Will I get published?

We spent part of Sunday at a local park having a fun ride, as the sign below said we should. The council setup a 4km route around the local streets and bike paths, organised traffic marshalls and signs and all that, plus a sausage sizzle. It was a beautiful day for it.



Someone is going to get boned though. The council paid good money to have maybe 12-15 traffic marshalls stand around on street corners directing cyclists and stopping cars, and when I went around at the start, they were all mooching under trees or having a fag or scratching their arse - but none were actually directing traffic.

And they got busted. This gaggle of three gentlemen comprises two Councillors and a council manager (and a senior one by the look of it). They were having an animated chat about the uselessness of the marshalls. The manager was particularly upset as he had arranged the production of all the safe working method statements ('swims' as they are called) and doing that is a pain in the arse. A royale pain in the arse. He was really offended that none of them had bothered reading up on what they were supposed to be doing after he put all that effort into making it a safe event.



One thing that I gleaned is that you can no longer have volunteer marshalls for an event like this - they have to be paid. Buggered if I know why, but I can see why community events are at risk. If the council has to pay 15 people double time to do a few hours on a Sunday, the coffers will be emptied out pretty quickly, and that will be the end of that.

This guy was from the local paper. Wonder if my mug will appear in the next edition?