Library benefits lie buried ... If we expected queues like those for the January sales, we were disappointed. Half a dozen or so people turned up as the doors opened for the new look Boston library on Monday, vastly outnumbered by a load of total strangers all wearing name badges and clearly from Lincoln who were there to slap each other on the back over the "improvement." We weren't terribly keen. Shelves have created open ended square caves of books, and there seems to be no system to the way the books are displayed. It looks as though the cash for the redecoration ran out halfway through, and certainly it didn't run to enough for that most needed category - more and better books.
Post Off is the word we'd use ... No such problem finding the queues at Boston Post Office on Monday morning. A twenty minute wait with nothing to alleviate the strain than TV presence of the gap-toothed, overweight, cardigan-clad imbecile that the Post Office thinks is an amusing and endearing front-of-house image, was all it took to reach the counter. There were four members of staff attending to a queue that reached out into the street as usual, while two or three more busied themselves between back offices pausing only to admire the delays that their absence was causing. To make matters worse, once you finally get to a counter your time (and the time of the poor devils who are still waiting) is further wasted by having to listen to and reject offers of phone services, cheaper gas and electricity or savings plans. We'd like to think that things improve after the refurbishment, but are not selling tickets on the strength of it..
Out to lunch ... We had to laugh at the unintended irony offered by the sign on the side of a police car parked next to the unexpected police community support vehicle outside Waterstones on Wednesday. In bold letters it declared "Lincolnshire Police - out on foot patrol." So what does this mean? It means that, stung by the criticism that they never leave their cars, Lincolnshire Police drive to an area that they used to patrol on foot in the good old days, then get out for a stroll - making sure that everyone knows all about it - presumably so that they can be seen "pounding the beat." It might have been our imagination, but we thought that the external state of the car suggested that it goes out on dry days for often than not.
Scam-dalous ... A helpful guide on Boston Borough Council's website warns us of the dangers of falling victim to scammers. The list of the evil types who prey on the more gullible in our ranks includes letters predicting the future, pyramid schemes, which rely on tricking as many people as possible to give support, and miracle cures. Each of those headlines could equally refer to another sort of criminal - the political fraudster. Yet strangely the BBI has somehow failed to get a mention.
Smashing news! ... AT LAST! screamed the headline on the leaflet that dropped through our door with the other afternoon's post. At last indeed! Almost a month after the service began, we are being told that the borough is finally letting us put glass in our blue recycling bin. Unfortunately the background picture on the ingeniously bottle-shaped leaflet show glass in fragments. This being Boston, we suspect that the proportion of the population which cannot read very well will spend countless hours smashing their bottles before putting them in the bin, which we suspect would be most unwelcome. And we note that householders who "continually " contaminate their blue bin "could" be liable to a £100 fine. Casting our minds back to late 2008 we recall a well trailed warning ahead of a "clampdown" due to start in February last year. We were told that if a blue bin was contaminated the bin's owners would get a letter telling them what they can and can't dump. A repeat offence would mean a second letter with a sterner warning, and a third offence meant a £100 fine - after which the offender would be taken to court. In the 16 months since, we have heard of no warnings or fines for this sort of offence. Does this mean that there haven't been any? We doubt it, and yet all we're hearing now are wishy washy threats that will surely go unheeded.
Standard at half mast ... The poor old Boston Standard totters from crisis to crisis in the spelling department - particularly where culinary items are concerned. After the other week's endlessly entertaining offering of the wholly-new word "gormey" for gourmet, the paper has not for the first time become confused over when to use the word pallet, rather than palate. See the cutting below for the latest effort.
Coming next week ... Reaction to "The future's blight - the future's red" and news of swift move to overturn the plans to "deal with" Boston's empty shops ....
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