how half the staff has its hands around the throat of the other half...

Valentino lives!!!

2011-02-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

You can always tell it's the third week in February: all the books about sexually-transmitted diseases are flying off the shelves.

Pale hands I loved behind the chalet, ma

2011-02-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

The usual end-of-Friday missive or epistle from His Esteemed Excellency And Chief Executive J.Arthur Blenkenstein, detailing this week's efforts to undermine staff morale, cut public services and generally spread joy throughout the land, lands in my Outlook inbox at the same time as Microsoft's press release informing me of: "The technical beauty of Internet Explorer 9."

Strychnine on the rocks for me.

Akimbo

2011-02-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

There are some nasty bugs going round. Half the staff are off with norovirus, some of the others are off with a debilitating virus. Hildie's just back in after a fortnight's illness.

"I was in bed bored shitless with my legs in the air," she moans.

"Is that how you caught the virus?" asks Sammi.

I'll have a P please, Bob

2011-02-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

Today's word is Logorrhoea. Logorrhoea.

Milton has just spent 82 minutes of a meeting saying: "I'm not bovvered."

Going down with all hands

2011-02-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

The bad news is that Carbootsale Swimming Baths is to close due to council efficiencies.

The good news is that the community room at Catty Library is the length of an Olympic size swimming pool.

We just need to move the photocopier from the shallow end.

You'll have someone's eye out with that

2011-02-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

Every so often we worry about the physical state of some of the books we loan out to the public. It's not our fault this time, it's a book we've borrowed off Borsetshire Libraries via the regional loan service. It's a bit stained, battered round the edges and the pages are falling out. It also happens to be the only copy available for loan anywhere in the country and is well-used even today, with a waiting list as long as your arm.

The waiting list isn't the only thing about the book that is as long as your arm. As we find out by casually letting the book open at random. A shocked perusal by people old enough to know better confirms that it is, for all intents and purposes, fairly hard core gay porn.

"Who on earth requested this?" I asked Sybil.

"One of the old dears on the housebound library run," she replies.

Silly question, really.

Smells like teen spirit

2011-02-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

This is wrong on so many levels…

Some of us have our sexual magnetism wave the white flag and give up at an early age. Not Mr. Tallyhassen, one of the regulars at Umpty Library. Evidently he still has it, even at the age of 74 judging by the conversation I've just overheard.

"I've just been helping Mr. Tallyhassen with his email."

"Ooh… Mr. Tallyhassen. Have you smelled him?"

"Oh yes. I leant over to point at the screen and it was all I could do not to go all funny at the knees."

"I know what you mean. Lovely."

Tearing away the false tinsel to reveal the real tinsel underneath

2011-02-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

There's scaffolding up all over Helminthdale town centre and the place is being tarted up.

Apparently.

The old, blank wooden boards that cover the windows of the shops and pubs of the area have all been replaced by new, shiny wooden boards with ginormous photos on them to make them look lived in and prosperous.

Thus it is that to the passer-by on the Penkridge Road omnibus the old Earl of Derby's Post House has been transformed, apparently, into a spacious up-to-the-minute computer training suite.

Kitted out with 28b PCs running Windows 3.1.

(If you have to ask the question you can probably guess the answer.)

Just a minute

2011-02-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

Consternation at Catty Library: Dulcie's on leave so they can't have a staff meeting because she's the only one who's been on the minute-taking course...

Trying to ease their dyspepsia by swallowing a raincoat

2011-02-04T17:12:00.000-08:00

We live in uncertain times, the twenty-first century is sniffing round our heels and Call-Me-Dave's Austerity Britain is biting us on the arse so I suppose it's understandable that I'm a bit tetchy.

I'm doing a workshop to try and persuade some of our librarians that the internet is an information and communications medium. In a few cases it's tough sledding. In the end, I crack:

"How many of you have mobile 'phones?"

All hands go up.

"How many of you take photos with your 'phone."

Most hands stay up.

"Who's on Facebook?"

Half the audience.

"Who buys stuff online?"

Most of the audience.

"How many of you have gone on a mobile 'phone course?"

None.

"A digital photography course?"

One of the people who doesn't use her 'phone for photography.

"A Facebook course?"

None.

"An e-commerce seminar?"

Of course not.

"Don't tell me you can't use digital technology without training then."

Ermine street

2011-02-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

Lucy is having a fag break outside Catty Library when she notices something coming down the pavement.

It's a ferret.

It pauses to look at her and then scampers off in the direction of the post office.

