Clissold Leisure Centre: We Waited Four Years For THIS?

Within minutes of signing up to a monthly direct debit “couples membership” with the lovely PC Bitseach, I could feel my blood-pressure rising. You see, they were happy to immediately take my money- and then explain that I could not use the gym (why I joined the godforsaken place) until I had been given an “induction”. Great, when can I come in? You woulda been so proud: I didn’t blow a fuse when they said TWO WEEKS, although I did indicate in a firm, yet tactful way, that it was a bit of a cheek to get me to pay two weeks subs for something I couldn’t use. Indeed, if I knew that was going to be the case, I would have postponed commencement of my membership to the day of my induction.

And the induction that I waited so patiently for? LOL! “Yeah, these are stationary cycles, it’s like riding a bicycle, yeah? Wotever. I’ve been to enough gyms to work out the equipment for myself.

Wait for it: the best bit was subsequently showing up, all signed off and with my little membership card in hand, only to be told that I have to queue up with all the other eedjeets asking questions and signing up for membership. “But I’m a ‘Wellness’ member”. Regrettably, at the CLC, membership has no privileges. Spending 15 minutes standing in a queue to access a gym I pay for on a monthly basis does not make this writer a happy bunny.

“Any chance of you guys setting up a swipe card system, like other gyms?”

“We’ve been overwhelmed with people signing up for memberships” the manager wimpered.

“You’ve had FOUR YEARS to prepare”.

“Oh, but that wasn’t US. I’m not going to ‘get into it’ with you”.

Dear Reader, you woulda been so proud. No fuss, no fits. Just a mental note that they are already on a yellow card.

Do we pull out the red and send these £90M nit-wits off? Read the far more stable than me PC Bitseach’s account and you decide: -

 Hmm… no pressure then. Yup we were among the first people to show up to join and couldn’t wait to hand over our cheque and Direct Debit authorisation slip. Oh boy, finally somewhere to go to try to shift the standard-issue WPC gigantic arse I’ve been growing over the past 4 years (thank Heavens I’m normally on foot patrol; if I was out in a car I’d be on “Fat Cops Can’t Hunt” or some old shite on BBC3 by now).

“So,”, I said on that first day, “When can I do my induction?”. “Ah well, no slots until after Christmas”

“???” “So what can I do at this place until then?”. “Well there is the pool”.

So I put my name and mobile number down on every day’s induction list in the hope of getting a cancellation, then sat for a week by the phone like a lonely old spinster waiting for a call, one way or the other. It never came.

In the meantime, I tried to go for a swim. On the first day, they couldn’t give me the proper card so I have this crappy cardboard one that I almost have to fold in two to fit into my wallet / warrant card but I thought, no probs, I’ll just get it next time. With my swimming togs and goggles, and all excited at finally loosening the old joints with a good swim, I showed up. There was a 10 minute queue but surely with my membership card they could buzz me through the gates – after all, everyone else seemed to be awaiting memberships. No, I’m sorry, even with a membership card you have to queue to be seen by the staff before you can even go for a swim. Hmmmph!

So I finally got to the front of the queue, said I’d like a swim, could they buzz me through. They took my shitty cardboard card, stared at it, did some one-fingered typing on their keyboards, frowned a bit, chewed their bottom lips, said, “Errrr….” a lot, then referred me to the special white-shirts on the other side of the barriers. Finally! This was it! I was through the gates!! And into another 10 minute queue. It was actually only a one-person deep queue but the blasted thing still took 10 minutes. Through gritted teeth, I hissed out, “There is apparently some problem with my card or membership. All I want is A SWIM!” fighting my annoyance. After a further 5 minutes’ pissing about on the computers, the white-shirt called the other one over and started to give her a lesson in what she SHOULD have done the first time and why there was no issue with my card after all. Hello? Can you sort out your training needs later, perhaps WHILST I’M SWIMMING??? Huh?

