At what speed will the tiger be travelling when he can stick his head through both holes at once?

It's taken me too long to realise what's up with me this week...

Every public library in the country provides internet access to the public via The People's Network. Which is actually a couple of hundred local solutions under the same banner. And a real pig of a project for the systems people involved (librarians + library management + corporate IT + set deadline for delivery = sheer bloody murder). It was not fun and, if I were blogging at the time, (a) I'd be down to a quarter of an hour's sleep a night and (b) this blog would be six times as congested as it is now.

I'd hoped that was history, done and dusted. But it becomes more and more apparent that history is repeating itself. Except that this time I have no idea what the IT guys are being asked to do or when and no scope whatsoever for papering over the policy holes in the whole caper. Milton's approach to project management on this one is to have lots of meetings and conversations with IT over a series of months and then every so often tell me all the things that we could be doing at some point in an uncertain future. Any questions I have about how we want to manage the new delivery model; what key resources do we want to emphasise on the user interfaces; and how we want the customer interface to work are waffled away.

It's tempting to walk away from the whole sorry mess but it's a dead certainty that it'll be my job to wave a magic wand and make everything better.

I want to see you there behind me leading the way

"Set aside next week for working on the People's Network," said Milton last week. So I did. And we have done Jack all on the People's Network. Oh, to be sure we

• Looked at the new bookings management system that's been installed.
• Looked at a new PC.
• Talked a great deal about what we could do.
• Listened to the installation engineer as he offered to help us set things up.

and have done Jack all. I couldn't work with the installation engineer to set anything up because I don't know how Milton wants us to be using the People's Network in the future.

"We'll go through the manual and see what settings we want," he says.

"We will decide what we want the system to do in practice and then find out how the system does it," I insist.

All in all a dead wasted opportunity. The installation engineer's been and gone so I'm on my own now with the sure and certain knowledge that some time in the future I'm going to be required to pull a dead rabbit out of a hat.

I think mauve has the most RAM

email from Umpty Library:

"That PC in the reference library is playing up again."

I can't even be bothered to make a guess as to which and what.

We gave articles on peculiar punishments in the fifth volume

Last summer we were told that all new staff would be receiving a Welcome Pack not dissimilar to that we give to the Poor Bloody Public. Last autumn, the staff who'd been tasked to do the job delivered the goods. At Christmas Policy Team decided that all staff starting from the new year would receive packs.

Job well done.

Maudie and Maisie have had a pile of packs printed out and they arrived today. They look very good. Unfortunately, T.Aldous spotted them and threw a wobbler.

"Why don't I know anything about these? You should check with me before doing anything like this. I am the service head and I should know about this!"

Maudie and Maisie are not impressed.

• T.Aldous chaired the staff meeting last summer where it was announced that these would be done.
• T.Aldous chairs Policy Team.
• The operational minutiae that T.Aldous doesn't know would fill volumes.

Still, we can't go around having positives littering the place now, can we?

Now, Umslop, cease to be haggard!

"You've already emailed me those figures," says Mary.

Have I?

"Bloody hell," says Frog, "we're not one of the authorities who haven't submitted their reports and costings for Book Off. I don't remember doing it."

The Library Service has worked its magic: we are reduced to mere unknowing automata.

Landscapes of clouds

How long have we been rearranging the desks on this floor? It feels like forever but it's probably only been about ten months. Since Christmas, four sets of shelving units have arrived, been set up and then departed from the space across from my desk. That's the fifth table over there (and we've not even had one of this week's arrivals yet). Maybelle and her desk are now in their fourth location of the month. Bronwyn's moved over to the position agreed with Mary last summer and is waiting for a 'phone point to be installed. It could be a long wait: Nancy's been at her 'new' desk for five years and still doesn't have one. And if I hear Mary say to somebody: "We'll just put that there for now" one more time I shall scream.

This afternoon's to do is a squabble in Nancy's team about the positioning or not of a desk. Milton passes by and takes it on himself to point out that if they had the desk in the appointed place then they'd need electricity and network points installing on the nearby wall.

Ten minutes later he escapes.

"I thought you were unnaturally quiet," he tells me in passing.

Rules of cataloguing

People at Catty Library are getting a little silly. I'm making a huge effort not to go in with both feet studs first but it's a struggle. And I know I'm not the only one. Since the library re-opened they seem to have spent all their time letting other people know that they don't think they're doing their job properly. Sometimes they'll ring a library and ask: "why haven't you done...?" Sometimes they'll print screen dumps of mistakes they think other people have made on the system and then send them in to members of Policy Team with notes like:

"This is the sort of entry that ... is making. Is this what we should all be doing now?"

I'm under orders not to quality control Catty Library's throughput as it would just be throwing petrol on the fire.

Today's gem has been sent to Mary. It's an old, rather foxed, hardback novel with the note attached:

"This is on the catalogue. It needs doing properly."

Now, it's quite true that we have copies of this book in stock and on the library catalogue. It isn't true that this book is on the catalogue. It was donated to Catty Library by one of their customers and they've passed it on here in this graceful manner for it to be dealt with somehow or other.

Given the to-do the other week I'd guess they'd create a little if it were sent back to them for their shelves.

Please remember the grotto!

Catty Library's been re-opened a while now and we're still to be celebrating the New Model Library.

"Have we got any events going on at Catty yet?" asks Frog.

"They're having a book sale," I reply.

"Don't take the piss, it's not nice."

But it was true.

Tables II

The boys are back with the stuff from Carbootsale and Catty. We can no longer be surprised by the boxes of rubbish they couldn't be bothered chucking out themselves, I guess. The five tables come as a surprise. Especially as two of the tables from down here were stolen earlier in the week to go over to Catty for some reason despite them saying 'No room! No room!'

"Where are they going?" I ask Alwyn.

"Two of them are replacing a table in the staff room," he replies.

I keep well out of the way.

Looking at the Rubicon and then going home just in case we've left a window open

Two senior managers are still sulking about batteries. A couple of grands' worth of stock is now into month fourteen of sitting in boxes in a back office. Thus are great empires forged.

Fog arranged tastefully in mahogany display cases

Maybelle is Not Happy. In fact, her body language says: "I'm fucking well not happy," which is notable because she can usually present as being calm and can-do. I'm a little puzzled as she's working on a set of display boards, which is something she usually takes in her stride with obscene ease. So I drift over to be nosy...

"What's the display for?"

"Next week's 'Equality Plus' day at the Town Hall. It's an opportunity for the public, particularly from minority groups, to come along and be told by councillors what a good job we do of treating everyone equally."

"So we're doing a display?"

