Oh joy, the sun is shining, it's a bank holiday, the beer chiller is full, the sausages are in the fridge and the charcoal is in the shed. I can relax. It has been a great week for me. My daughter went back to the top of the national rankings for swimming in her age group for the 1500m freestyle after a great swim last week at the newly reopened Crystal Palace Swimming Centre. All her hard work & sacrifice is paying off. My son is off with the cubs for the cub jam. I've had a couple of great 5 a side kickabouts this week, winning both games. We've discovered a great singer at the studios, who we are currently working with. Played some early mixes to a friend who used to be head of A&R at Sony, who liked what he heard. That will be my holiday in Barbados next year ! Our music shop has just taken it's largest ever single order for equipment this week. It is to equip a local community project which we've helped develop. We've put a lot of time in to ensure they'll have great facilities & a truly groundbreaking mix of uses. Can't say anymore prior to the council's announcement, but we are proud to be involved in such a great local scheme.
It is great when local authorities spend money to improve the lives of young people. When the project is up and running, I'll take a few pictures and tell the full exciting story here. It is great to be able to report good news when councils do the right thing by there young people.
I was also proud to have been invited to attend the inauguration of the new Mayor of Barnet. No, of course I wasn't invited to the ceremony, I was invited to join the protest about cuts to the Sheltered Housing Warden Service, going on outside. Councillor Lynn Hillan and the council are trying to mislead everyone in to believing that this is a redistribution rather than a cut. If you read THIS BLOG by Vicki Morris, you'll realise what a massive porkie this is. A council which can afford civic receptions and relaid flowerbeds for the Mayoral inauguration can afford to look after its old & vulnerable. Maybe we should lobby all of the Mayors receptions, till he gets the message.
It is also great to see that our local papers are again serving the community. Hopefully the days when certain high up politicians at the council could ring up the paper and exert pressure to drop certain stories (or certain bloggers!) have gone. I think that the circulation figures for the Daily Telegraph since they started their crusade to clean up expenses has shown that the public have a taste for proper investigative journalism. If I was the editor of a National Daily paper looking for new talent, I'd be looking for they type of people who break stories, not those who slavishly rehash council press releases. Rebecca Lowe's fine story got some such recognition with a link from The Guardian. Print the stories and the readers will come !
Anyway, the Barnet Eye has taken an editorial decison to celebrate the good news and the great weather this weekend. We are not going to publish any more stories about local politicians or aything else which might ruin your day till Tuesday (unless some massive story breaks). It's all good news & fun from here. Enjoy your weekend
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