Crumbs I'm Busy

No posts for ages. Still very interested locally, but am working at a very large international event for a company that has been much in the news.......so am up to my neck in it. Will post my thoughts of the debacle when the large event's over. But in the mean time here is opening ceremony of the big event I am working at.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01l4ldk/

And the mad begining

Breaking My Balls!

 As a cyclist I am very sensitive to pot holes and cracks in the road.

In Crescent Road, East Reading round the corner from one of our local Ward Councillors there is a huge constellation of pot holes which cause enormous runctions when I cycle along the road.

The pot holes are so deep that my testicles are violently crushed every time my bike lurches in to them. Its not as if they, the pot holes not my testicles, are avoidable, they lie across the centre of the carriageway and give cyclists nowhere to go while avoiding parked cars and nutter drivers who refuse to give way.


It is probable that my local Councillors are happy to see my bollocks  broken, however I wonder why these inch deep craters have not been properly dealt with. As you can see from the pictures there has been an attempt to patch them however the fix is lamentable and  they remain a lethal trap for any under confident  cyclist.


I have reported the pot holes to the Council and hopefully they will be sorted shortly, but I wonder why they have been left in such a sorry state. Its not as if they aren't obvious surely they must be a priority, if not on testicular health grounds on road safety grounds. I hope for the sake of my bruised undercarriage they are sorted soon and will be monitoring the state of the road closely.

Your Caring Sharing Coop

The Erleigh Road Coop has just come first in the competition for medium sized Coops.

It is, you could say, the best Coop in the country. We are very lucky in East Reading around the junction to have such a good selection of good shops. There is the larger Coop on the Junction, great shops opposite Alfred Sutton and on Erleigh Road chemists, green grocers and a fantastic offie.

My wife and I have more or less given up going to the large supermarkets on the edge of town, while they are sometime cheaper I find the whole atmosphere so massively depressing that I would rather pay a bit more and shop every day.

The Coop can be a little eccentric on occasion, but it has most of what we need to enjoy great meals and the odd treat. The staff are always cheerful and I seem to bump in to most of my friends there. The more of us that support the local shops to more likely they are to thrive, they are always colourful and if you can stand the fact that quite a few of the customers are still in their pjs its a great place to shop. 

Reading Station Redevelopment

Reading Station Redevelopment, a set on Flickr.

I am very interested in Railways and have been following the redevelopment of Reading Station over the last 6-7 months.

Although started in the last couple of years the development was planned and authorised by the Labour Government before 2010.

I hope you like the pictures, I am updating them as the building works change and develop.

Micro P+R

To follow up on my blog this morning here is the official announcement that the planned Micro P+R in Palmer Park and Clayfield Copse has been withdrawn.

Also in the announcement is some good news about far more sensible plans of traffic improvements so it seems like we got 2 for the price of 1.

Unless you have xray sight you will have to click on the text to make it easily readable. I am sorry its not more ledigible, but it has been a very long day.

It is great that the Council has been willing to listen to the reasoned points put to it and I would like to thank Cllr Tony Page for being willing to listen to us.

No Micro Park and Ride

I am pleased to be able to tell you that RBC has abandoned its attempts to introduce a Micro Park and Ride at Palmer Park and Clayfield Copse in Caversham.

The first signs that the Council was prepared to drop the plan started coming last week, however life is never certain and it was not until it was confirmed could we relax.

Well done everyone who campaigned. I will post more details when I have had time to read the Council papers from yesterdays full Council meeting.

Don't Stop Believing!

My wife and I have just come back from watching Tom Cruise's new film, Rock of Ages at the pictures.

It is such fun, its a bit like Glee (Lite) crossed with Fame. It has a stellar cast and its massively diverting. But why mention it in a vaguely left of centre blog, btw nice to see all of my usual readership slowly coming back, I mention it because of the "theme" tune of Journey's "Don't stop believing". This ditty seems to have been used all over the place in 2010. 2011, and 2012.

In twenty years time I am pretty sure that this song will be a signature tune played on look backs at the Tory double dip recession. Its theme of hope in adversity seems to be a call to action for the left of centre to  stand up against the Coalition, to fight their attempts to take away benefits to the under 25's, to reduce the army to the smallest its been for 200 years and pathetic growth in the economy.

When I was a teenager, "Ghost Town" was the theme tune to the early 1980's when Thatcher was warming up her campaign against her own nation and Journey seems to be the call to fight Cameron, Clegg and their respective parties at every opportunity.

As a song its a bit lightweight for me, but as a concept I wonder whether one day it will replace "Jerusalem"  at Womens' Institute meetings and perhaps it will one day replace the "Red Flag" at Labour Party conferences. So the message for Sunday is Don't Stop Believing, fight, fight and fight again......