"All the council's services are doing displays. Mary told us about it the other week and asked Nancy to take a lead on it. Nancy took a lead on it by saying to me: 'Maybelle, you're good at displays, can I leave this with you?' and then she did."

"What's the brief?"

"There isn't any brief. I was just given a box of leaflets and bits of paper her team have laminated and I've been told to put a display together."

"Err... are those the materials she's provided."

"Yes. Horrible, aren't they? I'm not going to use them. The problem is, I don't know what I should be doing with any of this."

"What's the key message?"

"The key message is: 'I don't know why I'm doing this.' Do you think I should collar Mary and Nancy again and try and get them to tell me what the working brief should be?"

"I think you need a cup of tea."

"Yes, I think that's more like it."

Tables

Seth and Alwyn have gone out with Kevin the driver to pick up some stuff from Carbootsale and Catty libraries to come back here.

• Carbootsale is closed for redecorating and perhaps knocking a wall down (we're still not sure whether or not that's happening, though it may fall down of its own accord once the wallpaper's removed). All of its stuff is going into storage, we're told. Which is why two vanloads have already come back here with more promised.
• Catty's only just re-opened and they've been unpacking stuff from storage and refusing to admit anything else whatsoever through the doors, so God alone knows why they're sending stuff back here.

As the boys pootle off I can't help hoping that the police don't see them. The picture of the three of them sat in the front of the van has "Armed bank robbery" written all over it.

The Wright stuff

Walking back to work this lunchtime something caught my eye. Was it a bird? No, it was an aeroplane. I was surprised that I was surprised, after all they're ten a penny in the skies back home. It came as quite a relief to see that it was a real Boeing thingy with jets and all (the Major will have ID'ed it immediately).

I felt disappointed that it wasn't a Vickers Vanguard. Or a Supermarine Sea Otter, come to ply the flying boat trade amongst the ratty banks of the river Helminth.

My horse will run out of hay

Last year the council upped the parking rates for staff as part of its encouraging-green-living-and-nothing-to-do-with-the-budget-deficit programme. It has been a huge success: the staff car park's been half-empty; local pubs and bingo halls have been complaining about the effects of all-day parking outside their premises; and the council's income deficit on car parking charges has gone up from £110,000 to £243,000.

Next week: how to stimulate the economy of an area of special deprivation during a recession by cutting the salaries and allowances of the largest group of people who live and work there.

Pop in the slot

Fred Anonymous writes:

Further to our earlier correspondence... (-:

We hadn't realised that when our beloved leader motioned towards our new 'visioning board' that the most visible thing on there was a photo of a naked Santa shovelling snow. We'd forgotten all about it. One of the managers said to me afterwards that it was difficult to keep a straight face:

'She was banging on about a visioning board and all we could see was this bloke's bare arse.'

Lap dancing

We're planning on buying some new laptops for staff training and public learning purposes. Officially we have to buy all our hardware from the IT Section. Also officially, Corporate Procurement advises that we may want to look in the catalogue of a well-known high street store. The reason being that it's £2,000 each cheaper to buy them that way.

If we buy the laptops from IT we're allowed to plug them into the corporate network. We have no need to do so: staff will be working with USB sticks and we wouldn't want the public on the corporate network in any case.

The clincher is that if we buy from IT, as well as being more expensive, they disable the sound card and the wireless network functionality. Not really what you want on a learning resource in buildings served by the council's new town-centre wifi hotspots.

Doing da lingo

Ah... the natural reserve of the English.

I'm away from the office attending a sequence of demos and presentations of bits of library technology. In the middle of one of them it's left to the South African in the room to point out:

"There's no such thing as UK English. That's English. By definition."

Yet I am longing to share the lot

I get an email from Catty Library saying it's OK for me to put them back into the stock circulation system. And about bloody time, too. So I leave it for a week and then email Catty Library asking them if they want me to put them back into the stock circulation system.

"Oh no!!!" comes the cry. "We've no space for the stock we've got, let alone any incoming from other libraries!"

And I make sure to copy the correspondence to Julia.

Just in case.

I'd learned enough grass snake to order lunch

Today's favourite staff room riddles. The spirit of the Christmas cracker lives on.

What's brown and sticky?
A wireless nunchuck.

What's blue and wavy?
A wave.

What's brown and smokes a pipe?
Stanley Baldwin in a pan of Bisto.

May the good Lord help us.

You are the audience, I am the author, I out-rank you

I get a message from a colleague who prefers to remain anonymous

"Can I be Fred Anonymous?"

Whose blog is this? No you can't.

Our beloved leader was walking some senior managers through the homestead when she stopped in front of the staff noticeboard and said:

"I'm going to clear most of this stuff off the noticeboard and we'll turn it into a visioning board."

Unfortunately, we're all of an age now where bladders and pelvic floors aren't as strong as they used to be.

I know somebody who makes me feel seasick

Maisie passes on a message:

"Sissie says that she's rung the Helpdesk to report erratic email."

"'Erratic email'?"

"Do you want to ring her to find out what she meant?"

"I do not!"

"I didn't think so. I wasn't in the mood to ask her either."

Eating vinegar off a fork

Every year the same dance. Beginning of December I start asking Mary what she needs setting up for next year's stock-buying budgets. And every year she doesn't respond until the Acq. Team have accumulated a couple of dozen orders for titles due out in April.

And we wonder why we get the bin-end deliveries.

How to cook bacon in a Corby trouser press

Milton gets a 'phone call fom a colleague in Saltgate.

"You've got a couple of people from your Corporate Development Unit coming over to have a butcher's at Chatelaine Library. Is there anything in particular you want us to make sure that they see?"

This comes as news to Milton.

And a considerable shock to T.Aldous.

The good news is that Milton has the sense to answer the question, hopefully in a way advantageous to us.

As much existence as the City Griffin

We're a bit thin on the ground today. As per bloody usual. Today's additional strains have been caused by a pile of people getting man flu and a couple of snow casualties (a break and a sprain). We'll soldier on, like we always do.

Like we've any other option: we daren't close the doors anywhere and we've done a damned fine job of demonstrating that even if we had more staff we'd not do anything productive with them.

Sh-boom, sh-boom

Walking down Helminthdale High Street I noticed the tell-tale row of small cylindrical holes in the pavement that tells me that the Gas Board has been looking for leaks again. This is worrying. We've not had part of the town centre blow up for a few months now so we're about due and I really don't want to be on the scene when it happens.

