A DAMNING critique of life at County Hall, according to one anonymous correspondent at least, landed on The Insider's desk this week.

Some of the allegations were unprintable, but the former employee's rant included "council staff spend all day chatting, making personal phone calls" and he adds that "the accounting records are in a mess and a new computer system has not been efficiently implemented, leaving a backlog of queries".

Of course, this just one side of the story and, for all we know, working at County Hall is one big wonderland. But we doubt it.

KEITH Mitchell was one who was pleased with the recent Easter bank holidays -it meant an extra two days away from his busy workload.

The county council leader, who famously works 100-hour weeks and never takes holidays, instead prefers to take odd days off here and there.

That said, Good Friday and Bank Holiday Monday were a Godsend and, we understand, were spent at the homestead, where the lawn at his country pile in Adderbury got its first cut of the year.

VETERAN Oxfordshire county councillor Don Seale, who no longer has his adult learning and cultural services cabinet post after a reshuffle, might well be pleased with the outcome.

For one, it means a reduction in the number of lengthy drives into County Hall from his Gloucestershire home (he lives in Lechlade).

WHILE we all sit around and moan about Oxford's wheelie bin revolution, let's be thankful youths here have not been using the receptacles like their counterparts in the badlands of Barnsley.

Apparently, teenagers have been burning wheelie bins and sniffing the resulting fumes in order to get high.

Police believe dozens of bins in the South Yorkshire town might have been set alight by youths in order to inhale the toxic plastic fumes from what is, in effect, a giant bong.

CONGRATULATIONS that an extra £900,000 in business rates was collected this year in Oxfordshire.

So, what will the money be spent on?

More ploughed into the social and community services budget, perhaps?

No, a large chunk of the money is being earmarked for repairs to the large lump of earth commonly referred to as the Castle Mound in New Road, which subsided after recent rainfall.