Well when I finally got there, the pool was lovely, a nice young man seemed to be keeping lane discipline and assigning us to empty lanes. This is an immediate improvement on the previous fuckwit lifeguards of the Clissold Leisure Centre who couldn’t have given less of a crap if some moron bloke with an ego larger than both his willy and certainly his swimming ability was allowed to clog up the medium or fast lanes, leaving a log-jam of frustrated fast swimmers like me staring up his shiny banana-hammocked arse and trying to avoid getting kicked in the face by his verucca-encrusted feet (yup, you gotta love municipal swimming!).

Forty breathless lengths later I got out. In my excitement at going swimming (think 8-year olds being taken by their parents to the wave-machined pool on a Saturday morning) I had forgotten my flip-flops, but now, tired and with head drooping, I looked down at the floor of ladies’ changing. Oh. Bloody. Hell.

Tip-toeing wasn’t enough to avoid the mud and hairs on the wet changing room floor. In fact even if I’d been en pointe I couldn’t have avoided the muddy hairs (or hairy mud – I couldn’t tell there was so much of it). And it was at this point that I realised that no, we didn’t get our 20p back from the changing room lockers. Er, thanks people, haven’t we paid enough to build the fucking place twice over and then in our membership fees? [sigh]

Still no inductions available. Still no means of getting a real card. Every time I’ve tried, their machines aren’t working. Or they aren’t picking up their phones. And some of us, despite living in Hackney, HAVE JOBS and all and can’t spend all day knocking on their doors and hanging on the telephone trying to organise an induction.

Finally I get a day off work and I reckon I’d try again in person. Nope, computers aren’t working, still can’t do you a card. Oh and we shut at 5pm at the weekends. FIVE PM AT THE WEEKEND? What helling use is THAT? Okay, calm, Bitseach, calm, serenity now…that’s better. Okay well what about an induction date? Yep well we’ve already shut down the booking system for the day so we can’t do it now. Oh and the current wait is 2 to 3 weeks. But I joined in December, I’ve tried many times to be inducted, I’ve held my YMCA gym instructor’s certificate for over 5 years, for fuckssakes to have to wait for some straight-out-of Sink Estate Academy Community School who’s learned this shit 3 weeks ago to show me how to do a bicep frigging curl! 

So now I have a phone number to phone again for cancellations, no card, no nicely defined muscles or trimmer figure, grinding teeth and high blood pressure to show for my membership. By the time I get an induction, if I EVER get one, I’ll have paid for a month and a half’s membership. For a couple of swims in a filthy environment.

Can you imagine if all the Church Street businesses acted like this? If I went into the Spence or the Tea Rooms for a cup of coffee and a nice bun, and they said, “yeah that’ll be £2.10 for the coffee and bun but you’ll have to wait 3 weeks for it because we’ve had a lot of people asking for coffee and buns and somehow this becomes your problem not ours, but in the meantime we need the money up front”????

The staff are pleasant but untrained – apparently still – after their extensive training process (hmmm…) and weeks of operational experience. Nice but useless, in the way that chocolate is nice, but in the form of a teapot….?

So I hope you will now all join me in a song. The tune will be quite apparent. Everybody now:

On the first day of membership the Centre said to meeee… “thanks a lot fo-or all your mon-eeeeeey!”
On the second day of membership the Centre said to meeee…. “No we can’t give you a card, but thanks a lot fo-or all your mon-eeeeeey!”
On the third day of membership the Centre said to meeee…..”Can’t get you inducted, can’t give you your card but thanks a lot fo-or all the mon-eeeey!”
On the fourth day of membership the Centre said to meeee…..”Can’t get you inducted. It’ll take a month now. Still don’t have your card yet. Thanks a lot fo-or all the mon-eeeeyyy!”
On the fifth day of membership I fucking left the useless bastarding fucktards to it, cancelled my membership and went for a run around the delightful Clissold Park. I’d like a refund o-on all the mon-eeeeyy!

PC Bitseach.

Take note local mag: as with everything else on this site (c) Kris, 2006-2008.