The crew shot an albatross for luck

2011-02-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

Jack Harry has asked Posy to put together some project proposals for some funding he'll decide we can't get anyway so he won't bother. Posy, being young and still almost enthusiastic at times despite everything, has put in a load of work to do the necessary.

"Here you are," she says as she hands the work over to Jack Harry. "But I'm sure I've forgotten something important."

"I shouldn't worry about it," says Jack Harry, "I probably won't read it anyway."

A chocolate-themed away day

2011-02-01T14:12:00.000-08:00

It's an awful thing but the earworm I've had jingling round in my head this past week or so has been the old theme tune for Uncle Rubbish's Tiny Tots' Tea-Time Toy Time Time:

"It's time for tiny tots' toy time once again.
It's time for tiny tots' toy time once again, yes it is.
It's time for tiny tots' time,
It's toy time for tiny tots.
Yes, it's time for tiny tots' toy time once again, yes it is, oh baby."

Which is entirely unfair, probably, perhaps. But there have been times...

These are difficult and uncertain times and it should surprise nobody that nerves are frayed and tempers on edge and people are feeling threatened. It would be inhuman to expect any different. The problems arise from the ways that people deal with this.

I will offend some of my readership by suggesting that men and women tend to behave differently in these circumstances. Don't care: in my experience it's generally true, with the inevitable occasional exception to keep life interesting. Men, even the best of us (and God knows, I'm not!), go in for a lot of posturing. I've done it myself in my time: you think you're a rational civilised human being then one day you realise you're sitting in an office doing gorilla posturing. Go into any testosterone-fuelled office and you'll see a lot of unconscious yawning and people leaning back with their hands being their heads and armpits in full flourish. Blokes do lots of ritualised "I'm bigger, more virile and more masterful than I really am" nonsense, most of which is utter bollocks (literally and figuratively). Women under threat are generally (generally) quieter, subtler and more dangerous, the primary aim being to undermine, belittle and/or exclude "the competition" by whatever means. And sometimes those means can get pretty horrible.

The library service is mostly staffed by women. Most of the time this is a good thing: there's not a lot of macho idiocy getting in the way of business. Unfortunately when times get particularly bad, like now, we can find ourselves having to manage our way through some very unnecessary and unseemly unpleasantnesses.

It makes me tired: we don't have time for this sort of nonsense.

Mister Volta's dancing frogs

2011-02-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

Milton's spent the morning wondering why Dutch Bend Library's electricity meter is his problem, in between finally getting through to the direct works department's emergency voicemail.

The good news is that the fuses that have blown only connect up all the public workstations and the communications box for the library so we can pretend that it's business as usual as far as the customers are concerned.

There's no W in "puerile"

2011-01-31T17:45:00.000-08:00

Oh goodie. As if things aren't bad enough we now have class warfare erupting in Spadespit Library's sewing circle. "The wrong sort of people" are trying to join the group and it's upsetting the members.

Posy is asked to adjudicate, and best of luck to her. I suspect she'll be needing brandy and brown sugar by the time the week's over.

This is how Call Me Dave's Big Society will be running public services in the future.

I'll get me coat.

I never knew what Goering had against the chip shop

2011-01-31T06:05:00.000-08:00

So where were we?

We're having a clean-up to meet the fire regulations, so the fire escape corridor is full of bookshelves, boxes, fire buckets and bits of old wood.
Bronwyn, the nearest we have to decorum, spent a morning stomping round the office muttering: "couldn't they make this fucking thing any more complicated?"
Milton is going round the place doing a more than passable impersonation of me.
Frog has spent a depressing couple of days mapping out which children's centres, Surestart centres, nurseries, playgroups and literacy groups are being chopped due to "efficiencies."
Sybil is being required to write a "what I do in my work place" essay.

And so on. Business as usual really.

The part you have just before you wake up screaming

2011-01-27T14:54:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I appear to be having some issues with Blogger and that, together with being a little preoccupied with work and another small distraction, is causing this slight hiatus.

Abnormal service should resume shortly, I hope...

A Dracula moon was rising

2011-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Traipsing through Helminthdale town centre is never exactly inspiring. On a miserable cold and drizzly day it's positively dispiriting. While other people may note the meanderings of Winter by the arrival of snowdrops or the passage of wild geese in the night sky we note January's twilight by the digging up of the main road. It matters not the what or why, the tarmac gets unpeeled and the trenches are dug each year.

It is unpleasant, though. Walking through the town centre is rather like exploring the tattered remnants of some cold, damp, grey corpse. Perhaps of some primeval mollusc or some long-forgotten Chelonian.

