He tried to become a hypnotist but gave up when a vicar told him that his mouth was the wrong shape

The art of précis:

"Can you summarise the library service's long-term business plan?"

"One hundred and thirty people praying for T.Aldous to retire."

Men of muscle mystery

Maybelle Googly's lending a hand cataloguing a pile of non-fiction that's been bought on a visit for the Prison Library. [In case of confusion it needs to be said that no stock's been bought for the staff library since 1983.]

"How should I classify this?" she asks.

It's a coffee-table book of art studies of muscular men with oiled pecs and thighs like small emergent nations. We spend twenty minutes running through the schedules but we can't find a Dewey number for "gay porn."

All these things are soul

"What time are you going home tonight?" asks T.Aldous. Troubled by experience and paranoia I ask:

"Why?"

"I need to check the CIPFA figures with you. Will you be around?"

"Possibly..."

"I should have been in a meeting two hours ago. When I get back can we just get together to go through the statistics?"

"When are you getting back."

"Oh it should be about half-three."

He arrived back ten minutes ago and shot off for a lightning inspection of the new Glass Road library site at St. Barrabas.

Me for buggering off. I'm not hanging round here for to look at CIPFA stats in the Friday evening twilight before bank holiday weekend.

Smoke signals

Daisy's turn to try and give up smoking again, the forthcoming ban on smoking in public being a big incentive. It goes without saying that support is fothcoming.

"God, this is hell. I don't know what to do without a cigarette in my hand sometimes."

"You'll have to take up masturbation or knitting."

"I'd take up knitting if I were you. You're less likely to get into lumber for doing it on the enquiry desk."

Thirty minutes' worth of implausible claptrap

Bronwyn's going to be a film star! The council, in its infinite wisdom, has commissioned a film showing what a splendid place is Helminthdale, full of vim and verve and wonder, a joy for investors and a fully-oiled machine of capitalist growth. Part of the film is a series of interviews with council staff and customers telling the world that the council is responsive to the needs of its customers, values its employees and listens to both. It's Bronwyn's job to lie on film for the sake of her council. For half an hour. We can't imagine how she'll keep a straight face.

They'll probably have to use tranquiliser darts.

Siege mentality

They've been having problems with hoodies in the car park at the new Noddy Library. Today's escapade takes the problem to a new level: they've barricaded the doors to the library so that nobody could get out. In the end Hettie had to kick the door open with a martial arts kick.

Julia insisted that Flossie Meredith go down from Dutch Bend to provide moral support. Quite apart from leaving Dutch Bend short-staffed yet again it's difficult to see what sort of moral support Flossie could be providing. Mind you, if Hettie gets provoked into putting aside her pacifist leanings it would take two of them to stop her killing the buggers.

Along the wires the electric message came

Julia rings Dutch Bend:

"Good news: we'll be closing Glass Road on the eighteenth of June and opening at the new site a week after. Make sure that nobody books leave that week."

We'll be spending the rest of the day wondering which bit of this is good news.

Some turned up to say they couldn't come

OK, so I was wrong. Not all Management Group's on the away day.

They should be, but T.Aldous is still floating around here with a jar of coffee under his arm, demonstrating his commitment to teamwork.

It may seem like a bit of a cliché

Management Group are having an away day to look at one of the key threads of the annual plan. As it happens, I know about it because Milton and Jim have both told me about it and asked for background information. It turns out that I'm on my own. An uncharacteristic burst of diplomacy has me rubbing out the "Wot no management group?" cartoons on the whiteboard (the one that was put on the wall so's we can say where we are) and replace it with a message: "MG out all day: all-day meeting."

The last away day was devoted to Management Group's communications strategy.

The ducks said "quack" and flung them back

I feel a bit mean about this. Pauline's just asked me if I can email her the issue figures for April. I said no. It's actually Pauline's job to collect and collate the issue stats but she still doesn't know how to do it. I spent a couple of months asking her when it would be convenient to show her how to do it but every time she was too busy. That was before Tilly retired and Pauline's even busier now, doing her job as well as her own.

So why am I being awkward? Well, it finally dawned on me that I shouldn't be begging someone to give me the opportunity to train them how to do their job. Especially not with the coda "but don't worry if it's not convenient, I'll do your job for you." That's just silly.

Off us trolley

The Acquisitions Team (both of 'em) are processing a pile of incoming story boxes for the Bookstart project. The rest is inevitable...

"Where's the flatbed trolley gone? We need it for the story boxes."

"Mary sent it to Milkbeck on Monday; they needed a trolley."

Let's blame the blue tits

Overheard but not believed:

"Is T.Aldous around?"

"No."

"Is Mary?"

"They're all in a management group meeting. Why?"

"They've run out of milk upstairs."

Dunsinane walks!

"Good news!" says Frog, "we're going to set up a library wood."

"Where?" I ask.

"Dunno. It's something being arranged with the countryside and parks department."

If it's anything like anything else round here in a few years' time someone will be asking: "what's them trees doing over there by those boxes?"

Escape committee news part 97

Bad news: Hettie Mistletoe at Noddy Library's the latest for the escape tunnel, having secured a job elsewhere in the council with career prospects and a real salary structure.

That means I'll be the only eye candy left. I hope there's enough of me to go around.

The electric throbbing twang their heartstrings

The town centre's festooned with posters proclaiming that "Helminthdale is a happening place."

It would explain a lot to find that this town's just a psychadelic event that somehow got out of hand.

Boomerang!

All the old crap that got shipped out to the old Noddy Library for to be picked up when it's being cleared out is to come back because the buyer wants it cleared out by 30th April. The boys are delighted. Even more so when it becomes apparent that they can't take it to the tip because T.Aldous won't pay for it to go.

Where's the fire inspector when you need him?

An exquisite odour of leave-taking

"If T.Aldous is on leave," says Milton, "what's he doing in this morning, ringing people up and telling them to ring him back?"

"I keep forgetting you're new round here," I repy.

Bringing forth this vast leviathan

Milton's turn to find himself the senior officer of the service and up Shit Creek. The boiler at Dutch Bend has started leaking badly and they've rung in here to get it reported for repair. We have no idea what the hell we do in the circumstances, and neither does anyone else, it's another of T.Aldous' secret procedures.

Much to my surprise T.Aldous strolls in (most of us were expecting to see him yesterday, seeing as he's on leave this week). His conversation with Milton is a classic of its kind.

"The boiler at Dutch Bend's got a leak, how do they report it for repairs?"

"They can't. They have to give a cost code and they can't do that."

"So what do they do?"

"They ring in here and report it to Tilly."

"But Tilly's been and gone and retired."

"Then I'll deal with it."

"But you're on leave."

"Well I'm here now."

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the procedure written down so that we know what to do if something happens and you're not around?"

"There's no need, it's not as if it's going to happen."

Max Bygraves sings the decimalisation song

A puzzle.

How come the Reference Librarians insist on stock being classified to six decimal places on the Dewey Number and then they shelve the stock in an order only navigable by reference to a title key on the window ledge?

Green parties

The council's green credentials are brought into question: the lady mayoress isn't allowed to travel in the official civic car with her baby (in case she decides to breastfeed it) so the car's just used to take the mayoral chain to events and she follows behind in her own car.