The Befouled Weakly News
30 November 2008
In retrospect, the “Celebration of Excellence” I attended earlier in the week seems quite trivial. You will remember I was mysteriously commended for my “excellent” contribution to the work of Oxfordshire County Council over the previous year and invited for drinks and nibbles with the Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council. So, I dutifully trotted along at the appointed time to encounter about fifty other similarly “excellent” individuals from all walks of life. There were firemen, social workers, care providers but interestingly no one else from the “Raising Achievement Service”, the branch of the directorate in which I work – no wonder education in this country has gone down the pan. We all grabbed a drink and then mingled to some extent until we were corralled by the Head of Human Resources and then praised in a short speech by the Chief Executive. It was then I discovered, during the course of her few words of encouragement, that this “Celebration of Excellence” was only applicable to those who manage other colleagues which struck me as being endemic of Oxfordshire’s (and, probably, other large organisation’s) problems: here we were celebrating the achievement of “managers” while those at the chalk face, who actually do the bulk of the work, get bugger all; the “big wigs” sip wine and nibble an excellent selection of canapés while the poor sods lower down the food chain struggle, with increasing workloads and reducing resources, to provide an acceptable service to the public. With the dreadful news of various high-profile instances (in this country) where services to the most vulnerable have been found wanting, you would imagine that the irony of the celebration of managers’ excellence would have been appreciated by someone. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for recognising and praising those who have made an excellent contribution in whatever field but the “excellence” of the contribution is only possible because of the excellence of the vast majority of those actually providing the services for those who need it. So, while I might be “excellent” at managing my colleagues and over-seeing the services we provide to schools, in our case, it’s the teachers in schools who actually make the difference (and, they would probably make a very positive contribution with or without our excellent interference). In contrast to the Celebration of Excellence, I also experienced an example of the less than excellent services provided by our Human Resources department earlier in the week. On Wednesday afternoon my line manager received a phone call from HR enquiring what was happening to Greg Stragnell now that he had been off work for six months. My boss, Graham, was understandingly somewhat perplexed as he knew full well that I was not off work and, while I had had a few weeks off in May and June with my neck amputation, when I returned to work he and I had completed all the various forms required and sent them off to, you guessed it, Human Resources. The reason they were ringing was because after six months’ illness or sick leave, one begins to receive half-pay (for the next six months) and they had just adjusted my pay for November to ensure that I would be receiving half what I normally receive. Graham explained that I had returned to work toward the end of June and that all the relevant forms had been completed and returned to them. They then found, to their embarrassment, that they did indeed have all the forms; they simply had neglected to look at them or to note the contents. In short, they had read and acted upon the first form I submitted which said I was off work due to an operation but they never read or acted upon the next batch of forms which told them I was back. What makes it even more amusing is that during the time of my alleged absence the same people were processing and paying all the travel and expenses claims I submitted. You would think that someone might question the fact that someone who was off work was still submitting travel and expenses claims but apparently those two seemingly contradictory circumstances never occurred to them. After admitting their mistake they hurriedly made an additional direct transfer into my account to reinstate the missing half of my salary. We’ll see what next month brings – with any luck they might pay me one and a half times my salary. We enjoyed an excellent meal with SeamStress on Friday evening at a newish Italian restaurant in Brackley, a town about fifteen miles from here. The restaurant, Rossetti’s, had come recommended by Nick although not from personal experience, I gather. It seems that some knowledgeable friends of his had suggested it and he kindly passed the information along. It was very good indeed although the night was very foggy and what might normally be a twenty minute drive became a forty minute drive which became an hour’s drive on the way home due to the necessity of diverting down a range of narrow country lanes to avoid the articulated lorry which by this time was blocking the main Banbury to Daventry road. Still, a very fine evening with Pete and Sally. And so to the end of another week. Our thoughts are with Sarah as she copes with the loss of her soul mate and with all of you who we love and adore beyond measure. You are with us in our hearts every moment of every day. Love to you all, Greg She was standing in the kitchen, preparing our usual soft- boiled eggs and toast for breakfast, wearing only the 'T' shirt that she normally slept in. As I walked in, almost awake, she turned to me and said softly, 'You've got to make love to me this very moment!' My eyes lit up and I thought, 'I am either still dreaming or this is going to be my lucky day!' Not wanting to lose the moment, I embraced her and then gave it my all; right there on the kitchen table. Afterwards, she said, 'Thanks,' and returned to the stove, her T-shirt still around her neck. Happy, but a little puzzled, I asked, 'What was that all about?' She explained, 'The egg timer's broken.' Two Irishmen in a bar and one said to the other. "Hey! Can you tell me what the date is please?" "No idea." says the other. "But you've got a newspaper in your pocket," he says. "Sorry mate, it's no use, it's yesterday's!" Someone (I think it might have been Steph) sent me an audio file of an allegedly real 911 emergency phone call which went as follows: 911: 911, what’s your emergency? Caller: Uh, yeah. My wife got attacked by a wart hog real bad and I need someone with an ambulance to come and pick her up. 911: OK, Sir. Can you give me your address? Caller: Uh, yeah. We’re at 1825 Eucalyptus Drive. 911: OK. Could you spell that for me, Sir? Caller: (Pause) Uh…. I’m going to drag her on over to Oak Street and you can pick her up there. Some allegedly authentic metaphors used by students in New South Wales, Australia. Since I’ve seen some of these in other contexts, I suspect they’re not completely genuine but amusing nevertheless. Boy, I wish I could write like this: Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature prime beef. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh like the sound a dog makes just before it throws up. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. He was as tall as a six-foot three-inch tree. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a supermarket bag filled with vegetable soup. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on holiday in another city and Sex in the City comes on at 9:00 p.m. instead of 9:30. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot oil. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a university student on $1-a-beer night. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
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What a week it has been ranging from the “exhilarating heights” of the Celebration of Excellence I attended to the shocking, sad and distressing news of youngest sister Sarah’s husband Randy’s death. How fragile is our tenancy on this earth and how important it is to spend every moment adoring the ones we love. In the superficial busy-ness of our modern lives we too frequently allow our love and affection to be assumed; when we lose someone dear to us we realise how important it is to remind ourselves that we need to keep those we love constantly in our hearts and thoughts. Our hearts are filled with deep and overwhelming sadness at Sarah’s loss.