I've got me tickling tackle and me nicky nacky noo

Dennis is working with us on a six-month work placement at Umpty Library. Any ideas he may have entertained about libraries being sedate, genteel places have been shot to bits by some of the customers.

"Donny!" shouts Mrs. Tumbleweed, "I'm trying to remember the name of that book I had the other week. I can't remember what it were called but it were about a lass as was taken up the jacksy by a sheikh. It were a Mills and Boon. I have to have them in the large print these days."

Valentino lives!!!

You can always tell it's the third week in February: all the books about sexually-transmitted diseases are flying off the shelves.

You'll have someone's eye out with that

Every so often we worry about the physical state of some of the books we loan out to the public. It's not our fault this time, it's a book we've borrowed off Borsetshire Libraries via the regional loan service. It's a bit stained, battered round the edges and the pages are falling out. It also happens to be the only copy available for loan anywhere in the country and is well-used even today, with a waiting list as long as your arm.

The waiting list isn't the only thing about the book that is as long as your arm. As we find out by casually letting the book open at random. A shocked perusal by people old enough to know better confirms that it is, for all intents and purposes, fairly hard core gay porn.

"Who on earth requested this?" I asked Sybil.

"One of the old dears on the housebound library run," she replies.

Silly question, really.

Smells like teen spirit

This is wrong on so many levels…

Some of us have our sexual magnetism wave the white flag and give up at an early age. Not Mr. Tallyhassen, one of the regulars at Umpty Library. Evidently he still has it, even at the age of 74 judging by the conversation I've just overheard.

"I've just been helping Mr. Tallyhassen with his email."

"Ooh… Mr. Tallyhassen. Have you smelled him?"

"Oh yes. I leant over to point at the screen and it was all I could do not to go all funny at the knees."

"I know what you mean. Lovely."

There's no W in "puerile"

Oh goodie. As if things aren't bad enough we now have class warfare erupting in Spadespit Library's sewing circle. "The wrong sort of people" are trying to join the group and it's upsetting the members.

Posy is asked to adjudicate, and best of luck to her. I suspect she'll be needing brandy and brown sugar by the time the week's over.

This is how Call Me Dave's Big Society will be running public services in the future.

I'll get me coat.

An occasional hippo

One of the customers at Dutch Bend has a bit of a dress code incident this afternoon, catching the hem of her skirt in her coat as she took it off, giving the whole of the library a flash of her unclothed nethers.

One of the other customers mutters to his mate:

"I had a turkey butty ready for me dinner but I'm not hungry now."

Not wanting to block a badger's passage

The things you hear in libraries...

Two young male customers shouting from opposite corners of the entrance way to Carbootsale Library:

"Where was you this morning?"

"I had to go to the clap clinic."

"What yer got?"

"She says it's that chlamydia thing."

Verity stands at the counter and tuts.

"If he's got it, he'll have passed it round half the estate by now."

Empowerment

Canal Man's been in the library again. He's a source of gentle backstage amusement and nods of recognition, one of the regular irregular customers.

He's what is technically known these days as a "vulnerable adult," a bit slow on the uptake and with the reading age of a child but very, very keen on books. He'll sometimes borrow a dozen at a time, take them home and then bring them all back the next day so that he can get some new ones. He goes through sequences of obsessions: for a long while it was canals and narrowboats, then it was church architecture and now it's lighthouses. It's a challenge to satisfy the demand from stock but it gives some of the books from the reserve collections an airing, which is no bad thing.

Odd though this behaviour is, I think it's brilliant. Oh yes, the cynic in me will be happy that he's improving our visitor and circulation statistics but that's not the important thing. The important thing is that he's happy. He's found somewhere he can visit safely by himself, he can decide for himself what he does or doesn't borrow and he genuinely likes the books for their own sake. How often does he get to be in control of any transaction or activity? I'm glad we're giving him the opportunity.

And I'm glad he's taking it.

I need to remind myself of these things occasionally.

Cast he that is stoned without sin

The good thing about having a mezzanine floor to a library is that a customer can be sick over the parapet and have it land on one of his mates as he walks down the stairs.

Ancestral voices

A colleague writes:

"One of the users has been giving staff a rare old run around while trying to trace her family tree. Thing is the same woman claims to be a medium, so as quite rightly the Family History Librarian points out, if she was any good as a medium she could just ask her ancestors and do her tree that way without bothering them."

Do you think he's crazy, skipper?No, just enthusiastic

A visitor was enthusing about the furniture in the Reading Room.

"You can feel the philosophy oozing out of those sofas"

The next contestant will now do her mime

Frog points towards one of the customers in the library.

"What do you think that lady does for a living?" he asks me.

This is Helminthdale, I daren't guess. Least of all in public.

"She drives a thirty-six ton truck," he tells me.

I look at her again. She's a small bird-like creature. I'm astonished that she can climb up into the cabin, let alone drive one.

