A day at the theatre

I wonder if I hadn't set out on this dream of crossing oceans, learning to sail, buying a yacht, exploring the islands of the Caribbean, would I be in this waiting room at Preston Royal hospital at 7.30am on Wednesday 23rd of November. Perhaps not, perhaps I would have opted for the radio therapy, a rather less painful, less radical way of dealing with my cancerous prostate gland. I may even have gone for the watchful waiting option of doing nothing. After all it may not develop into a life threatening problem at all, that's how it is with this disease. But these alternatives would mean having very regular tests to keep an eye on its progress. The idea of going cruising and having this Damocles hammer hanging over our voyaging in the end swung the decision.

So there I am at 8am with my NHS backless smock and dressing gown being escorted to the theatre clutching a pillow I've been given to carry. I'm reminded of Ford Prefect in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy who has to have a trusty towel with him prior to his excursions in hyperdrive. I don't think to ask why I'm carrying this pillow, but sheepishly follow directions as we trek the maze of corridors to finally be ushered into theatre 7, and the pre op room. Lucky 7 says my escort, but I'm not at all feeling lucky, I'm feeling distinctly nervous.

Carolyn is the antithesis and Jo her assistant, who exchange a sort of calming banter with me as I'm wired and pricked and readied for the reason I made it to here, next is oblivion until I come round in a bed on ward 15.

Jackie appears with a massive smile and a big hug, its about 3pm and my operation has been and gone. the surgeon pays a brief visit, tells me my prostate weighed 100g and is gone. Funnily enough I'm not in any pain but this tube stuck up my willie does feel decidedly odd. My only inclination of the op is a feeling in my midriff of perhaps being kicked, sort of tender but not what you'ld call painful.

 Jackie stays around until eight and we even manage a couple of games of backgammon then it's chucking out time and Jackie goes off to find a hotel for the night, and I settle in to hospital banter with the other inmates and the sights and sounds of ward 15. Next day I expect to be going home, but it doesn't quite go that way, I have to stay an extra night. Something to do with the amount of stuff in my drain bag. A bit of a disappointment but on Friday afternoon I'm out and on my way home.

I've been home now for a couple of days and apart from the inconvenience of having this catheter to deal with, which I've got for another ten days I'm feeling ok. It was not a very pleasant experience but by all accounts it should be a cure and that was what I wanted. The prospect of our high seas adventure without the threat of cancer hanging in the air will have made this trial more than worthwhile, although I'll have to wait about three months to get he all clear, but by all accounts it should be all behind us now.

As all this has been going on so has the ARC which has just set off from the Canaries on route for St Lucia and we've been tuning in to check their progress. We said three years ago that we would love to do this trip, before we knew how to sail, and after going through this last week trial we're starting to think seriously about entering for next year 2012. I have a feeling that we may have a plan coming together here.

Bin moved

well, it came to pass that the other day we drove into Ford park and we found a man moving the bin at the gates of the park and resiting  it on the pavement on Ford park crescent. Not every day that you get action from SLDC as fast as that. Bin moved, job done. The power of the councillor, but very gratifying.. 

Co-option, and the Inquizition

Co-option is a fancy word in council speak for getting a replacement councillor when someone resigns or dies. Tonight we had to co-opt a conservative Councillor. There were two people who had applied to be co-opted, usually a quite painless exercise

Due to an obscure rule of my lot, the Labour party, seemingly we can't vote for a co-opted candidate who will become a conservative Councillor. That meant that we wouldn't take part in the vote, but we would just observe proceedings. Not that it mattered  the conservatives had a majority, albeit, of one, and we were voting to co-opt a conservative, and that's the way it works.

Prior to the co-opting interview we all agreed that each candidate would be asked the same few penetrating questions.

First up was a portly gentleman with a black tie and a black suit, as if he had just come from a funeral, or maybe he had been to the chamber previously and thought a solemn attire best suited the occasion. He was asked to give the councillors a short introduction, about himself. He told us a rambling tale that began, he said, three weeks ago. He hadn't thought about standing for council but after some comments he had overheard from  visitors about the poor state of our toilets in the gill, he obviously thought he would like to get involved and on seeing the notice about the vacant seat on the council was prompted to apply to be co-opted. He seemed a very down to earth type, a man of the soil, me thinks,or is that soil pipe, that spoke with some real passion about the town and how he hoped he could make a difference.

Then up stepped our inquisitor, Cllr  Jenkinson, I held my breath, what fiendishly difficult question was she going to asked to probe further into the psyche of our candidate.

It was designed to trip up the most able of candidates.

