Whatever gets you through the day

A wire story making the rounds in Great Britain highlights a wild assortment of jobs on local government payrolls. Roller disco coaches, toothbrush teachers for toddlers, chewing gum removers and the like. The comments at this newspaper are entertaining.

Living in a town where there's enough chewing gum on the pavement to make it necessary to hire someone just to clean it up sounds disgusting to me. All the jobs in the story can probably be made to sound ridiculous (the lollipop ladies are crossing guards) but a spokesman says the workers are providing "vital services that many local residents rely on to get through the day."

Whose ox is being gored and all that. I wonder how much the ox-gorer makes?