Saturday, April 07, 2007

Daft Bats

Thanks to 'Nick' for the PFI story. Basically there seems to be three rules of Private Finance Initiative (the modern clever way to build schools)

1) You don't get what you were promised.

2) It's made of cardboard.

3) Nobody takes the PFI company to task for not doing what they originally promised.

Anyway in Nick's school they've found bats nesting in the roof so no further work can take place as the building company risk a fine of up to £3000 for every bat death which can be shown to be down to their work. The Council have sent the 'Bat Lady' to compile a report. She stays overnight in the building and listens carefully for evidence of the little fellows and searches for bat droppings (I'd started laughing by now, too). My question is this:

If she does come across a bat poo or manage to record nocturnal bat noises, does she phone up the Council on the bat mobile?

Hope you have a nice Easter. No posts next week as I'm away.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

In a school I know there are bats coming in frequently setting off the alarm system so the head has to come out and sort it out at 3 am.

Anonymous said...

The HEAD sorts it out??? Don't they have site managers/janitors/supervisors for that?
Chalk, you should be beaten vigorously for that TERRIBLE joke.

Ellie said...

I really enjoyed your book. It has inspired me to re-enter the blogging world, after being put off by anonymous idiots. Anyway... Just to let you know I've blogrolled you. Hope that's ok.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, surely if there is any hint that bats may have entered (or even approached) a building, wouldn't it have to be evacuated until further notice? So as not to disturb the bats, I mean?

ba ba said...

OT: I was going to do a comment on this latest insanity, but the news article below does it for me at the bottom. Madness!

News article filed by BNP news team


Teachers have been told to praise badly behaved pupils more than they punish them. There are concerns that punishing badly behaved pupils will alienate them, and instead teachers should stop praising the "same good pupils" and start rewarding the unruly ones.

Teachers have also been told they should take the race and culture of pupils into account when disciplining them, as being "loud" or "over familiar" may be accepted behaviour in the pupil's culture. Teachers should also show respect to those children whose cultural and religious views consider public humiliation shameful. Teaching staff have been told they should not use language which could humiliate such pupils in front of their friends.

The new guidelines have brought criticism of being too soft. Pupils would see badly behaved pupils being rewarded and this would encourage more bad behaviour.

The return of proper classroom discipline would not go amiss, instead of lily livered pandering to louts and yobs the whole time.

Anonymous said...

The janitor is a single mum who walks to and from work every day, three mile distance (can't drive) , so she can't really be expected to hike around at three am ....so the head is called out. No joke.