Nature abhors a vacuum

Doreen is cross. And not without reason. A couple of weeks ago she finally regained the use of the community room in Helminthdale Central Library after months of its being the repository for boxes of stuff from Catty Library, not to mention sofas and kinderboxes. And boxes of leaflets for national reading campaigns that finished half a generation ago. And broken flipchart stands. And... well you get the picture. Anyway, the room was finally emptied of crap and could be made available for public use.

Until the arrival of a pile of boxes from Catty that they "don't have room for at the moment."

An insincerity of purpose in the searching

I bump into Ken Barmy in the coffee shop of Hannigan's Truss Boutique and we get to swapping stories about our respective employers. As you do. Talk had drifted to Pay & Grading reviews: like most everyone we've found that our corporate human resources departments are proposing to make substantial cuts in the salaries of middle-ranking staff so as to simplify (polarise) the pay structures. Both "professional" and "gentleman" players have been badly affected by this and it leaves managers with a festering mess of a problem.

"Our chief's left no stone unturned in her attempt to demonstrate that we're out of kilter with the national market," says Ken. "She says she had a look at the jobs advertised in CILIP Update but 'there weren't very many jobs being advertised and they all required qualified librarians.' I can't imagine why that came as a surprise to her."

"You're kidding me!"

"OK, I can imagine why that came as a surprise to her, but let's be charitable."

The audience was sent home with the Prime Minister's apologies and a bag of chocolate buttons

To my utter amazement we have suddenly started using some of the technology for the intended purpose! Somebody in one corner of the borough had an idea, shared it with a load of other people by email and, over the course of the past two days we have bounced around a useful set of ideas to the point where it's an identifiable project with identified resources and a plan of action...

"I was thinking... There's a box of children's books in the back room at... that isn't doing very much. Could we..."

"That's an idea. How about if we also..."

"I'm going out to... Could we trial this out there while I'm at it?"

"Could we tie it in with the work... is doing at...?"

"Yes we could. This is brilliant. If I do... we could use that as an opportunity to launch it."

Needless to say...

"I'm fed up with all these emails about those children's books,"

Mary tells Frog. So we then all get the email

This is the last word on this matter.

I will be reviewing this stock shortly.

Between that and the recent complaints on a library discussion list about people using the list for discussion my despair of the English public librarian is complete for the year.

I want my Dada

Some clown has decided to empty his bowels in the hand basin in the gents on the lending floor. At least, that's the story as we first heard it. Sybil explains to the staff room:

"A group of lads went into the gents and watched each other crapping in the sink. We didn't know they were in until they came out."

"We'll have to put a CCTV camera in there."

"Have you considered that it might have been a bit of performance art? We should have a webcam in there."

"Well, whatever it is, Seth's had to clean it up."

Let's hope the Catty Examiner doesn't get to hear about it. All Hell will break loose once they find out we've been at an important art installation with a bottle of Max Strength Bleach.

I don't think the time was entirely wasted

I've spent most of the afternoon at Carbootsale Library. While I've been there it's been full of people:

• Older folk coming in for a chat and a read of the magazines and perhaps to take out a book to read in bed.
• A couple of young lads checking out the jobs bulletins on the PCs.
• A young woman bringing back a book her housebound mum had just finished reading.
• A "little mother," herself not any more than seven, overseeing a troupe of infants in the children's library: six sat at the table colouring in 'picture of the month' sheets; three over in the corner playing with the cars; and another three sat on the floor looking at picture books of tractors with big wheels.
• Half a dozen young lads between the ages of six and ten, most of whom seem to be playing games on the Bratz website.
• Two old chaps checking out the details of the next meeting of the parish council.
• Somebody wanting a bus timetable.
• A bunch of kids wanting to know if loan copies of The Guinness Book of Records are back yet.

And the laugh of it is that by any of the standard performance indicators this is Dead Quiet.

Finishing a tour of "Lilac Time"

I've spent an age listening to the discussions about "why we can't do a junior stock promotion" and I have to say that the more I listen to it all the more I think that its publication would put back the cause of gender politics by a couple of generations.

The Cecil Bs of the 16 de mille

A colleague tells me that they've been told they've got two months in which to spend £100,000 on stock for a library that's not scheduled to open until next year.

A sobering thought: there are some people out there who imagine that this is a rational way to go about business.

Too strong for light work

I keep hoping that it's all a strange, exotic dream but I'm afraid it's true...

I've just heard Julia and Doreen tell the Assistant Librarians that they can't do a junior stock promotion because "if we end up loaning out all the books then there won't be any for people to borrow."

If the private sector carried on in this way there'd be cash-flow problems all round and companies going bust left, right and centre.

Dibbling in the nursery

A colleague tells me that they're having an inspection this week. Good luck to the poor beggar I say. Or perhaps envy, Inspections are always good theatre.

It then occurs to me that we've not had an inspection for more than two years. Time was, we had inspectors coming out of our ears. In fact, I'm not convinced we even had the auditors in last year. Oh we must have done, get a grip Kevin.

It also occurs to me that for the first time in more than a dozen years I can't rattle off the current statutory performance indicators off the top of my head. And what's more, I can't be arsed looking them up. It's not as if we ever work towards delivering to them.

A cold wind from the East

Odd things are happening. Staff are making suggestions about things we can do and although most of them are being dead-batted the same as usual, members of Policy Team are scurrying round explaining to anyone who's not dead yet each reason why This Thing Cannot Be Done. There are further disturbances of the natural order of things...

"Did they ask you about changing those settings on the system?" asks Maybelle.

"Yes. I said I wasn't doing them and please could they think of a better idea," I reply.

"Oooh. And what did they say to that?"

"They took it quite well and promised to have another think."

"That'll be why it's so cold then," she says. "Hell's frozen over."

Slightly boxed

Dagmar lends Verity a hand by supplying some boxes, despite having been instructed to do so by Julia.

"When I was emptying Raccoonville so that we could have the toilets done last year I was told to go scrounging boxes from the supermarket to put the books in. When I asked if somebody could get us some more Julia told me to get some more boxes from the supermarket because they needed them for Roadkill and Catty."

The little people leading such humdrum lives

Big to do. Questions are Being Asked. Bamboo shoots under the fingernails of Assistant Librarians. Library Assistants being swabbed for DNA testing. Twenty-odd staff hours involved in investigation and interrogation.

The crime?

Two tatty books were accidentally transferred to Catty Library, which is Not Accepting Transferred Stock.

We've not done boxes for a bit, have we?

Verity's hard at work packing up stock ready for its being put into storage when Carbootsale Library closes. The boxes are a bit ropey to say the least: Verity's had to tack most of them together with umpteen layers of brown tape.

"I know the storage company provides free boxes but I'd have thought they'd be a bit better than these," I say.

