All social care, libraries, refuse collection and street lighting axed in new budget round; Council searches for vanishing trunk roads; bus station relocated to Wayling Moor; reflective instruments; villages renamed in sponsorship initiative; pub closures; river removal confirmed.

Note: Just before Christmas 2017, Penny Post received information from ‘The Council’ about changes to various services over the festive period (it didn’t say which council and we didn’t recognise any of the places referred to but we included the press release verbatim in the hope that it might be of some use). Similar information was received just before Easter 2018 which we again published in the same spirit.  We received a further communication from the same source about this alarming place. Once again, we reprint it verbatim, just in case…

Roads

The prosecutions arising from the incident between the A993 and the B600 on 10 December 2018 have been halted after the A993 broke bail conditions. It is believed to have left the country disguised as the N85 (Grasse to Digne section) or part of Interstate 40.

The Z9 between Bree, Winterfell and Cair Paravel will be closed for time-portal repairs until further notice.

After the cat’s eyes were removed from the A007 at the Wizard’s Bypass in December 2017, replacements were sourced from Finland. 5,000 were delivered but were discovered to have metric studs, whereas the holes in the carriageway and the road base are imperial. The Council has since ordered a supply of conversion termites from Ghana which will gnaw the studs to the requisite size. The former northbound (currently westbound) lane is still being held in place with duct tape but the former southbound lane has vanished.

The B004 between Boiling and Largely Bigenough turned green on 19 January and has since vanished. The police have been informed.

A new portfolio position has been created at The Council. With immediate effect, Councillor Rayner Filigree will hold the portfolio for road retention.

Bus services

The new night-bus service, the 00000, introduced on 29 December 2017  between Upper Darkening and Thatchbury Dogmarket, is scheduled to arrive at Upper Darkening on 16 May 2019, not 30 June 2018 as previously advertised.

The P45 ‘pay-as-you-earn’ round-robin service between Chippings Loose, Chippings Magna and Chippings St Peter will now run only on quarter days. All payments for this service must be made in bullion.

The M15 and M16 services between Smiley and Beebop Karla have been suspended for reasons we are not allowed to reveal.

The following changes have been introduced to services in and around Thatchbury:

Route 1, Dogmarket to Satan’s Widow roundabout: This will now run anti-clockwise.
Route 44, Dogmarket to Frogmarket (via Logmarket). This will now be extended to Hogmarket during Ramadan.
Route 53c, Hogmarket to Minty, Tremble and Terrapin St Rufus. This service has vanished.
Route 55c, Frogmarket to Minty, Euphonium and the Sven-Goran Asylum. This service has vanished.
Route 101, Dogmarket to Lemming St Judas and Cream Cornett. This service has vanished (the road has also vanished).

All other bus services have been contracted out to the Boiling Moleskin Bus Company. Services will be resumed as soon as the company has acquired some buses, the requisite level of funding, qualified drivers, a ticketing system and a new shiny logo which The Council has specified must be red, or blue, or green, or some other visible or nearly visible colour.

The new bus station

The Council is pleased to announce that the Thatchbury bus station will, from a date in the future, be relocated from its previous town-centre site near the railway station and the Pompom Shopping Centre to a new purpose-built location on Wayling Moor. The shelters, toilets, benches and kiosks will be delivered at a time which will also take place in the future at some still later date. There will be a shuttle bus service at a time to be determined between the railway station, Hogmarket, Frogmarket, Hogmarket again and Wayling Moor.

Rail

The main line between Thatchbury Dogmarket (formerly Frogmarket) and Tantamount Junction, which was narrow-gauge until 31 January 2018 and drawn by powerful reptiles between February and October 2018, will again be closed until further notice due to the conversion of polarity required by the electrification project. Although the electrification of the main line will not extend into the council’s area (terminating at Weal), without this polarity conversion the resulting collateral voltage surges will cause a number of problems to the the rails. TwisterTrack has advised that this will include rippling, inversion, blinding lights, gas clouds, subsidence, electrical storms and explosions. The conversion process is expected to take two years. A replacement wagon service drawn by trussed oxen will operate during this time.

The new fares which came into operation on all TwisterTrack services on 2 April 2018 have been abandoned. The Super Apex Offpeak Red Rover will be replaced by the TwisterSaver AwaydayPlus (the italics must be used in all communications). This will be valid on all services except those marked in yellow, lapis lazuli or invisible ink on the new timetables.

Note that these changes are retrospective and apply only to journeys which have already been completed. If you used a TwisterTrack service between 2 April 2018 and 26 January 2019 you therefore need to contact TwisterTrack in order to have your fare recalculated. Note that a separate application must be made in respect of each journey taken in this period. Any penalty fares have already been calculated and were due three weeks ago.

2019-20 budget

This has now been finalised by The Council. The following services will from 1 April 2019 be performed by the following appointed agents:

Refuse collection: The Council has contracted with the Euphonium and South Minty Attack Dog Society to clear refuse. This must no longer be left in bins but piled up by the side of the road. Householders are advised to stay indoors during the collection period.

