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The collected opinions of an august and aristocratic personage who, despite her body having succumbed to the ravages of time, yet retains the keen intellect, mordant wit and utter want of tact for which she was so universally lauded in her younger days. Being of a generation unequal to the mysterious demands of the computing device, Lady Bracknell relies on the good offices of her Editor for assistance with the technological aspects of her journal.

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Location: Bracknell Towers

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Head, desk

I know, I know, my neglect of Lady Bracknell's once-proud blog is nothing short of shameful....

Mea maxima culpa.

In an attempt to kick start it again, I must share an anecdote from today with my last remaining half a reader.

For my sins, I have been co-opted onto the committee which oversees the provision of parking bays on DDA and H&S grounds at my office. This, of course, is my own fault for having so often and so publicly stated that, were the bays to be allocated entirely fairly, then those who have a genuine right to one would no longer need to run the gauntlet of abuse from colleagues who 'know' that so and so who has bay such and such can run five miles. With one hand tied behind his back.

Leaving aside the issue that many people who are entitled to a bay as a reasonable adjustment do appear quite sprightly to those who expect that they should have at least one leg dropping off, there is no doubt that a proportion of the people who have been allocated bays in the past have had no entitlement to one at all.

My commitment to ensuring that everyone who is entitled to a bay gets one without question, and that nobody who isn't entitled to a bay manages to slip under the radar is, as you would expect, creating a lot of work.

While I was wading through the scant information scribbled on the application forms by those who would quite like free parking five days a week, thank you, I was visited by the very nice young woman who provides clerical support to the committee.

She, it appears, had been tasked by the committee chair with emailing everyone who currently has one of the bays and reminding them that it is crucial that they let her know when they're not going to be attending so that their bay can be used by one of their non-disabled colleagues who would otherwise have to park either the best part of a mile away, or pay a significant parking cost. (Rather unsurprisingly, said non-disabled colleagues have a tendency to get just the teensiest bit hot under the collar when they could have parked close to the building for nothing if only the bloody crips had stuck to their side of the bargain.)

Anyway, amongst the replies to this missive was one from the email account of one of the miscreants. It read something like this.

"I am Miss Creant's line manager. She can't reply to your email at present because she's on leave."



Always good to see people taking their managerial duties seriously....



The Editor

7 Comments:

Anonymous SphinxQueen said...

From one of your doubtless many last remaining half-readers, welcome back. We've missed you.

11:43 pm  
Anonymous Gary Miller said...

Brackers old gel!! Welcome back, I thought you'd gone to St Tropez for the season!

Every morning I check my feed with baited breath; will there...won't there? And finally, yes finally, you return with a timely piece.

I was just thinking the other day that, enough of us around the country got together, we should create a communal blog. All you have to do is visit your local supermarkets once or twice a week, take photos of cars parked in disabled bays with no badge, and post the details on the blog. Sort of a national 'name and shame' thing.

We could could it...Bloggers Against Disabled Bay Frauds...BADBF? Or maybe just something like 'Get out of that bay you #*@*** (insert preferred abusive term).

Hey, don't leave it so long this time, eh?

Gary

10:10 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lady B! You are back! Thank heavens. I was getting worried. Glad to know you are just busy and not in ill health.

From of your many readers.

1:16 am  
Anonymous Gary Miller said...

G'day Your Ladyship...

(If I had any hair to tug a forelock, I'd be doing it right now!)

I hope you'll forgive my manners, but I've added you to my blogroll. You don't post often, but when you do...it's always well worth reading!

2:45 pm  
Blogger jenlark said...

Deep curtsey of respect to Lady B on her very welcome return!

3:56 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm surprised she found a manager who can write. Why expect said manager to think - and on the same day, tsk, tsk

8:03 pm  
Blogger Rollingfruitbats said...

Crippen said ... so you are still around. Welcome back m'Lady (have just posted a link to your excellent piece on Social Model usage on Facebook). X

8:42 am  

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