"Oh, they provide brand new boxes. I've been told that I've got to use the ones they used for Carbootsale and Catty because they've nowhere else to put them."

"The bin?"

"Oh no, not when there's quality material like this for them to foist on us."

I wail as one in doleful dumps

There is a flurry of strong language from Lola's corner of the room.

"Why the dockyard blarney?" I ask.

"I've been trying to sort out these boxes of books that have been lying here for months. Some of them have been here since before I went on maternity leave. And do you know what?"

"What?"

"According to the catalogue they're all on the shelves in the library. Someone's just slung them into boxes without marking them as being unavailable for loan."

Which means that last April's statutory returns were an even bigger fiction than I thought. And that next April's probably won't be much better. Damn.

Colourfast

There seemed to be an unconscionable time between Catty Library's being handed over to us by the builders and the library being opened. Nonetheless, we are given almost daily bulletins as to why we should not yet treat it as if it's open for business as usual:

• Please note: do not include Catty Library in stock rotation procedures as it cannot accept any more stock. We have not yet unpacked all the old stock from the boxes.
• The meeting room at Catty Library is not available for meetings due to the amount of stock boxed up in that room.

and so on.

Henry Irving's pissed off because the library's local studies material had been shipped off to Sheep City for safekeeping during the building and Julia's now telling him that it can't go back to Catty Library because "there isn't room." This would be OK but Julia and Catty Library were prominent amongst those sticking in the veto when he wanted to provide a borough-wide local studies service from Sheep City.

Popping in very briefly on my way to Carbootsale I notice that there's a survey form on the staff noticeboard asking people what colour they would prefer for the headers for the shelves.

"Bit late for that, isn't it?" I ask one of the Library Assistants.

"They're going to be done posh."

"You've not said what colour you'd prefer."

"There's no point. Nicki and Sandra have said what colour they want so that'll be it then."

I expect she's right.

If we can bring one smile to one little face someone will have slipped up somewhere

We start 2009 on an uncharacteristically useful note.

Sybil's spent all week trying to get hold of an audio version of Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy" for a visually-impaired customer. This isn't the easiest of searches, not made any easier by said customer ringing the library once a day to complain that it's non-arrival is a breach of the Disability Discrimination Act (completely unfounded: we don't discriminate against any self-important tosspot of any kind).

"It'll be just my luck for him to do a WorldCat search or something and find it first time," she says.

"He's online then?"

"I couldn't find it on Project Gutenberg."

"Have you tried LibriVox?"

She did, and lo and behold!

We can jack it in now, we've had the win for the year.

New readers start here...

An introduction to Helminthdale:

There are those who say that Helminthdale is a shy jewel of the English Pennine landscape. These people have been detained under Section One of the Mental Health Act. Helminthdale is actually one of those not-quite brick/not-quite stone towns that pepper the wet bits of the north of England. Like many others of that ilk, Helminthdale suffered as a result of the decline of the textile industries; but unlike others it enjoyed the economic misfortunes so much that it decided to make it a full-time project and holds the distinction of being the only part of the country to have been in continuous recession since 1946.

Helminthdale Council is a unitary authority, which is to say that it's big enough to be bureaucratically otiose but not big enough to have a resource base sufficient to fund its dreams. Add to this an incredibly unstable political environment where three parties with practical ideologies you couldn't separate with a cigarette paper are elected almost on rotation, each spending their time in power dismantling and discrediting the half-formed programmes of their predecessor. Helminthdale Library Service is a very small part of this council and not very highly thought of within the Town Hall.

Although there are times when it feels that we have one library for every twenty-five head of population there are really only less than a couple of dozen. These range from the mighty and majestic Helminthdale Central Library, with its rolling empty acres of carpet and groaning toilets to dinky single-staffed outliers in school playgrounds like Glass Road and Pottersbury Road libraries.

This, then is our scene.

The story so far...

Twisted genius and Chief Librarian T.Aldous Huxtable paused in the doorway to his office, his face an inscrutable mask, picked up from one of our interminable book sales. What was his intent? Would he marshall his troops into tackling one of the myriad issues raised by successive government inspectors? Would he coerce an unwilling Library Service into embracing the white hot heat of technology? Or would he go and count the teaspoons?

Meanwhile, his senior management team, this week called Policy Team but next week who knows, busy themselves in the filing away of the points of pencils so that they reach no conclusion.

Jocasta and Amanda have escaped the clutches of the white slavers and, with the assistance of Orlando The Lucky Rabbit, are trying to gain passage on the first dhow leaving the harbour at Barnoldswick. They are approached by a burly Lascar and as he speaks their blood turns cold with terror.

"I have the National Collection of Thomsons Locals for the year 1996 in my reference library."

Unbeknownst to them, Charles and Daphne have embarked on a walking tour of the Mobile Library. As they sit on the running board eating their sandwiches they witness the grisly ceremony of The Coming of the Fire Inspector and The Hiding of the Paperwork. Traumatised beyond words they lose themselves in the grip of the dreaded licorice.

Chuckles the Clown is dead.

Dressed in his flamboyant outfit of tweeds and brown fustian, Henry finds himself trapped forever in Sheep City, a land almost but not quite our own. Senses reeling from a combination of Well Known Local Characters and Doctor Sigismund Ringneck's Fiery Water he finds himself agape in mute incomprehension as he tries to make sense of the latest dispatches from Policy Team.

Everybody knows the new telephone number for Catty Library because it is pinned up behind the counter there.

Marjoribanks had a body like a Greek God, which he kept in a duffle bag under his bed at home. Did he know the secret of the boxes? Emily stifled a scream as the thought struck her that perhaps the boxes had attained a life of their own and some sinister purpose of which she was as yet unaware.

Joining hands to contact the living, Library Service staff discover (through the medium of Indian spirit guide Tiptoes-Through-Tulips) that the service does have a Communications Strategy after all; though their delight turns to ashes when they discover that Policy Team have decided that it is confidential. Fighting back salt tears of bitter disappointment, they have no recourse but to await the publication of the regular monthly staff newsletter, which appears roughly quarterly so long as there is an R in the month.

Dick Barton, with his three chums Jock and Snowy, have entered the farmhouse in pursuit of Erasmus Stradling, the well-known wart charmer, who they suspect to be behind the smuggling of nuns' bicycle saddles to Red China. Little do they know that Stradling is, in fact, the deadly Doctor Fu Manchu in a fun fur and cardboard viking helmet. Even as they enter the hallway the fiendish doctor's machinations weave a web of terror about them.

Kevin Musgrove has had a 'phone call from the reference library telling him that a customer can't log onto her Yahoo mail because she has forgotten her password and what will he do about it?

