Well, not really, but clearly the problem of excessive queue lengths at Darlington's Crown Street Post Office is not something exclusive to this town, and not something that only happened in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.
Lynne Featherstone , our excellent MP for Haringey, makes the same points as me about her local post office. The Tottenham, Wood Green and Edmonton Journal reported the problem thus.
My readers may recall this recent blog post. The Echo used this post as the basis for a story in which a spokesman for Post Office Ltd apologised for the length of time people had to wait and said that work was under way to ensure that more counter service points were kept open. The spokesman blamed the pre-Christmas rush, when in fact the real reason is that since three other post offices in the town have been closed down, there have been more customers visiting Crown Street.
This Monday, January 5th, there were again only five counter service points open, and the queue literally stretched to the front door. But they can't blame the pre-Christmas rush now, can they.
The Echo article produced a rather incoherent letter in a later edition of the paper from Cllr Kate Davies, who I identified a couple of years ago as one of the "braying" tendency within the local Conservative Party. Her letter lacked the intellectual clarity we have come to expect from the rigorous and well thought out speeches which she carefully reads out in Council. (Hmm, are you sure about that? - Ed.) Now, I like to argue on intellectual grounds, but when someone like Cllr Davies calls me "stupid" in the local press, I take exception.
Cllr Davies thought she was being really clever by spotting that the Echo article had said that I queued up for 45 minutes, whereas my blog clearly says that an employee of mine queued up. Well Kate, you'll have to blame the journo for that: he changed the story, not me, and without reference to me.
Cllr Davies also claims, because the journo said that one of the parcels being posted was for my son in Afghanistan, that I was using my son for political advantage. This is a cheap shot and wholly objectionable, and not the sort of comment one would expect from a person of Cllr Davies' intellectual maturity (There you go again - Ed.).
I write about what I like in my blog. One of my fellow bloggers in the town writes about his son's prowess as a swimmer. I have written a couple of times about my son's achievements in becoming a Royal Marine. This isn't a search for political advantage, it's simply putting a human and personal element into what we write. Cllr Davies probably doesn't understand the concept of parental pride.
Anyway, I have written to Councillor Davies to thank her for giving me and this blog more publicity.
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1 comment:
Personally I like reading your blog because it makes you as a representative to my ward more human and representative of your ward;
a) you run your own business and work! (which is commendable due to the economy issues)
b) you use public transport so you understand the views of cyclist to drivers
c) having children you know the issues from babies to adult children, like a large portion of your ward (god forbid you have children and proud of it by the way!).
I found out you can post any parcel or packet/letter at the new sorting office collection room, instead of the potential 45min, the extra 5 min walk over the road might be better :).
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