Libraries: This service has been contracted to the Beebop Parva Dramatic Society whose members will ride around the area (schedule to be agreed) on tricycles reading extracts of the novels of William Thackery, Erica Jong and Jeffrey Archer through megaphones. A premium service, whereby the text will be shouted through your letterbox, is available at a cost of £50pa. There are plans to start a children’s service which will involve members of the Tustle and South Moleskin Hunt Saboteurs using powerful torches to relay selected limericks of Edward Lear into first-floor windows using Morse code.

Street lighting: Participating motorists and householders have agreed, in exchange for a range of personal services provided by councillors, to keep their headlights or upstairs lights on between dusk and dawn on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Social care: The Council has adopted a robust ‘back to basics’ policy which will result in all matters of social care being the responsibility of the families concerned. There will be a ‘time will tell’ bedding down period of two years during which The Council will adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach.

Planning: All planning applications will now be on a voluntary basis. It is up to each applicant to decide whether the application appears to be ‘reasonable’ and a self-approval system will apply. The only stipulation is that all buildings over 400 metres in height will need a Tall Buildings Licence: these cost £5 and will be available from Post Offices and participating greengrocers.

Education: This service will henceforth be supplied by Northumberland County Council. The details, such as whether the educational clients (formerly ‘pupils’) will need to travel to Northumberland and what fees will apply will be revealed no later than one week before the start of the next academic year.

These measures are expected to reduce The Council’s expenditure by 96% which should enable it to balance its books by 2026/27.

Report by the Scrutiny Commission into the Nigerian heiress fraud

The internal Scrutiny Commission, chaired by Councillor Jasper Heavily, will start its investigations no later than some future point. Its remit is to investigate whether or not Councillor J Heavily was (a) responsible or (b) not responsible for the loss of The Council’s entire fiscal reserves and future revenues until 2025/26 as a result of a ‘unique financial opportunity’ presented when he received an email from a Precious Ntenge claiming to be the holder of Bank of Nigeria bonds to the value of £20,000,000,000, 10% of which she would pay as commission to a ‘reliable God-fearing partner’ who could negotiate these on her behalf.

Reflective instruments

All mirrors and other reflective instruments need to be licensed with effect from 1 April. Reflective Instrument Inspectors will be conducting reflective instrument inspections from 2 April. Please visit the council website for further information. Fines for non-compliance or violation will be up to £50 or more or any other figure as might from time to time be necessary.

Geographical changes

Lemming Squires, South Moleskin and Billow will from 30 March until 30 September be sponsored by Kwee Tai Dun Financial Enterprises (China). Each village will be renamed village number 1, village number 2, etc. Confucian wisdom and ‘fast sword, clean strike’ summary justice will apply, except in The Teething Jockey (Lemming Squires), The Horse and Whispering Horse (South Moleskin) and The Howling Gale (Billow) which have received special exemptions on Fridays. Tibetan prayer flags, gongs and anything yellow must be kept under cover.

Last year The Council purchased a range of mountains from the government of Nepal and ran a consultation as to where these should be positioned. The results of the consultation were inconclusive so The Council has gifted them to Himalayan Developments Ltd on the understanding that when they have ‘eroded to a fine dust’ the residue will be used to repair local potholes. In the meantime the mountains have been digitally reduced and are being stored in the beer cellar of Lady Percival’s Hamster in Lemming St Judas.

A reminder that the River Ox, the River Threading and The River Violet have all been sold to Aguavoltabrisk Enterprises, Russia in order to offset possible increases in Council Tax in 2034-35. The rivers have now been removed. These were to have been replaced by shopping-trolley lanes sponsored by Tesco but due to a bi-dimensional issue – the rivers being imperial and the lanes metric – this plan has been abandoned. The council will be robustly defending itself against the resulting lawsuit. The river beds will henceforth be used for the disposal of plastic bags, used contraceptives, dead pigeons and stolen bicycles, as previously.

The following animals will mutate in March 2019: porcupines; threaded newts; Etruscan lupin hounds; engorged triffids.
The following animals will mutate in April 2019: beasts that do slither upon their bellies; animals that are sometimes confused with other animals; impressionable animals; powder skates; vodka rats.

The following licensing changes have been approved by The Council:

The Determined Oyster, Minty: closed until further notice.
Lady Percival’s Hamster, Lemming St Judas: closed until further notice.
The Strategic Arms, Tantamount: closed until further notice.
The Blind Octopus of Jerusalem, Tustle: closed until further notice.
The Gravy Robber’s Zinc Pancake, Fallow: closed until further notice
The Heavily Arms, Thatchbury: open whenever it likes (half-price cocktails til 8pm).
The Electrocuted Alligator, Cream Cornett: closed until further notice.
The Pineapple Without, Lashing Magna: open Tuesdays, 4pm to 6pm (except May).
The Frogmarket Arms in Dogmarket, Thatchbury: closed until further notice.
The Electric Rabbit Warren on Stilts, Minty: closed until further notice.
The Scalphunter’s Reward, Smiley: closed until a date we aren’t allowed to tell you about.
KaBoom Xplosion Klub Retro Wow!!, Thatchbury: closed until further notice.
Radon LoveFest, Thatchbury: closed until further notice.
It’s Like an Actual Thing!, Thatchbury: closed until further notice.

Other announcements received from ‘The Council’: 

• December 2022 Information
• October 2022 Information
• July 2020 Covid Information
• Easter 2018 Changes to Services
• Christmas 2017 Information 

Brian Quinn

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