How will he escape...?

I'll think of you until my memory fails

This is a time when we traditionally take stock of our lives. As I do so I'm shocked to realise that I have posted over 800 all-too-true anecdotes on this blog in the past year. I'm even more shocked to recall all the stories that didn't get on the blog because they'd breach confidentiality; or would deal with personnel matters that are none of my damned business; or which, although true, are too unlikely for words (I know...!)

Well, here's wishing you all a Happy New Year.

Let's hope it's a better one than 2008, but judging by 2007 and 2006 and 2005 I think it's going to be business as bloody usual.

The last words of Anaxagoras were "Give the lads a holiday"

Well, reason and common sense notwithstanding the End Of The National Year Of Reading Event took place and was A Big Success. Which is to say that enough people came along to justify the expense of hiring choir, juggler and poet but not so many as to have T.Aldous and Mary making noises about fire regulations. Bronwyn and Maybelle put up some good displays; the children joined in with Frog's audience participation stuff; Nancy did a really good Silent Storytime for toddlers; and Mary actually brought the mince pies in a couple of hours before the event started.

"Let's not get too cocky," says Bronwyn. "There'll be another one coming along right behind."

How true those words are, even today.

No form of entertainment, no matter how sordid or debased it may be shall ever take the place of Her Majesty's Commissioners of Income Tax

"How's tomorrow's big day looking?" I ask Maybelle. "It's sorted," she says, though the sincerity of her words are compromised as she rolls her eyes, bites her lip and hisses something about "... mince pies!"

I ask Bronwyn the same question. She lets out a deep sigh. "We'll get there and we'll do it because we always do."

I ask Frog and he says: "Like always, we don't know what the fuck we're supposed to be doing and nobody seems to much care. We'll make it up as we go along as per usual and they'll say it was a great success because enough kids turned up and nobody was actually sick on the carpet. And this time next month it will all have been forgotten about."

Unfortunately, they're dead right. They'll deliver a fun event despite not knowing what it's for or what the Library Service wants to get out of it and Policy Team will think it was a splendid thing for all the time that they care to think of it. What a waste of resources and opportunity.

One suspects the master of deception is aware

"What's a VIP switch?" asks Maudie.

"A what?"

"A VIP switch. T.Aldous says that's why the publicity for Catty Library is wrong."

"It's a bit like the rhythm method but you have to ask for an extension because you weren't ready at the right time."

Cockalane

Maudie approaches.

"Did you know that the "Welcome to Catty Library" leaflets didn't have the new 'phone number on them."

"Er... yes."

"Do you know if we're going to do anything about getting them updated or reprinted?"

"Er... no. Have you asked T.Aldous or Julia?"

"Julia blanked me and T.Aldous said that we needed to have a look at it some time."

"That'll be right."

"It's uncanny. I asked Milton the same questions and gave me word for word the same answers."

Can't think why.

Pox

Corporate Helminthdale scores another own-goal. We've all received our copies of the new corporate newsletter, the first since they told us we're all getting pay cuts (even the people getting pay rises). Pride of place is the news that the council has installed "confidential screening for sexually-transmitted diseases" in the toilets in the Town Hall.

"This facility will be moving around the Town Hall, so keep your eye out for it!"

No schoolboy smut from this source!

This hasn't impressed the troops. The Christmas message was that the Council thinks we're worthless. The New Year message is that the Council thinks we're syphilitic and worthless.

God knows what the Easter message will be.

The forest is breathing along with us tonight

In a lonely library
Where the shelving butts on a leaking wall
Most people look for another library
Ill luck besets them to hear the call...

Library...
In the stone age.
Library... cast a sigh.
Where you can't act your own age
And careers come to die.

Library...
Boxing clever
Pile 'em up, pile 'em high
Like some card Tower of Babel
Climbing up to the sky.

Your own locker space;
Your own locker key;
Your own half-chewed biro;
A cold cup of tea.

Library...
Mushroom-managed,
Crises crafted with skill.
With your confidence damaged
You just wait for the kill.

Library....
Library...
Librar... eek!

Somewhere in the library
You may see the right book.
You may see the right book
Although it's been misshelved.
And sadly you know,
You know even then,
That you may never
Find it if you try again.

Somewhere in the library
There will be a stranger.
There will be a stranger
Just as perplexed as you.
They'll struggle and curse
And yet what is worse
They will have worked there since June '82.


A hundred and one pounds of fun
That's our new acquisition
Come and have a look
At a reference book
Tonight...

Speaking of these directories
Set in six point jargonese
Squint at it mint
While it's still out in print
And sight.


Happy talking talking library talk,
Talk about things you'll never do.
You got to have a dream.
If you don't have a dream,
How'll they ever have a dream to screw?

Talk about the stock
Chosen for the shelves.
Popular and useful, naturally.
Talk about the staff
Valued for their skill
Trained, empow'red, and with authority!

Happy talking talking library talk,
Talk about things they're going to rush.
You got to have a dream.
If you don't have a dream,
How'll they ever have a dream to crush?

SIngalong

Have yourself a merry little library.
Hear the bookshelves groan.
If you want to stock-edit then you're on
Your own.

Have yourself a merry little library
Watch career hopes fade.
See them ruthlessly deskill you down to what
You're paid.

I hear that there's libraries
Where the book stock's bright and new
And staff do well.
Such cruel tales they tell
To the likes of me
And you.

Have yourself a merry little library.
Watch the gutters rot.
Some day next year they will be replaced
Or not.
So lend a hand in the land that Santa Claus
Forgot.

Jingly

A Merry Christmas to all our readers!

from Eddie the Happy Editor

Pass the parcel

With one excpetion, only Mary could think that this afternoon is the best time to embark on moving the furniture round in the corner of the office occupied by the Acq. Team.

"There are network points in the wall. Do they work?" she asks me.

"They might do. The best way to test is to plug a laptop in and see if it logs on. I'm busy at the moment [Julia and T.Aldous have seperately and severally told me the date for Carbootsale's closing for rebuilding]. If I can get time this afternoon I'll check it out. If not, it'll be the New Year."

When last seen, she was going to mither Milton about the possibility of his buying a new PC for Bronwyn. A redundant exercise: Lupin's planning on replacing her old one in the very near future as part of the IT renewal process.

Mince all over his warehouse coat

Mary's been landed with the job of organising T.Aldous' end-of-year celebration of the National Year of Reading. She's roped in Bronwyn, Maybelle and Frog; they've cadged favours from some of their usual contacts and had nearly all the ideas knocked back by Mary for various reasons irrational. So the printed programme for the day is:

• Carols from the choir of St. Barrabas, Helminthdale
• A demonstration of corn dolly-making
• A poetry reading
• A juggler
• Mince pies will be provided

Not especially literary, as I mention to Maybelle.