Many a good tune played on a small foible

2011-01-24T10:44:00.000-08:00

"I'm living the dream," says Sybil as she drags yet another bag of outgoing mail out of the office...

Vamping till not ready

2011-01-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

My days in this library service are numbered. In some ways this is a relief - it's never been a good fit - but in many ways it is to be regretted: I've never been better-placed for getting the stuff done I've been trying to do this past decade.

The good news is that there is almost certainly a job for me "elsewhere in the organisation," at least until next Winter's round of cuts when who knows what may happen. I can't say that I'm entirely thrilled by the prospects but I guess a gig's a gig and all that.

He did the only thing a rational man could do in the circumstances: he got blind drunk and slept with a penguin

2011-01-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

We live in interesting times. Here is the company song...

Sacre flippin' blue

2011-01-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

More fun at Catty Library.

The building works which were designed to stop the front falling off has done the trick all right. So much so that the additional weight to the building is too much for the foundations in the cellar and the whole kit and caboodle is now starting to slide downhill.

An occasional hippo

2011-01-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

One of the customers at Dutch Bend has a bit of a dress code incident this afternoon, catching the hem of her skirt in her coat as she took it off, giving the whole of the library a flash of her unclothed nethers.

One of the other customers mutters to his mate:

"I had a turkey butty ready for me dinner but I'm not hungry now."

A simple game made complicated by people who should know better

2011-01-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

Jack Harry's at Umpty Library's staff meeting, talking through the long and winding road that is the corporation's latest indecisions. In amongst the talk of efficiency and J.Arthur Blenkenstein's sermons on the subject of "adopting a can-do attitude to challenging circumstances" is one shaft of good news. Thelma has been covering Salome's old job as a secondment, it has been decided to make this permanent (thus making Thelma's old job available as an "efficiency" but keeping her somewhere useful and within hailing distance of the national average wage).

"That's not fair," says Andi. "What if one of the Assistant Librarians in this part of the borough had wanted that job?"

"Then they'd have applied for the secondment," replied Jack Harry, simply.

Which saves us any embarrassing questions...

Not wanting to block a badger's passage

2011-01-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

The things you hear in libraries...

Two young male customers shouting from opposite corners of the entrance way to Carbootsale Library:

"Where was you this morning?"

"I had to go to the clap clinic."

"What yer got?"

"She says it's that chlamydia thing."

Verity stands at the counter and tuts.

"If he's got it, he'll have passed it round half the estate by now."

A member of the Sealed Knot Society pitched into life-and-death struggle with a division of tanks

2011-01-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

Kind friends have asked about the state of Helminthdale's libraries during the current unpleasantness. The truth of the matter is that by any objective measure the general lack of devastatingly bad news would be a good thing if we were not in the fantasy world of Helminthdale, where a lack of bad news generally means that it's being stacked up for the holiday season. The one cast-iron guaranteed for certain absolute truth available to us is that the council will not be closing any libraries.

The buildings that host some of our libraries are going to be closed, but that's another thing entirely...

They can find trouble on a wet afternoon

2011-01-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Yet another wet day, yet another flood at Catty Library. The Easy Reader Collection is devastated. Bronwyn tells Moira, the children's librarian there, that there's just enough money in the kitty to replace the stock so if she put together a shopping basket of titles the Acq. Team will get them ordered p.d.q.

"Oh, I'm far too busy for that," says Moira. "Can't you do it?"

Bronwyn's up to her gills in Winter Reading programmes, author visits, stock management and the new literacy strategy. Moira is responsible for the children's library at Catty. So of course, it's Bronwyn's job.

Frog takes great delight in pointing out that there are two boxes of Easy Reader books that had been returned by Catty Library because Moira was too busy to do the stock editing and didn't have any room for any new books.

The turtle's head speaks

2011-01-07T13:42:00.000-08:00

Frog and Sybil are having one of "those" days.

Fired by the latest austerities and with more than half an eye on improving efficiency they have decided that staff: desk occupancy would be much improved by a modest investment in new furniture, replacing all our chairs with commodes.

"We'd have to replace the Bobbing Up And Down Team's motivational posters."

"Something like: 'Is your journey really necessary?'"

"Or..."

They tried to stop owls wearing duffle coats

2011-01-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

(after Taylor and Lane)

Working all the day inside the library.

Trying hard to think of things we do.

And when the focus shifts to some folk

We've simply

No clue.

Some folk deal with customers and help them.

Some arrange for an event or two.

But some don't serve or plan or buy or somesuch,

So what do they do?

