The Small Pleasures in Life (From Watford Observer)

The Small Pleasures in Life

11:26pm Saturday 15th May 2010

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I like to read and one of my small pleasures in life is a visit to my local library to choose a few books and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet reading all the newspapers in the quiet zone.

The library has had a little bit of a facelift and installed a wizzy piece of kit with lots of buttons on to speed up your visit, not that I`ve ever seen anybody in there in a tearing hurry.

You can now use the wizzy machine to return books, take books out and pay fines, the last bit pleases me most as the paying of fines always made me feel as if I was in the headmasters study explaining why I hadn`t eaten all my sprouts up in the canteen.

The wizzy machine plus a number of computer terminals to search for books has eliminated the need to actually make human contact and as a result the librarians on duty seemed somewhat lost for things to do and wandered around in the hope that someone would actually talk to them.

I was quite pleased with myself as I managed to use the machine all on my own without any help and, when paying my fine, I even managed to find the excuses options screen and blamed my late returns on volcanic ash thereby earning a 50% discount.

I then sat and read the newspapers and discovered that a local councillor holds a `surgery` there just inside the front door, it`s a bit like the opening scene of The Godfather where locals come to ask for favours of Don Corleone.

As she conducts the surgery at full volume I got a valuable insight into major issues of the day including a gate that has been put where a gate shouldn`t be on a communal path ( she`s against gated communities by the way ) and a hedge that is encroaching where it shouldn`t encroach.

Just like Don Corleone she promises action and emails to colleagues in the gate and hedge departments, it`s great ! I never knew such a service existed so I`m going to go back next week and ask her to put a horses head in the bed of the man across the road who occasionally parks his car right outside my house.

That will teach him not to mess with me.

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