"I'm too busy worrying about the mince pies: Mary says she's going to be buying them so I expect we'll be having the usual panic first thing on the day."

The voice of grim experience.

Common abuse is not libel

"T.Aldous had a right go at me yesterday," says Milton. "He tried to give me a bollocking because you've got a bad attitude towards his and Julia's handling of Catty Library."

"Oh shit, I'm really sorry about that."

"That's OK. I just said that you were dead right and asked him what he was going do about making a better job of it with Carbootsale."

"He'll hold that against you."

"I hope so. It might provoke him into doing it properly next time."

Caught outside Belle Vue Zoo with a branding iron and a box of bird seed

Maudie gets a 'phone call from the council switchboard.

"Is it true that Catty Library's been put onto the switchboard?"

"Apparently so."

"Do you know their extension number?"

"I don't. I was hoping to find out from you."

"We only found out because a member of the public rang us to ask to be put through."

Between us we eventually discovered their new internal 'phone number. Which was three-quarters of an hour well spent.

We then moved onto the next vexed question: what is the public telephone number? (Ordinarily we'd get it off the publicity or the web site but seeing as Maudie's responsible for getting the publicity to the printers and I'm responsible for editing the web site we're on a hiding to nothing there.) T.Aldous' walking past at this point gives me an opportunity for enquiry.

"What's the new public telephone number for Catty Library?"

"It's the same one as the old one."

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is. I arranged it."

"If you ring that number you get a message telling you that line is no longer in use."

"No you don't."

So I dialled the number, gave him the handset and proved my point.

"It should move seamlessly to the new 'phone number."

"Which is...?"

"We wouldn't have this problem if the VoIP switch had been delivered on time."

"The new 'phone number...?"

"We ordered that VoIP switch weeks ago. We've been badly let down by IT."

"I know the backstory, T.Aldous. What is the public telephone number for Catty Library?"

"Well, it would have been sorted by now if it had been installed on time."

"I am a member of the public. I don't care about the backstory about the VoIP switch. I want to ring Catty Library. I want to talk to somebody there about something. What number do I ring?"

"It should be the old number."

"Well it isn't, the library's been open two days and I'm a member of the public trying to contact them by telephone. I dial what number?"

"I really don't like your attitude. I'll get Julia to send out an email to all staff with it on."

Which she could have done weeks ago. When we put together the publicity that never happened either.

National Year of Reading

The Director of Education (whom God preserve) has decreed that next Monday there shall be a celebration of The National Year of Reading, encompassing all forms of glad-handing, back-slapping and lickspittling of the Adult Literacy Working Group of which he is Chair. Looking at the programme it's pretty much a day of wristjobs workshops for practioners rather than anything for public consumption.

T.Aldous, ever ready to score a point against the Director of Education (whom God preserve) has decreed that Tuesday is a public celebration of the National Year of Reading, to be held in Helminthdale Central Library. And so it has hung for the three weeks since he had the idea. Nobody knows what is to be happening that day but it will be A Great Thing. If it goes true to form, some time in the next day and a half somebody will be landed the job of organising the spectacular with a budget of buttons.

Sometimes it's so bleak and desperate that you can almost hear the furniture giggling at you

Catty Library re-opened for business today. A customer went into Carbootsale Library late in the afternoon and said:

"I see Catty Library's closed."

"Oh no, it's re-opened today."

"That's as maybe. There's two librarians stood on the doorstep telling people that it's closed."

So Verity rang Catty Library and was told that yes, it had been closed because one of the windows had fallen out and they're getting Health & Safety in to come and check the putty.

Verity fed the intell into the jungle telegraph and I've sent a system message telling staff what little we know, which is enhanced by a customer's popping into Gypsy Lane Library and giving Pansy a verbatim report of the notice on the front door. Nobody from Catty Library has bothered letting anybody else know that they'd all gone home.

Given the height of the machine and the length of the arc, he is clearly a man without prostate issues

I mention the lack of information to staff about Catty Library to T.Aldous. I also mention that it's unfortunate that we can get information about the refurbished library into the paper but not onto our web site.

"But you updated the information the other week, I saw it."

"Yes, but that was weeks after these articles and I had to make it all up myself."

"Well, you did it so what's the problem?"

"The problem is that library service managers should be taking more of an interest in making sure that we get information about our libraries and services onto the council's web site."

"But that's what you're for."

"Err... No. If I'm given the infomation I'll do my level best to get it online in a timely fashion but if I don't know I can't do."

"Well, you did it."

"Aye, no thanks to you or Julia. Yet you managed to get let the Catty Examiner know what's going on."

"That's down to the council's press office. They did that."

"And where did they get the information from...?"

"Well, of course we worked with the press office. Why wouldn't we?"

"Of course you should. But shouldn't you also be working with your own staff too?"

"That would be down to the press office."

"No. No, no, no, no no. Letting your customers know about your services being delivered in your libraries is your responsibility, not that of the press office."

"But..."

"No. Your responsibility."

At which point he stalked away and threw some crockery about the staff room.

Immortalised in singing concrete

I think we've had the last Christmas Kareoke Night at Dutch Bend Library. Saturday night's do went on raucously and well into the night (my informant left just before one after watching the spectacle of T.Aldous dancing to 'Nellie the Elephant').

Daisy Duck's planning her revenge on her mate the landlord at The Spotted Mule, which is just across the road from the library. At half two there was a knock on the library door. Daisy opened it to be faced with two policemen.

"We've had a complaint from the pub across the road. They say you're making too much noise."

It must have made their year. Daisy can see the funny side but is a bit worried:

"I don't think T.Aldous has ever been raided before."

If music be the food of love then here comes the syrup of figs

Well, we've negotiated a few turkey lunches in the nursery slopes but now we're looking at the big stuff. I ducked out of last night's piss-up in Helminthdale: it looked like the whole of the Town Hall was intent on drowning its sorrows and I didn't want to know. Tonight is the Dutch Bend Christmas Party, which invariably involves a good deal of drink and a karaoke. Which, if you haven't had a good deal of drink, is pretty close to Hell.

Once that's done there's only the Helminthdale pot-luck lunch and we're home and dry and A over T into the bosom of our families for the seasonal hostilities.

Feeding the fourth estate

I am incandescent with rage. For weeks now I've been banging on at Julia and T.Aldous that we need to put an update on the state of play of Catty Library on the web site so please could they tell me something about it. With nil result. In the end, I got so embarassed about not updating that information for three months that I bullshitted something up and published it at the beginning of last week.