"What do you know about the protocols and procedures of how the council operates" she asked, or something along those lines. With one fell swoop she had exposed the achilles heel of our first candidate. He had to admit that he knew very little of the esoteric nature of local government, but hoped to learn as he went along and became more involved. He seemed to think that having concern and a passion to make things happen for the good of the town would be enough to start with.

Good answer I thought.

Question No. 2. "Do you have any knowledge of how the town council represents different parts of the town". Another scorching question, so relevant to being an effective Councillor, (sic)
Here, he scored a little higher as he seemed to know that the town was divided into wards,

Q.3 "And what did he think he could achieve" if he became the chosen one. This gave him the opportunity to tell us a little more about his abilities to be a listening ear, and how people often came to him to solve problems of one sort or another in his community and at work. He hoped to bring these same qualities to the council. Another good answer, I thought.

The second candidate also looked as though he had also just returned from a funeral, he was slight, a touch dapper, and a lot more reserved.According to his resume he's 75, but carried his age well.
 He faced the grand inquisitor with an ever so slight air of superiority, and  a quizzical stare.
Answering the same questions put by our arch inquisitor he was, shall we say succinct.  .
 To question one, why do you want to be on the town council he may have said "to serve the town", or something like that, I don't remember, as it was answered in the blink of an eye.

Any way we were straight on to question two.

I think his answer to that one was "yes", and on Q3 he also seemed to know about wards.

What did he want to achieve? I think he may have expanded here to slightly more than one sentence, but to me it was an unmemorable aspiration..

The conservatives had their vote, we abstained

By a majority vote of all six conservatives they agreed to co-opt candidate No 2, the 75 year old, who just happens to be the  husband of the mayor.

Even if we, the labour lot had  voted, and we had all voted for candidate A, candidate B would still have won because they, the conservatives, had already decided who they wanted, before the fiasco of the interview.         That, it seems, is democracy in action.
To my mind it was all a bit of a farce, even if we'd had Nelson Mandela, as the other candidate he wouldn't of stood a chance. It's sad but true that party politics plays out its petty games even in Ulverston town council. and last night we saw it played out, blatantly.

Candidate No 1 even said that he didn't think that it mattered a jot whether you were on the left or right, he just wanted to bring his passion for the town to the Council debates.Maybe that's where it all went pear shaped for him, I mean the last thing the town council want is passion for goodness sake, something might end up getting done.

 Had he declared that he had been a lifelong Conservative supporter the cats may have been among the pigeons and the outcome could have easily gone the other way. But then again being the Mayors husband may have just swung it..
 Just saying.
   

Bin waiting so long

Talking about walking through treacle I must tell you about my brush with SLDC over the last few weeks.

Ford Park wanted to have a rubbish bin moved from the entrance of the park as it was going to be in the way of some new sign-age we're going to put up soon. We thought it could be moved just across the road.

I rang SLDC, on the old number, as the new number is an 0845 number which, as I only use a mobile would have cost me a lot of dosh. The old number, 015395 733333 still works, and is a lot cheaper, but I digress.

I was told by a very bored sounding recorded message that all their operators were busy and I was held in a queue, and then I was played some extremely soporific muzac, seemingly designed to calm me down, I suppose. At that point I started to feel annoyed.

Within a couple of minutes I was through to a "receptionist", and I explained what I wanted to have happen with this bin at Ford Parks entrance.  She couldn't put me through to the department that would be responsible but told me that she would put through a work order and somebody to get back to me on this.

Nothing happened for a week, so I decided to call again.

I got through to a different person this time, and insisted to be put through to the appropriate dept. which the lady said may be the dept. responsible for parks. The person I needed to speak to was Tony Naylor, but the call went to his answer machine, so I left a message, asking him to call me back.

Nothing happened for a week so I called again and asked to speak to Tony Naylors' office.

Again, no reply so I left a second message.

Nothing happened for another week, so I called back. This time the phone was answered by Tony Naylor.

I said that I had been trying to reach him for the last two or three weeks. He said that he had been off work with some sort of illness and hadn't got my messages, or the work order. I told him about the bin problem and he said he would tell Mark Hirst in Ulverston to contact me.

Nothing happened, so a week later I called again and asked to speak to Tony Naylors office. The call went to his voicemail, so I left another message.

Nothing happened for another week, I left another, more tetchy message.

The next week I called again and asked to be put through to Tony Naylors' office. The phone was answered by somebody called Chris, he was very helpful, took the details of what I wanted to have done, and that I was waiting to hear from Mark Hirst in Ulverston. Chris said he would get on to it. I asked who he was, he said he was the SLDC tree officer who just happened to be in Tony Naylors office. But he said he would try and move things along.

