Bizarre conversations with the council part 27b

[venta]

I just rang up Oxford city council to get us a new green-box to put the recycling in; ours has taken itself off somewhere on its own business.

So, the nice lady asked me for my postcode. I try to be helpful[*], so I spelt out the postcode in an O-for-Orange kind of way.

The following ensued:

Me: E for elephant.
NiceLady: Is that elephant or alephant ?
Me <too confused to answer sensibly>: Yes.
NiceLady: OK, elephant. What house number ?

Just.... eh?

[*]Yes, really. Sometimes I do.

Comments

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

I think that house has a green box curse. In fact that road does.
The poor green boxes must be terrified, they keep being vanished by the green box eating monster.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think that house has a green box curse. In fact that road does.

I think you'll find we live in a road full of theiving oiks ;)

[kneeshooter]

And I thought Oxford was such a nice place...

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

green box thieving oiks? they must be a strange new strain of thieving oik . . .

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

aka students.....

[triskellian]

We have a spare green box, if it's any help. The thieving oiks who nicked our first one left it, weeks later, lying around on the pavement a bit down from our house, with our house number on the side, so I reclaimed it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but I've requested a new one now :) I might get back to you, though...

The first time [see comments about thieving oiks] our box went missing, Andy phoned the council on and off for nearly a year requesting a new one. We didn't get one. I phoned them once and it turned up the next day. I'm hoping my dots in councilmancy haven't degraded.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Since moving house I've been trying to find the safest way to get the address across a telephone. You can try too hard, as I found when ringing the ICA box office:

'Piano Studios.'
'Which studios?'
'Piano. Like the instrument.'
'Piana? What's a piana? I've never heard of that fucking instrument ... Oops, good thing this isn't being recorded or I'd have lost my job.'

[condign.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the incompetence of the council. You might just ask them straight off if they nicked it.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

It took us three weeks to get our green box replaced when some thieving oiks went off with it. Oxford clearly don't actually approve of the scheme, they seem so incompetent at administering it. What's really annoying is that the flats opposite our house have recycling bins and we're not allowed to touch them, there's big signs saying so. We sneak over at night sometimes and put bottles in them, but can't help feeling the City Council would like to prosecute us for doing so, or something.

[kneeshooter]

As long as you're dissing the City rather than the County Council as the latter are great - at least while they keep the pay cheques coming!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I spent several years working for the County Council, in City Chambers, County Hall, and Macclesfield House. Can't say any of the three departments counted as "great" employers... but it was handy working in MaccH while also being at university, I didn't have any grant cheque problems!

[kneeshooter]

Point taken - great was perhaps a lot bit of an exaggeration.

[chrisvenus]

Oooh... how do you get a new box? We had ours taken away ages ago (complete with all the recycling we left in it curiously enough) and have never bothered to get a new one. Given the amounts of cans we have to recycle it might be an idea though.

We reckon that given they say (if I rmember correctly) "leave it outside empty" if you don't want it any more that one guy came and emptied it and the next guy came and went "oh, its empty" and nicked it. :)

Bloody people. :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Ring them up and demand another one - the phone book has the right no. listed on the OCitC page IIRC. I do think you're right about the 'leave it empty if you don't want it' bit - the people that empty them are supposed to turn them upside down or put them back in your garden or something, once they've emptied them, but they never do. I occasionally have to retrieve ours from three or four doors down (ours is marked with large numbers and a sticker, as was the one that disappeared), and once it wound up in the next cul-de-sac along, somehow. (DH happened on it the next day when he went round to see someone.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Call 'em on 0800 7831957.

Don't use the word elephant.

[voratus.livejournal.com]

What about olifants?

[venta.livejournal.com]

S'pose that makes marginally more sense than alephant.

I wouldn't mind, but last time I tried saying "E-for-echo" in the approved phonetic alphabet manner, the person I was speaking to though I said "G-for-gecko".

Can't bloody win :(

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

You could try "A for 'orses", "B for mutton", "C for yourself", etc.

[uitlander]

I'll match your oliphant and raise by a heffalump!

[narenek.livejournal.com]

Is your heffalump equiped with it's own Vennel?