Imagine my delight, then, to find lying about by the fax machine copies of two articles about the new, improved library that were published - with pictures - in November. They can get the Catty Examiner in for a preview but they can't be arsed to pass any information on to their own bloody staff.

Single team working? My arse.

Roughly the bit which keeps the pie crust up

Joy be unconfined! The refurbishment of Catty Library - which has, like World War One, been promised to be 'over by Christmas' - is done and dusted as far as the outside world is concerned (we'll draw a veil over the leaky children's library and the fact that there's no telephone) and it's to re-open on Monday.

"The 'phone should be going in tomorrow, so it'll probably be Monday afternoon," says Milton.

"I'll have to update the web site over the weekend. What's the new 'phone number?"

"I don't know. I asked Julia but didn't really get a useful answer."

Despite his suggestion that I don't do it, I have a go at this myself. Julia's not available so I ask T.Aldous.

"What's Catty Library's new 'phone number? Nobody seems to know."

"Everybody knows it: it's pinned up on the staff noticeboard at Catty. Given them a ring and find out."

Passed it

Fire inspection been and gone and damn me we've passed.

The one and only time we see a co-ordinated management effort to communicate a goal to the other ranks and see them support and resource the work to the successful attainment of said goal it's to hoodwink a fire inspector.

Nobody takes biscuit addiction seriously in this country

Frog's miffed. After all the story times; class visits; Team Read promotions; SureStart and BookStart events and deliveries; teenage reading programmes; families and carers activities and bounce & rhyme sessions he's delivered this year the one time he gets fulsome praise from his betters is when he empties and disposes of two boxes of crap from near his desk.

Firedamp

The gasman's been to Senebene Library.

"It's OK, love, it's not a gas leak. You're just smelling the methane from the drains."

So that's all right then.

A plumber you can trust

Lupin's been off sick with the 'flu. That's put one of our projects back a week or two, which is unfortunate. Even more unfortunately, while he's been off sick somebody else in IT has "borrowed" his kit and erased the PC image he'd set up for the project, so he's going to have to spend a day putting it back together again.

Keep our land grand

"How are you getting on with all those boxes in the fire escape corridor?" Mary asks Noreen.

"We're doing well, there's only as many as there were last week."

The plan is that when the fire inspector comes a-prowling these boxes will all be put into the dispatch room, which is where they ought to be in the first place. We still don't know where the crap that's been filling the dispatch room this past decade is going.

Another plan is for Bronwyn to move her desk into the corner of the Acq. Team's area, where all the boxes of Booked If I Know picture books are piled up, awaiting shipping out to very receptive main libraries. Naïvely, I ask where the Booked If I Know boxes are going ('cos they won't be going out to the main libraries any time soon). Apparently they, too, are to go into the dispatch room. I can only think that we're going to knock the ceiling out.

I remember the days when you could buy a cow with a tin of beans

Maisie is being sent out to buy yet more milk for one or other of the meetings in the library.

"Wouldn't it be easier to buy a cow?"

I ask. Which prompts the inevitable discussion in the staff room.

"I should think we've got more than enough cows as it is."

"If we bought a cow we could call it T.Aldous."

"We could say that it was a tribute."

I can't make me mind up if it's too dead or not dead enough

Travelling to a meeting by train I'm joined at the platform by Ken Barmy. He is a disturbing travelling companion.

"Hist! Are they the singing sands of the Asian desert, intent on luring us to lonely, unmarked graves?"

"They're announcing the arrival of the next train."

"Are you telling me that's not a disembodied voice designed by devils to mislead the unwary traveller such that their loved ones may never see them again?"

I had to concede the point.

Like most local government employees lately, we got to comparing notes on Pay & Grading.

Note for the unwary (English public sector workers may want to skip this bit)
A decade and a bit ago it was pointed out that "women's" jobs were paid less than "men's" jobs in English local government, regardless of the relative importance of the jobs and/or requirements on qualification, training, etc. So the government told local autorities that they had to review their staff's pay with a view to providing equal pay for equal value by 2007. Not many local authorities met the deadline. Many faffed about. Most took it as an opportunity to save a bit on the staffing budgets by equalising down. Many took the opportunity of cutting the salaries of specialist staff on the basis that there's less of them and it's harder for them to find examples of jobs of equal worth to compare themselves with. This is a bowdlerised account but you get the gist.

I asked Ken how he got on.

"They've cut my salary by £3,000. How about you?"

"Twelve percent cut."

"Of course, you know it's a job creation scheme for Personnel departments, don't you?"

"Eh? How do you work that out?"

"If a large number of disaffected staff worrying themselves sick about how they'll be paying the bills isn't a problem requiring a Human Resources solution, I don't know what is."

In a sane and just world he'd have a statue.

So now you know

Norma talking to a customer:

"In this country we say please and thank you!"

Salome challenged her:

"That was a bit uncalled for."

"I don't care. If they're in this country they should learn to do like we do."

Strangely enough, "please" and "thank you" don't feature highly in the local vernacular.

Three methods of expansion

In the old days upstairs a customer would come in, queue to return their books, be told that they've got an item on the reservations (holds) shelf, be given the book and then queue to get it issued to them and stamped out. Now, the customer queues to return their books, is told they've an item on the reservations shelf, walks over to the enquiry desk where they queue to get given the book and then goes back to the counter to queue to get it issued and stamped out.

The reason? Staff were complaining about having to keep bending down to get the books from under the counter. Given that there's about three acres of space behind the counter it wouldn't be beyond the wit of library managers to put some shelving or trolleys in there for the reserved stock. Except that Doreen says they can't do it because "someone might take the trolleys out and shelve the books."

Christmas at Windscape

We couldn't have Christmas without yet another spat at Windscape concerning the children's party. This year Norma is annoyed because Kitty, who is her job share, is for the very first time being allowed to claim the time back as time worked instead of coming in to help in her own time.

The protest takes a bizarre turn when Norma turns up at the reading group's Christmas party and tries to claim the time back. Doreen's having none of it, though ends up having to concede half an hour because Norma covered the library while Kitty went out for a bottle of milk.

"Lola hadn't arrived yet so I had to cover," she says.

The truth is that she told Kitty not to wait for Lola, she'd mind the shop.

Some people have no objection

School visit at Windscape. The teacher notices that Thelma is covering.

"Such a nice change to have someone who smiles and says hello to the children!"

