A week of Victor Meldrew moments ....

It's Saturday, so we usually spend the day sharpening our pencils, grinding some fresh ink in our mortar and pestle, and rinsing out the blotting paper ready for the week ahead.
However we had two Victor ("I don't believe it!") Meldrew moments after the local papers arrived, and we simply had to add our two penn'orth to the stories.
First the mystery of the million pound loan.
Apparently it was taken out in 1991 for fifty years at a rate of more than eleven per cent.
Victor Meldrew notwithstanding, we are asked to believe that despite a search of reports from meetings at that time, there is absolutely no trace of what this was for.
The money is owed to a company called State Street - and if it's the one we found in the web, then it's a big business player.
Amusingly, Boston's head of finance apparently plans to try to get a copy of the loan agreement without the company realising the council doesn't have the paperwork.
Why on earth such a subterfuge is necessary, we cannot imagine - particularly now that the details are in the public domain.
Let us hope that - for once - our local papers are clever enough to recognise that approaching State Street may produce another even more interesting story.
One thing that continues to baffle us though is why - even though the paperwork appears to be missing - there is no reference to the loan in the council minutes.
Historians can read accounts of what Boston Borough Council was doing hundreds of years ago - Lincolnshire County Council can produce minute books from 1545 onwards (indexed to 1788) - and there must surely be some legal requirement on local authorities to keep track of their decisions.
Why 1991 should prove so elusive is beyond us. Any how anyone would lose track of a loan of this magnitude (including all the paperwork and records of the decision) beggars belief.
Our second Victor Meldrew moment came in response to a suggestion by Councillor Anne Dorrian at last week's joint committee meeting to discuss the proposed borough budget.
She had the excellent idea of cutting back the council management trio's working week from five days to four - which would apparently save £85,000 a year.
Mr Gallagher was stung into a swift rebuke.
"The management would like to reduce to a five day week because we are currently working six or seven days a week," he replied.
We've never heard a line like that before.
The poor man, we we didn't realise how hard he and his team were working.
Perhaps we might hope to see some positive results to justify this blood, sweat, and tears in the not too distant future, then.
Incidentally - although the maths may be slightly oversimplified - if £85,000 represents one-fifth of the management trio's annual income - then in a full year the bosses bag a monster £425,000 .... more than £140,000 each.
Can that really be the case?

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