An hour and a half later Mark Hirst called me. He said that the guy who would do the moving of the bin had been on holiday, but that he would come and meet me next Monday or Tuesday.

An hour later, I was putting out a sign on the field when an SLDC van pulled up, it was Peter, sent by Mark  to look at the job we wanted doing. He said that he was responsible for working on SLDC play areas, not exactly bins, but he could do it. Well he could, but this bin may be street furniture, and the place where the bin was to be moved to may belong to Cumbria county council. He would go away and investigate and get back to me.

And so that's where we are, bin still in the same place, not moved. But I'm hopeful that perhaps next week we may get an answer and the bin may, or may not get moved.

It's not easy to get bins moved.
This is a ridiculous tale, just to get a bin moved 10 yards, but it seems to be symptomatic of other stories I have heard of people coming up against the inertia of the officers at our district Council. It is amazing how many of them are off work ill, or on holiday and there is nobody else to do their job, their department just grinds to a halt. The cynic in me even wonders if the ill or holiday excuse is true.

Have you had a similar experience, I would like to hear from you if you have.

The treacle minefield meeting

I was at a meeting today to discuss what could be done about the unauthorized traffic using New market street on Market days, especially on Saturdays. This meeting had been set up following me bringing up the issue in a council meeting a few weeks ago, and had been arranged by our local police.
They had brought together the market manageress,
an SLDC bloke responsible for parking restrictions,
the police traffic enforcement officer,
James Airey, town and County councillor,
Jamie Sampson, Ulverston SLDC councillor,
 Pat Jones, UTC present mayor,
Jim Prosser, Conservative town councillor,
A County council highways officer,
A bloke I didn't quite catch his title,
another Ulverston police officer,
and me.

We were crammed into a very small meeting room in the newly refurbished Town hall, but I suppose it could have been called cosy, the window had to be left open to allow some air into the room, but it also spilled a lot of traffic noise into the debate.

All of us agreed that something must be done, which of course was blatantly obvious otherwise we wouldn't be there, however as the meeting got into full swing it became obvious that there was not going to be an easy fix.

The main stumbling blocks are these; according to the polices' traffic officer the sign at the entrance to New market street in too ambiguous. Well perhaps not ambiguous but it has so many exemptions to who can and can't use the street on market days. Seemingly this makes the identification of unlawful users difficult for the police. Now this is really down to the fact that we don't have the police resources to deploy all day on market days. I suppose it may take at least three officers to cover New Market street, Market St and say Tank Square. All on radios and keeping a constant record of all the vehicles using that route, and what their movements have been. I can concede that this would seem a cumbersome use of Police time.

The exemption problem is basically down to the signs at the top of New market street, although it seems pretty plain to me, but once you get things explained by the Police traffic guy it becomes obvious that we need a new sign. Of course, as is the way of these things, getting a new sign is not going to be a quick fix.

It would have to go through numerous hoops, agencies and committees before some bloke could be fixing the new sign to the poles; maybe 12 months or more. In that time people could get knocked down, but that,s the way a bureaucratic fix would work. And in the end this probably will become part of the solution.

One solution offered was to move the Saturday market into Market Place only, thats the bit from the market cross to the junction of New market street. This has some merit, I suppose, and as a short term fix could help but there would be opposition from some traders, we were told, and also, as one of us said, this would shrink the market when the towns ambitions would be to grow the markets hopefully in the future.

Rejigging the one way system to allow cars to go down Cross st and Brogden street was agreed to be a good possibility but; this would involve lots of hoops, agencies and committees, another long haul.

A barrier, although used in lots of other towns, also wasn't a quick fix and one fraught with health and safety problems. Emergency access etc. etc.

Round and round we went forever becoming entangled in byelaws and regulations that conspired to thwart our good intentions.
In the end we arrived at a couple of courses of actions which we would take.

1. The town council would have to decide what the future shape of the market should be. This would be put on the agenda for the next council meet, or the one after that, but as early as possible.
2. The Police would mount an awarness campaign, on the streets and perhaps in the media, and await the outcome of the Councils reccomendations.

So it's the same old story when you come to try and fix what seems like a very simple problem. Common sense tells you it could be solved in a jiffy, but I'm afraid it's going to be a long and sticky walk through a treacle minefield until we can find a permanant solution.

I'm sorry that it will be this way, but you would have to have been at this exploritary meeting to understand how mind bogglingly difficult and frustrating it can be, making simple things happen. Lets just hope that it doesn't come to a nasty accident to shake us into making things happen a lot faster than they will.