Seriously fucked off
Jul.19, 2006, filed under Miscellany
Dear Fife Council,
I have just attempted to attend my regular thrice-weekly swim session at the Fife Institute of Physical and Recreational Education.
You will note I said ‘regular’ and ‘thrice-weekly’. That’s right: I am one of the regular customers who use this facility all the time and help pay for its upkeep. I am one of those people you should be trying to attract, instead of letting rumours get round that you’re planning on demolishing it, along with Kirkcaldy, and building a new one on the Randolph Industrial Estate in Kirkcaldy (which I couldn’t get to of a lunchtime) owing to lack of popularity.
You will also note that I said ‘training’. This means not splashing about in the shallows, using the pool as a wallow, or doing an impression of an entire troop of macaques on speed suddenly discovering the joys of an unattended diving board. Nor does it mean using the pool as a handy perfume-removal dip. It means trying to fit in as many lengths as I can in the limited time I have available during my lunch break.
Currently I am on a three times a week schedule. That may increase. I am even planning on using the gym.
However, I have just gone to the pool for my regular lunchtime session — we can’t all be early birds every day — only to have to stand in a queue for 20 minutes because half of reception was inexplicably closed, to be then told that the pool was full and I couldn’t get in for another twenty minutes. As I had to get back to work this was impossible and thus was my lunch break wasted.
Why has this happened? Because, in its infinite wisdom, Fife Council has decided that under 16s should get in free all day every day for the entirety of the summer break.
Is this really necessary? I understand that it’s excellent to promote healthy activities for kids, and I’m all for that, but would it not be possible to have a couple of hours during the day, including one at lunchtime, for those who use the pool as a serious health and training facility to do so without having to contend with screaming children who don’t care about lane discipline or even, apparently, swimming?
Is that really so much to ask? I buy a Fit Fifer card, which means effectively that I am paying for my swim sessions in advance, and because of the way the scheme works, I have a limited time period in which to use up my pre-paid swim sessions. If I go to use up one of my pre-paid sessions only to be told that I can’t because the pool is full of children who haven’t paid at all, and no provision has been made to make sure there will be a time when I can get into the pool, I’m going to feel pretty hard done by.
Which, for the record, is exactly how I do feel.
As I said, I’m entirely supportive of schemes to get children engaging in healthy, active pastimes, but those of us who carry on using the facilities even when we have to pay, and doing so regularly to a schedule, would greatly appreciate some consideration as well.
Yours etc,
Little Miss Cranky
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Singularity
~something that is singular as (a) a separate unit, or (b) unusual or distinctive manner or behavior; PECULIARITY;
~the quality or state of being singular;
~a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists;
~a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole. Sight