"She used to come into Spadespit Library at first. That's when her first three were still young enough to come to under-fives'. Let's see... That was Eoin, Calum and... Timothy?"

"No, Timothy was the fifth one. It was Eoin, Callum and Arthur. Then she had Pat and then Timothy," said Bronwyn.

"So is that Pat and Timothy with her now?" I asked.

"No... Pat was a little girl," said Bronwyn.

"That's Brian and Donal," said Frog.

"How many are there?" I asked.

"Is it eight?" asked Bronwyn.

"No, it's nine. Her sister's looking after the baby."

I'm astonished she can find the time to drive a truck, let alone the energy.

On the Hop

Just a week into The Summer Reading Challenge and Frog and Maudie are already inundated with calls (always from the same two libraries) asking: "the children have finished the Summer Reading Game, what do we do now?" The professionalism of both shines through and they give better answers than I would have.

Perhaps the most spectacular challengers frequent Pottersbury Road Library. Hedi was ringing up with the question last Monday afternoon. No mean feat given that the game started on the Saturday, the library was open for three hours on the Saturday afternoon and she was ringing an hour after re-opening on the Monday. We're still trying to work out how the children would have registered for the game, gone away and read two books, come back and got their first set of goodies, read another two books and come back for the second and then read the final two books and come back for their winners' certificates in the time available.

Maudie, as ever, is a model of economy in response to daft questions.

"What happens when we run out of goodies to give to the children?"

"You won't have any left."

Ranting windmills

Helminthdale being such a small place, many of our customer transactions have a lengthy back story. Take the Child Psychologist who's just had his books issued to him by Janie. Janie used to be a teacher before she retired and had to go to some of his seminars.

"Some of the teachers used to hang on his every word as if it were gospel. Which was strange given that his children had such extraordinary behaviour. One insisted on coming into class on a skateboard and just wouldn't be stopped doing it. I'd get 'phone calls: 'how dare you stifle my child's freedom of expression?' I tried my best to explain that I also had to respect the freedom of expression of the thirty-five parents complaining about their children's bruised ankles but he wasn't having any of it."

The healthy living agenda

A couple of the Library Assistants are moaning about stiffness and bad backs.

"Hey up," says a passing customer (of an age), "tha'll be alright once you have a shit and a sleep. Not at the same time, mind."

She's been out all night frightening policemen

A customer has been into the library raising Cain and spitting feathers about the book she'd just read.

"Filth," she snapped at Norma. "Absolute filth. What have you got to say about it."

"Well.. The Library Service doesn't write the books, we only buy them."

"Fancy wasting the taxpayer's money on filth like that. Disgraceful. Who do I complain to about this."

"You're doing a very good job of complaining to me about it, but if you want you can fill in one of our customer feedback forms and I'll make sure it gets given to the right person for them to reply to you."

"Hmpf. Well. I suppose that's good enough."

"Can I help you with anything else?"

"Have you anything else by the same author?"

Illuminated parchments

More madness from the council offices on Pottersbury Road. Just to put our loonies into perspective...

"Our first customer on Tuesday morning reported that a naked man pulling his piece was wandering around outside his house the evening before. The customer reported this to the police but no one came (except the naked man maybe?). Suffice to say the customer then continued to report that his neighbour awoke the next morning to discover the same man stretched across his 6 month old car stark naked with a light bulb in his mouth! The girl on the desk kept a perfectly straight face during all this except when she asked: "can you tell me when he was pulling his todger with the light bulb in his mouth…. Did it flash?"

"This is absolutely true. You couldn’t make it up could you?"

There's a lot to be said at our age for a plain matt finish

I'm talking to Lippy when a customer pokes her head through the doorway.

"Are they in yet?" she shouts.

"No, love!" shouts back Lippy.

"I'm 79!" shouts the lady.

"You're looking good on it," shouts back Lippy.

I'm baffled.

"Do you know," says Lippy, "I've known Mrs. Uttercliffe for fifteen years and all that time she's been 79. According to her date of birth she's 72. Bless her."

A loser is not a winner and never will be unless there's a draw

A customer is not happy that we told her that her books were ten days overdue. She's a pensioner and so doesn't pay fines on overdue loans but is still not happy that we told her.

"I want to speak to somebody with a degree," she declares.

Sammi, who is brilliant with customers, tries her best but the lady is determined.

"Have you got a degree? No. I want to talk to somebody with a degree."

Luckily, Maybelle has a degree in Big Hulking Men from the University of Hull Kingston Rovers so she was able to mollify the customer by saying: "I have a degree, do you want to talk to me?"

God bless all policemen and fighters of crime

We are having a problem with a hooligan element at Epiphany Library, which this time isn't the staff.

"They're a real pain in the arse and they just won't leave the library, even when the police tell them to go away and leave our customers alone. Just what are we supposed to do?"

"You could pretend they're retired Chief Librarians."