One hundred and twenty pounds of horseshit

Oh, I don't want to blog about this week. Surely I've exhausted my readers' patience about

• boxes
• and shifting stock out of Umpty Library because they say they've got too much new children's stock and don't have time for visits for school classes
• and libraries' closed dates not being disclosed to the systems guy or to the passing public
• and Policy Team not having yet another scheduled meeting
• and another unannounced staff meeting with T.Aldous complaining that people didn't turn up for it
• and the network being down
• and the public PCs dying one by one in random pattern with their hard disks blown to buggery
• and the reference librarians' entering the fourth glorious year of reviewing the standing orders lists but actually not bothering
• and the expensive reference stock we're buying for Catty Library which won't have a reference section when it re-opens
• and Policy Team members boasting that they can't possibly provide information about what's going on in our libraries because their staff don't tell them
• and the plans - ha ha! - for closing Carbootsale for rebuilding work once Catty Library re-opens

Oh, I'm bored just listing the possibilities, you'd never stand for me blathering on about them.

So the baby could play with the smoke

Maisie's spent an hour and a half on the 'phone to the gas company querying a bill for the old Roadkill Library, including thirty-two minutes on hold listening to Mantovani. I couldn't help overhearing the eventual conversation.

"One of your engineers came over in September, cut off the gas and took a final reading..."

"...It's been closed since January. It's closed and unoccupied..."

"...No, it's unoccupied. And it never will be occupied again: it's been closed for demolition, they're going to build a motorway over it..."

"...There's no point in you sending us an estimated bill, the reading's going to be the same as the final one your engineer took..."

"...Isn't your engineer's actual final reading better than a customer reading?"

"...The library's nine miles away and there's nobody in there. We can't send somebody over once a month to take a reading. Besides, what's the point? The gas has been cut off and your engineer took the final reading..."

The eventual compromise is that once a quarter for the next hundred years, Maisie will be sending the gas board an email saying:

The building that was Roadkill Library, Windicote Lane, closed for demolition January 2008. Reading 103772

Incendiary

Seth's been walking round with a grin on his face and T.Aldous is in full stroppy panic. This can only mean one thing...

Fire inspection!

T.Aldous is in a flap because we've done precisely nothing in response to the last fire inspection report (I wouldn't want you to think that we've just the one standard response to any inspection reports, even though it's true).

The Acq. Team have been working through the influenza like Trojans and have got the backlog down to just twenty boxes in the fire escape corridor. The official line now is that these boxes will be moved to the dispatch room, where they should have been in the first place. Quite what's happening with all the crap that's been stuffed in the dispatch room for the past decade and a half is beyond our collective imagination.

Unless T.Aldous is building a tunnel, too.

Time and place

I'm surprised to find Milton mooching round the office.

"Shouldn't you be with the rest of Policy Team? I thought you all had a meeting in the Town Hall today."

"We did. T.Aldous has cancelled it because he couldn't find the email about it because his PC 'isn't working' again."

The meeting was supposed to be about "Making Things Happen."

Making an effort

Lavinia asked about Helminthdale's Christmas lights, which were switched on the other week by Pusscat Willum. Here they are in all their festive glory.

More kicks than ha'porth

We were wondering what the ranting and raving and shouting was... It turns out to be Julia, giving Daisy Duck a bollocking for asking for a new telephone at Dutch Bend because the existing one is broken. Not the style of management I'd adopt personally but then I'm not A Professional.

We laughed for exactly eleven-and-a-half minutes

Had a drink with Ken Barmy last night after bumping into him while Christmas shopping in Hannigan's Truss Boutique.

"How's your authority's much-vaunted change programme going on?"

"Oh, we've done change. It's back to Business As Usual With Fucking Big Boots On now. No priorities, aimless meandering management chucking their weight about when it suits and disappearing like the morning mists whenever accountability comes a-knocking and the project management expertise of the kindergarten sand-table."

"As good as that?"

"I'm instinctively optimistic."

What's my line?

I catch Milton in an unguarded moment (he'd just had one of those conversation with T.Aldous where you wonder which of you stepped out of an aeroplane without a parachute).

"Why didn't they put a 'phone line in at Catty the same time as they put in the fax?"

"Because T.Aldous has decided that it's going onto the council switchboard."

"I thought we were putting it onto the switchboard at the end of next year as part of the council's VoIP roll-out."

"We were."

"What happened?"

"A couple of weeks ago T.Aldous was talking to somebody in the Town Hall lift who said that it should be possible to put a VoIP line into Catty to put it onto the switchboard. So that's what we're doing."

"Why?"

"So that it won't cost anything for T.Aldous and Julia to ring Catty Library."

"Have we sorted out the publicity for the new 'phone number?"

"No."

"I'll need to know the number so's I can make the changes in the web site."

"Good luck to you."

"We don't know the number?"

"Not yet we don't."

"So what's the plan?"

"I've told them that if they're going to change the arrangements at this late stage of the game they can sort out the consequences themselves."

Sounds like our way of doing things... If you don't like the answer you get, keep asking people until somebody gives you the answer you want, however much it screws up your project.

Not fit for man nor beast

The unseasonably wintery weather has taken its toll on the local transport systems. It took me two and a half hours to get into work, most of which involved a group of us shivering at the station wondering if the boneshaker parked at the platform was going to Helminthdale. It turned out to be the Liverpool train, which came as a shock to the driver and guard, who thought they were going to Huddersfield. Frog got in just ten minutes before me, having struggled his way over the hills from Bencup.

T.Aldous has been wandering round the building complaining that it took him 45 minutes to get into work this morning. We are collectively aghast: it usually takes him the best part of an hour to do the ten-minute journey down the Pardendale Road.

Mysteries in telecommunications

"They've finally gotten the fax line installed at Catty," says Milton.

"So we finally have an opening date for them, then?"

"Er... no. We're waiting for the 'phones to be sorted."

"They've not put the 'phone line in at the same time as the fax?"

"Let's not go there. If you get me started on this one we'll be here all day."

"Aren't we just restoring the existing 'phone line?"

"Let's talk about something else. How's the web site getting on?"

Savoury

One of our regulars rushes into the lending library upstairs as soon as the doors open.

"I need to use your toilet," he says.

He then rummaged around in the back of his trousers and proceded to show Seth why he needed to use the toilet.

Note for customer care advocates: there's no excuse for this, the library's in a shopping centre which has been open since quarter to nine and has two lots of public conveniences.

Yuck.

It frightened Burke and Hare

One of "those" conversations:

"Is Bronwyn around?"

"She's off sick today. Can anybody else help?"

"I've got somebody on the 'phone asking about a talk by Fred Dibnah."

"Stuff me, I thought we only used the Ouija board for talking to Policy Team. If we start using it in public events we'll be picketed by the witch-burners."