They'll walk around and round with just a pencil.

And they'll tell you

Just how busy

They have been.

But when you look around in their bit of the library

No evidence of work

Is ever seen.

Change is coming in, we can't avoid it.

Harsh winds of business sense are blowing through.

If they will pretend that

It's not happening

Then what will

They do?

How dare you ad-lib with genius!

2011-01-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

There's a meeting of the departmental bigwigs in one of the Meeting Room Twos (did I tell you we've got three now?). It seems to be a bit busier than usual.

"There's a lot in today," I remark to Milton.

"They've heard you're in a good mood," he replies. "They've come to have a look. It's a one-in-a-lifetime tick in the twitcher's log book."

Remembering the empties

2010-12-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year when we get all maudlin and restrospectacle and I really can't be arsed. I'll be mostly glad to see the back of 2010, even though I'm staring at 2011 in largely dry-mouthed terror. Whatever else this year to come will be it is going to be a ride.

Hope you all have a happy New Year. Look after yourselves and keep safe.

Back to Skool (chiz, chiz)

2010-12-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

I'm still unseasonably cheerful. So much so that a Tribune of the Plebs is moved to approach my desk.

"You're very cheerful again today, Kevin."

"I am. I don't know what's up, it doesn't feel right at Christmas."

"Please could you pack it in? You're frightening the staff."

Qwismas Kwiz results

2010-12-27T07:13:00.001-08:00

I've linked up the answers to The Qwismas Kwiz so you can see that you all did very well and everyone gets prizes (we'll have no crying into your lucky bags here!)

And what do you get?

Your own, your very own "Hooray For Helminthdale" calendar for the probably-forthcoming year!

Qwismas Kwiz

2010-12-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

To keep you out of mischief while the selection boxes settle.

Here are some titles from 2005/6, what do you think the story was?

Patience, fleas, the night is young

The bureaucracy involved in not being able to buy a new inkject printer
An infestation at Cattermole Street Primary School
Rumours of werewolves at Dutch Bend Library

All of a sudden nothing happens

The results of the staff regrading exercise
The biggest, scariest project you could ever imagine
Reporting back on the Library Service Action Plan

Graph spree

Libraries threatened with closure because a councillor was holding a sheet of paper upside down
Preparing a PowerPoint presentation for an inspection
Catty Library is co-opted into the German Navy during a freak thunderstorm

JCBs in the Meadow of Consolation

Why bookshelves kill projects
Why badgers kill projects
Why carpets kill projects

Like two rubber ducks that pass each other in the bath

There is nothing so swift as a manager avoiding their workforce
Leadership is a foolish consistency
It's usually a good idea to count the wheels on the mobile library before going out

Laughing their hods off

Builders prop up a door lintel with fag packets
Having to count the bricks in the fire escape corridor
A caretakers' revolt

Talk to the wall because the email's not listening

Innovations in Outlook folder management
"My email isn't loud enough"
"Should I throw a bog roll at you when it's urgent?"

We've a little tiny crocodile that sings like Bing

A bad night out in Helminthdale
A talk by the Head of The Department
A blue plaque for the wrong singer

Triple negatives

Mangers' report on a service inspection
Results of the staff regrading exercise
Inspectors' report on the service's management style

A kick up the arts

Sheep City's new publicity poster
Redecorating the library
Victorian paintings found in cellar

Rumour in cuneiform

Library closures?
T.Aldous' retirement?
Results of the staff regrading exercise?

Florence Nightingale should live this day

Storing PCs in the toilet
First aider knocked out by bookshelf
Fifty paraffin lamps found in stairwell

Three thousand burning joss sticks sing "Happy Birthday" to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands

The Summer Reading Game
Stock editing
An Audit Commission inspection

When Alexander the Great was my age he'd been dead twelve years

Library management styles
Early retirement processes
Replacing public access computers

A mayfly dreams of eternity

Ordering new PCs
Installing the new book ordering system
Finding out which days the libraries will be closed over Xmas

Detail of Painting by An Unknown Artist Depicting Unconditional Surrender at the Battle of Helminthdale

Three staff off sick with trench foot at Catty Library
Hand-to-hand fighting for the right to spend grant money for the intended purpose
Staff meeting at Dutch Bend Library

The Order of the Lack of Vivid Imagination

Library management
Human Resources
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport

A sailor's farewell to his horse

Stock procurement targets
Mobile Library stops
Keeping the doors open at Pottersbury Road Library

The equipment has the best tunes

A broken lift
A broken PC
A broken kettle

Big Brother is up your nose

email monitoring
New identity badges
CCTV

Crouching tiger, springing limpet

Responses to status requests
Systems replacement
The new web site

Chimps off the old block

A project mismanagement meeting
A library mismanagement meeting
A meeting of the full council

Just like my socks, they are neglected

A senior manager's leaving do
Staff training and development interviews
A dead mouse

If you get stuck you can find the answers by searching for the titles. Good luck. And lots of cheating!

