The Very Unofficial Guide to Us

The first mistake was writing my complaint so well.

If I had written IT'S RUBBISH on the library feedback form, as my brother suggested, nobody would have invited me to a meeting about the official visitor guide. They would have filed it with the complaints about pigeons and the man who believed every computer was watching him personally. Instead, I used complete sentences. I gave examples. I attached a photograph of the map showing a public toilet that had been a candle shop for four years.

Now I was sitting in a room beneath a clock that had stopped at eleven seventeen, listening to a woman from the festival committee explain that constructive criticism was a gift.