My regular readers (or at least, those who used to be when I posted regularly) will know that I have taken on the job of Parish Clerk for my village. I had visions of a quiet life of paperwork and phone calls, but in fact as it turns out, managing people is a much more important (and sometimes fraught) part of the job.
However, the mild excitement of rowdy public meetings or disgruntled parishioners' phone calls pales into insignificance when I read one of my trade publications, Clerks and Councils Direct.
The September issue has, on its front page, these exciting headlines:
Youths attack in park
'Mess' walk-out
Woman, 92, in bin ordeal
Year ban for gay remarks
Five cleared
and some other plums from the inside pages include:
Beach challenge coast shocker
'Racist' gags are no joke
MP digs allotment boost
Death crash comments 'shameful'
Clerk's 40-minute ordeal
Ex-member refuses to go quietly
and so on. I shan't spoil your fun by telling you what any of them actually refer to, since the actual story is inevitably more prosaic. Just like the issue of the Bridport News that announced, in about 200pt type, "Glue Sniffer runs amok" - which turned out to be about a youth who bumped into an old lady and made her drop her handbag!