Yule stuff

2010-12-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

What's said and done on Christmas Eve stays in Christmas Eve. (Especially that!)

I hope all of you have a good Christmas. Take care of you and yours and come back tomorrow for the Christmas Quiz.

Mine smelt of musty hymn books

2010-12-23T15:58:00.000-08:00

Frog's explaining why he isn't ginger. Sibyl pipes up:

"I used to be strawberry blonde. Collar matched cuffs too. They don't now, not unless I spend a bit more time at the hairdressers."

It was a conversation involving Daleks and turkey butties.

This has been the most lucid staff room conversation I've heard lately. It's been a peculiar couple of days.

Dial F for Murder

2010-12-23T11:49:00.000-08:00

Frog is unimpressed.

He's just gone looking for a book that appeared to have gone missing in the children's library. In the end he found it shelved with the authors beginning with E.

The book was Aesop's Fables.

Ovaltine was a blessing

2010-12-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Half the staff are just getting over the lurgi and the other half are knee-deep in cough drops. Even Lucy, who takes stoicism and self-denial to extreme lengths, has had to admit defeat and go home to a hot bath and industrial strength Covonia.

The effect on public service goes further than our struggling to staff the counters and presenting the service as a collection of red-cheeked shivering wrecks. A customer came into Gypsy Lane Library this afternoon and put her scarf and gloves right back on.

"Eee... It's cowd in here!" she said.

"Is it?" asked Pansy.

Pansy's been running such a high temperature that she hadn't realised that the heating had tripped off at half ten this morning.

Tsk

2010-12-21T10:47:00.000-08:00

Disappointing to need to challenge the word 'Yid' in the workplace. :(

All the wood you can eat

2010-12-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

Posy's had to persuade an overly-amorous couple to cease and desist in the lending library.

"In the end I had to show them a medical dictionary."

Marvellous experiences in Cork and quite a lot of fun in foam rubber

2010-12-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

One of the big problems we have with our staff is their lack of confidence in their own abilities. This is due, in no small part, to the Library Service's policy on personal and professional development: "know your place and stick to it." (Obviously, this is an elaboration of a much more concise policy document.) Today's case in point is Alice, who's worrying about a course she's doing. She's fretting about the bit dealing with decision-making skills.

"I'm going to fail that," she says.

"Bollocks," says I.

"I can't make a decision to save my life!"

"Bollocks."

"I can't."

"Of course you can. Just think of all that crap that was going on the other day. You sorted that out. You couldn't have done that if you aren't able to make decisions."

"Yeah, but I nearly chinned someone."

"You didn't, though, did you?"

"I nearly did."

"Well... It would have been a decision."

"Yeah, but a really crap one."

"So... Having established that you can evaluate a decision, find it lacking and decide to do something else...?"

"I hate you."

Festooned with apathy

2010-12-19T15:47:00.000-08:00

I suppose a quick update is called for. It's been a busy couple of weeks, most of the details of which escape me (by design, not accident: they were that sort of detail).

Salome and Doreen have engineered escapes out of Helminthdale by the cunning wheeze of looking in the small ads in the Library Association Record (incorporating Whizzer and Chips).
Salome's job is to be done, temporarily at least, by Thelma, with Thelma's job being done by Marie and Marie's job being done by whoever's seen to have some time on their hands at any given moment. (You'll notice that we aren't recruiting new people.)
Doreen's job is to be divvied up between Julia, Jack Harry and Milton, with bits going to Maybelle or Bella or Thelma or Posy or Lola, depending on the wind direction on the day.

Virtually every partner organisation that we deal with is either being wound up, cut to the bone or has been told that some time next summer there will be a decision to either wind up or cut to the bone. The only reason that we don't know for sure if/how we are going to be cut any further than we already know of is the council's stated objective not to close any libraries under any circumstances whatever. This should be an unalloyed joy but we know that this support hasn't ever extended to giving us the wherewithall to staff them properly so all bets are off as to what this actually will mean in practice.

Happy days...

Is your horse red in the fetlocks?

