June 2008 - Posts
ANYONE sauntering through Welwyn village during its festival period will notice the lack of bunting along the High Street.
As reported in a previous edition of the WHT, this is due to officious fire bosses vetoing their staff from hanging the jovial decorations.
This has understandably ruffled a number of feathers of residents in the village who have revelled under the bunting annually for over 30 years.
But travelling past Welwyn fire station the other day I was baffled to see a huge banner hung from the roof of the building advertising the… er, Welwyn Festival!
Obviously the firemen would not have been allowed to do this, but well done whoever did.
It’s about time health and safety was diluted with a bit of common sense!
I WOULD be lying if I said I was a frequent user of post offices.
However, I am still startled that a service as integral to any community can be so recklessly discarded.
To read that the Marsden Road office is set for the chop is even more shocking.
Only a week ago, I popped into the friendly branch to purchase a book of stamps and send off a few eBay items that I had recently flogged.
As I waited in a queue of chattering pensioners, I was struck by a pang of anger.
Where will they go now?
To you and I, a trip in the car to the next post office is an inconvenience.
To many of the elderly individuals I stood behind, it is an impossibility!
But there is still hope and still something that we can do to save an excellent service and allay the fears of hundreds of concerned OAPs who could lose a lifeline.
If you feel even a slither of sympathy, write a short correspondence to the post office big boys who have made this clumsy decision. Every letter helps!
POLITICIANS have a pretty tough life.
Constantly meeting constituents, jeering opposition members, going on pub crawls…
That’s right, MP Grant Shapps (a man after my own heart) took a day out of his busy schedule last week to sample some of the finest watering holes Times Territory has on offer.
The shadow housing minister droped into Hatfield pubs The Woodman and The Airfield before heading onto The White Hart in Welwyn.
However, Grant a devoted member of the WHT’s Save Your Local campaign, was on a noble crusade rather than a booze up.
He chatted to publicans, gauged their anger about crippling tax hikes on beer and filmed a short documentary on the current state of the pub trade.
He told one of our reporters: “Unfortunately we filmed during the day and barely a drop of beer passed my lips.”
“I have been avidly reading and following the WHT campaign and thought it was time to get out and meet some of the people really affected.
“People are really concerned about pubs at the moment and that is shown in the short video.”
Grant’s YouTube mini documentary entitled Save Our Pubs can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTUGfRM67Ok
In this week's WHT (and somewhere on this website, no doubt) you’ll read about a WGC woman who has been crowned Herts Worst Golfer.
It’s a title that has caused great debate among the swingers (can I say that?) in the WHT office.
Both my esteemed editor and the news ed have been on golfing holidays in sunnier climes in recent weeks, while a few of the lads on the newsdesk have been known to take in 18 holes of a summer’s evening.
None of the aforementioned ever come back with great tales of holes-in-one, monster birdie putts or exquisite bunker shots, though.
May I boldly suggest the Herts Worst Golfer judges pay Times Towers a visit before next year’s contest.
WITH the cost of living on the up and up, these are worrying economic times.
Thousands of families are well and truly feeling the pinch as it gets ever more expensive to fill up with petrol or put food in their mouths.
But at least our political representatives – or, should I say, 14 in particular – are doing OK.
Details of expenses claimed by MPs were released after a legal battle to keep them secret failed.
And boy, it’s no wonder some wanted to keep the truth hidden from the public.
Did you know that taxpayers’ money – that’s yours and my hard-earned cash – paid for Gordon Brown to have Sky TV?
And we stumped up £10,000 for former PM Tony Blair to get a new kitchen.
Stevenage MP Barbara Follett charged us £1,600 to have the windows cleaned at her London gaff.
So next time you’re counting the pennies to pay for the weekly shop, be comforted that good ol’ Gordon can relax and watch live Premier League footy and Barbara Follett can see across the street from her living room.
And it’s not like they can’t afford to cough up, either.
As a Government minister, Mrs Follett earns more in a year than nurses and teachers do in about five.
Is it not high time time that this political gravy train finally hit the buffers?