Forget about pensions for a moment. BBC staff at White City have got something else on their minds – rats. And not just live ones. "I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight some 'lessons learnt' from a recent facilities management decision," begins BBC project manager Cormac Kennedy in a letter to Ariel concerning rat poison laid in the building's garden courtyard. Kennedy says the poison was put down without prior notice, and "cracks and crevices" not properly secured. "If the above lessons are taken on board we can avoid the scenario where a poisoned rat crawls his way through one of the afore mentioned crevices to die and decompose – filling our office with the putrid stench of rotting flesh for a week. Due to the inaccessible nature of this particular rodent's final resting place ... we had to sit out the smell until the carcass 'dried out' – a process that took more than a week, days four and five being by far the worst."