2010-12-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

A missive or epistle from J.Arthur Blenkenstein, our esteemed Chief Executive. He thanks the poor huddled masses for their sterling work and cheery fizzogs and tells us the latest on the state of the local economy now that your man Pickles has wielded the axe. The good news is that the council's finances really are up shit creek and they're not just saying it.

The bad news is Executive Directorate have put together a Strategy For Growth.

The rest of this afternoon looks set for a discussion on the manner of tumours, hairy moles and sundry polyps.

That's three she's had since Lenny had his tonsils out

2010-12-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

"I don't know what we'd do in this place without Tommy Handley and ITMA," says Sybil.

Jingle bell rock

2010-12-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

The fifth of our libraries' Christmas parties is now in full flow and looks like it's going to be as good a do as the others so far. Which is nice as they've all been heaving with bodies, pop and cake and have managed to raise serious amounts of money for charity by auctioning teddy bears and playing games of pin the tail on the local councillor.

To further enhance the Yuletide cheer, the annual prolonged Christmas slugfest at Windscape Library has been very low key and hasn't dragged in many innocent parties. Goodwill to all ladies of a certain age.

A graceful old single-masted ironing board

2010-12-14T13:38:00.000-08:00

"How's the new boyfriend," I ask Sami.

"I think I might have broken him," she replies.

I daren't ask, she'd only tell me.

More kicks than ha'pence

2010-12-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

You have to wonder at the cloistered existence of some of our librarians...

News emerges of the council-by-council grant settlement for next year. It turns out that that nice Mr. Pickles has given us a nice Christmas present of a big cut in funding (or as reelmolesworth tweets: "sontaran general eric PICKLES xecute stage 1 of invasion by cuting local govt. funding to all humans who have temerite to vote LABOUR") Essentially, urban provincial councils and Labour-controlled London boroughs get a ginormous cut in funding while some leafy shire councils actually get an increase.

"I don't understand how they can do that," says Jack Harry, literally baffled.

Noreen looks at him as if he's just arrived from the Planet Zog. Neither she nor I can understand how he doesn't know that they can, they do and they will.

Look at me! I'm in tatters!

2010-12-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

These days I seem to be spending my time censoring or spiking entries to this blog. The stuff that would get me into really deep shit isn't the politics - large or small P. It's colleagues' behaviour. In times of stress people do irrational things. That's understandable and even when it's deeply, deeply irritating it's pardonable. Some behaviours aren't pardonable and it would be quite nice if they were to be put back in the box so that we could concentrate on trying to survive the next few months with the least possible casualties (ideally, none at all but that's looking increasingly unlikely).

It will not grow outside the lab unless it is deliberately injected or sprayed into a goat

2010-12-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

Ouch.

A customer comes in to Helminthdale Central Library. It's Posy's turn to be on the reception desk.

"Good afternoon, can I help you?" asks Posy.

"Are you new here?" asks the customer.

"No, I've been working here more than a year now."

"Is that right? I wouldn't have thought: they're not big on smiling in here."

It looks like a foggy day in Barnsley

2010-12-10T16:14:00.000-08:00

The council's PC Support Team is made up of Jim, Young Jim and Very Young Jim. Oh, and Barry. It's been a while since I've seen Very Young Jim. He's just been in to sort out a problem with the public PCs in the reference library.

It's dispiriting to see that Very Young Jim is going grey.

Never use a mobile phone while you're peeing

2010-12-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

As part of our ongoing commitment to the healthy living agenda we're stocking a lot more information about Men's Health Issues. You know what I mean: Men's. Health. Issues. Quite so. In particular, we're stocking a few monthly magazines that explore the issues concerned in the discrete and unsensational manner fitting for The Stoic Northern English Gentleman that they can use for easy reference in the reading room upstairs in Helminthdale Central Library.

All they have to do is know that we stock them, go to the enquiry desk, ask for a copy of one of the magazines; sign a receipt; read the magazine; go back to the enquiry desk; return the magazine and receive the cancelled receipt as a receipt of return.

To read a magazine in the reading room.

"We've had people steal magazines before now," explains Eileen.

Scottish oak-smoked gravy granules

2010-12-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

Some of you have asked about Helminthdale's Christmas light.

Let's remind ourself of its grandeur.

Shoals of placid middle-aged men dabbing it behind their ears

2010-12-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

Frog's back from a meeting about the council's new youth offer.

"What was it like?" I ask him.

"I was the youngest one there," he said, picking at his mustard plaster.

