Via Brave New World blog: Private detectives are being used by Norfolk County Council to track down unpaid fines for overdue library books. "It is reported [by The Telegraph] that library users in Norfolk alone have over the last six years paid £1.4m in fines for overdue books."
That reminds me of the time my son was told by his university that he would not receive his degree until he 'returned the library'.
I thought that was a secretarial mistake until we searched the house!
Posted by: Norm | 04 July 2008 at 16:38
Funny, Norm! If you go to the Brave New World link in the post, you'll see the author leads off describing that old Woody Allan sketch where he suffers a police raid for not returning a library book.
Posted by: maxine | 04 July 2008 at 17:41
Bloody hell. Thanks for the tip-off, Maxine. We're always finding overdue library books, especially in the kids' rooms, buried under socks, inside hamsters, under beds and so on. This explains the rusty Ford Zodiac parked outside our house. The one with all the aerials and the fat chain-smoking blokes in the front seats who pause every now and then to chuck burger wrappers out of the window.
Posted by: Henry Gee | 04 July 2008 at 19:14