A career

Fantasy Bob has never respected those sneering media commentators who mock job advertisements for local authority posts.  Tempting though it is to wonder exactly what the legion numbers of diversity officers, equality support workers, learning opportunity enhancement operatives and all the rest of these grandly titled posts really achieve throughout the working day, FB is sure that they are dedicated public servants who provide valuable services and in many small ways make the grey world that many people have to face each day that bit brighter or more bearable.

When FB was making a career choice things were different.  A fresh faced adolescent would go to the school or university careers advisor who would hand him a plate of prunes.  One by one they were eaten and the stones put on the edge of the plate.  Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor...........when the prunes ran out that was the job for you.

FB is of course still deciding his career choice.    If the truth be told, he entered his present employment only to give him space to decide what he really wants to do.  He is still deciding.  He recognises that he is leaving it a bit late.  The choice will very shortly be limited to one option - pensioner.  All his chosen options seem to have fallen away; from rock star, to film director, to Olympic medallist, to Booker prize winning author.

Although he missed the advertisement for this particular post, he is pleased to learn that there are still positions in the employment market which could make use of FB's skills.  He read today of a local authority who employed someone at a cricket ground whose job was to stand behind a fence and wait for balls to be hit over the fence so he could throw them back.  Apparently the fence surrounded some flood prevention works and encroached on the boundary.  The Council was concerned that cricketers would injure themselves climbing the fence and so the Cricket Ball Retrieval and Restoration Operative was created.  Fantasy Bob could have done that job.

There may be lessons here for go ahead Edinburgh cricket club.  Their Grange Loan HQ is bordered on one side by a hedge behind, which there are gardens of elegant Edinburgh residences.  On the other side is a wall behind which there is a road along which a bus service squeezes its way between the lines of parked cars.  Depending on which side of the square the Doughty Groundsman has determined that play will take place, balls can end up in the gardens or vying with the bus for road space.  Clearly a cricket ball retrieval and restoration operative is required.  FB has considered offering his services for a small stipend.  However he understands that the ball retention committee have reviewed this possibility and determined that FB's arm is so pathetic these days they doubt that he could get the ball back over the hedge or the wall.  He would simply embarrass himself causing more work for the Council's Old Fools Embarrassing Themselves Counter Measures Support Officer, who is already overworked as a result of FB's efforts.

So, another career opportunity goes begging for FB.   Pensioner looks increasingly likely.  Just another couple of prunes and that will the only choice.