Saving up for a portcullis

2010-12-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

I bump into somebody who must remain nameless (Fred Nameless) in the town hall. We exchange gossip about the Council Directorate, a report We Don't Know About, some councillors and the local newspaper. Which sounds more interesting than it really is when it's written down like that, we must try that next time. We've got to that time of year when it's OK to start speculating about the next round of local elections - any earlier and we are voicing opinions in defiance of the wishes of the electorate; very much later and we are compromising our essential political neutrality.

"Still, at least we know it's unlikely that we'll be getting any fascists elected here," says my colleague. "Even the most dyed-in-the-wool local recognises that any incomer seeing Helminthdale as a taste of paradise must have had a really shit home life."

Turner the thumbscrew

2010-12-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

Turner Prize disappointment: Helminthdale Council's epic art installation "Helminthdale Town Centre Regeneration" is passed over for Susan Philipsz' "Lowlands."

"We don't mind postmodernist irony," says a judge, "but Helminthdale's effort smacks more of sarcasm."

Vigorously cleaning his paintbrushes

2010-12-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

It's an austerity Xmas at Helminthdale, though we're parading under the excuse of being green and recycling and that. We're being very stylish: the papers chains aren't a vulgar harlequinade this year, they're icy white, flecked with black and very nice they look, too.

It's good to know there's a use for old library business plans.

Keeping the brand new rhinoceros away from the snow

2010-12-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

These are strange times in Helminthdale, even by its own standards. The word "Confused" has been used by many and often, with thundering understatement. The only answer any honest man could give to any question about anything, literally anything, that may or may not be happening in Helminthdale is: "I don't have the first idea." Luckily, the council is well-enough provisioned with the dishonest to enable staff to be too busy being angry to despair. There's a Fall of Empires vibe running through the whole public sector at the moment — though I personally feel it's more Congress of Vienna than Treaty of Versailles — and The Helminthdale Way Of Doing Things egregiously compounds the disorder and confusion. All we would need now is some kind of implosion amongst the political factions and the joy would be complete. Happy days.

The Library Service is at an advantage in all of this as dazed and confused is its basic waking state anyway. We suffered so many unannounced and unacknowledged cuts during 'the boom years' that there is no cost-cutting efficiency saving of any great size that could be made without frightening the horses. All the 'easy' cuts have long since been made and we don't have the capacity for making serious and sensible real efficiencies because we're spending all of our time managing the plasters over old wounds. Which doesn't mean that we're immune from any cuts — far from it! — but there is no clamour of panic: the prevailing mood is of stage hands attending a long-running and unsuccessful provincial Grand Guignol.

You would hear similar stories across the country.

For me personally this is a time of great uncertainty, though I do keep having to point out that this has always been the case in this job. I have spent all my working life reinventing jobs and rôles so none of this is new territory for me. And to be honest, part of me is being seduced by a "with one bound he was free!" fantasy that doesn't bear close practical inspection. The rest of me thinks I've got a job until someone tells me I haven't got a job and until then it's business as usual. Which is precisely where I've been all along. It isn't as easy as that for some of the other people looking to be in the firing line, unfortunately, and they're going to need help and support if things aren't going to get very unpleasant.

I know that this will sound strange but for me personally the biggest cause for concern is that I seem to be getting my own way on a whole stack of things. As I mentioned to the Major the other day, I appear to have been given yards and yards of rope. I know that, in some respects at least, I'm being played but I'm fine going along with that so long as nobody's going to get hurt; particularly if it means we may scrounge a few more positives out of the situation than appear to be currently on the table.

I've always been an optimist.

You'll never marry that to the engine

2010-12-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

Good news: the insurance company's engineer has braved the elements to check out that it's OK for us to be using the lift.

Bad news: he's broken the lift and doesn't know how to fix it. We'll have to get the maintenance engineer out to fix it and then charge the insurance company for the repair.

Seth has made it clear that we aren't to ask about the well-being of our no claims bonus.

Frozen wastelands

2010-11-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

Billy Meredith walks by, doing as close to an impersonation of Ernest Shackleton as I ever want to see at the workplace. The mobile library's heating packed in six years ago so it's going to be a nippy sort of day for them and their customers. Especially seeing as the vehicle's so dilapidated these days that the customers elect to stand outside to have the books handed out to them.

"It's the wind chill factor," explains Billy. "When you get the wind howling through that gap in the floor by the rear axle it cuts you right to the bone."

Shangalang

2010-11-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

The crowds are already gathering outside the Town Hall for the switching-on of the Christmas light. Town Centre Management have been making a big play of the mystery celebrity they've hired to do the job and the rumour mill is running wild. The consensus of opinion is that it's going to be Frankie Avalon, though a vocal faction in the Planning Department insists it's going to be Heinz. Either way, judging by the state of the teeming masses, there won't be a dry leg on the bus home tonight.

