SICK September has struck at County Hall, where a scrutiny panel met on Monday to probe the latest figures on staff absenteeism.

One senior officer, due to appear before councillors to discuss the latest figures, ended up calling in sick due to a bout of tonsillitis, meaning the debate was shelved.

Someone pass me the medicine, quick.

* MANY outgoing mayors claim they won't know what to do with their lives once those chains are handed over - but one ex-first citizen's plan seems to have worked.

Julian Roskam's 12 -month mayoral term in Malvern expired in May, but the Green Party councillor still calls himself 'the Mayor of Malvern' to his Twitter followers.

Putin-esque.

* WORCESTER MP Robin Walker bumped into Dennis Skinner on Tuesday evening and asked the oddball, who has been suspended from parliament at least 10 times, if we can expect to see him on Corbyn's "front bench next week".

The Beast of Bolsover's response?

He told him he doesn't believe in patronage and is too old - so he'd give Labour's expected new leader "the same answer I gave Jim Callaghan in 1977".

* KIDS across Worcestershire think they've had it rough this week, returning back to school after six or seven weeks of fun.

It's a bit like that for our MPs, with the summer recess well and truly over, except the hours aren't quite anything approaching sensible or rational.

Mr Walker's own 'first day back at school' started at 8am on Monday and carried on relentlessly until 12.45am Tuesday morning, the time he was left hanging around until before voting on the EU Referendum Bill.

* AN ANGRY pensioner rang up earlier this week, aghast at the wording of a piece in Tuesday's Worcester News about 80,000 people abandoning calls to the Worcestershire Hub.

"It says '80,000 people give up on phone calls to the hub but it should say 'the hub gives up on phone calls from the public'," she said.

"Every time I've called in recent weeks they've flaming hung up on me."

Click, brrrr.