No round envelopes for me!

2010-11-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

I've behaved more professionally than this in my time. Daisy Dormouse rings up from Umpty Reference Library:

"We're having a bit of a tidy up. We've got lots of Windows 95 CD-ROMs here."

"Congratulations," I reply.

Galloping gourmets

2010-11-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

Bronwyn's just back from a stock consortium meeting in Penkage. They stopped off for lunch at The Cat And Banjolele on Cattermole Street.

"What was the special today?" we ask.

"Spaghetti bolognaise and mash," she answers.

The anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority

2010-11-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

Posy's just been dealing with a customer who's a distance learner doing her degree online. Posy, who's fresh out of library school, told her about a lot of the free academic library resources you can find on the web; talked her through signing up for a few free e-journals; and sent her away with a spring in her step.

So of course somebody has to take her to one side to tell her that she "pitched that too high."

I despair.

There are parts of this service that imagine that every enquiry can be answered with:

"It's on that shelf over there."
"There's a PC over there, you can look it up on Google."

"Not today, thank you."

Damsels of the octagonal stool

2010-11-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

"How's things?" I ask Daisy Duck.

"I haven't actually killed anybody yet," she replies. Quietly.

She says it like this is a good thing.

A slight problem there as the cat's got a bit of a tummy problem

2010-11-25T10:44:00.000-08:00

News reaches me of a useful and productive sequence of meetings to make a bit of progress with a few family history projects. Wendy, who has been the Reference & Local History Librarian at Umpty Library since Noah was a lad, spent a whole meeting telling Henry that she doesn't know anything about family history.

The following day she then spent a whole meeting telling Daisy and Bella that they couldn't possibly deliver the family history online sessions they've been assigned to do without the supervision of A Professional.

I didn't come all this way in my second-best hat to be fobbed off

2010-11-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

I bump into an old colleague I've not seen in a while (you'll remember him Tom). He's been retired a few years from his old Yorkshire stomping grounds and, like most of the retired people I know, he's a damned sight busier now than he ever was at work, freed as he is from compulsory unproductive activity.

These days he's doing work with the library equivalent of International Rescue, helping to plan the Third World's response to the need for public library services in the United Kingdom.

Up to a few months ago that would have been funny.

An undisciplined impersonation of Edmundo Ros

2010-11-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to have to be more careful," says Bronwyn. "I'm going to be done for insolence."

Ordinarily this would be laughable but these aren't ordinary times. This week, Bronwyn's body language is far more eloquent, and a damned sight ruder, than anything I could ever say.

Corvids

2010-11-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

Frog's been doing the story time for a school class visit at Epiphany Library. He's been telling them the story of The Fox And The Crow.

Unfortunately, the children of Epiphany are not entirely in tune with nature. And in the local dialect, "a crow" is a particularly crusty bogie. Hence all the cries and groans of "uurgh!" from the audience.

This has got us thinking. Frog's decided that for one of his next puppet workshops he's going to show the kiddies how to make Billie The Bogie. We reckon it would be easy enough to make:

Turn small green Marks & Sparks carrier bag inside out.
Smear liberally with glycerine.
Stick up nose.

We reckon it's a winner.

Imaginary numbers

2010-11-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

I am chatting with a colleague from another place about another subject when we get to comparing cuts in the book fund.

"We're getting a cut of £400,000," he tells me.

"Ouch," I winced. "Mind you, you'd done well to have had that big a book fund after all that business last year."

"Oh, we haven't. The book fund budget's now -£120,000. But the accountants are happy and that's the main thing isn't it?"

Four engagements and a hospital visit

2010-11-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

"Hettie's been on the 'phone," says Maybelle. "She says that one of their customers has been in twice today to use the computers and what should she do about it?"

I'm surprised at the question.

"The same as she has been doing for the past ten years, surely?"

I don't know why it's an issue, it's not as if people are fighting for the computers at Catty Library. Libraries love a bit of rationing.

The point at which the miner is playing the piano like a maniac

2010-11-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

Overheard on the way to a meeting:

"You appear to have some anger issues."

"Yes, I'm bleeding annoyed with you, you pillock."

The hangman's rest

2010-11-16T15:37:00.000-08:00

Things must be bad. An old friend who can always be relied on for an "och, it's not like you've broken up with Katherine Hepburn or anything" has just said: "if you need to talk about work we're here to listen."

Note to self: stop being so cheerful, you're frightening people.