Week ending 12th June

Not with a bang but a whimper award goes to the recent election campaign. We remember the good old days when the polls closed and the count began. Candidates paced the room nervously, watching the lines of ballot papers and trying to calculate where they stood, whilst the local hacks went from candidate to candidate to get their quotes both ahead and after the result. Now indifference rules the waves. Despite everyone paying lip service to local democracy, the reality seems to be that no-one is much bothered. Look at Boston Borough Council's website. The list of candidates lay buried in the "local notices. A last minute plea to voters to do their civic duty appeared in the Boston Target ... but it was more or less closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. What a shame the appeal couldn't have appeared on the borough's website as well.
Meanwhile our Off-target award of the recent election campaign goes to the BNP supporter who stuck a party political banner over a roadside election sign belonging to Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire. He noted on his blog: "I have been round to see the BNP and asked if they can refrain from this sort of behaviour as we are not used to it around here and it would do little to help them and no doubt be detrimental to their campaign." More amusingly, the BNP wasn't even campaigning for the county council seat on Boston Fishtoft - which makes an infantile gesture seem ever more childish
Misuse of language award goes to East Midlands Trains. After being ranked 16th of of the nation's 19 train operators for reliability, they seek to excuse any likely shortcomings of the newly introduced "fast train" service between Boston and Skegness with the following offering. "They are called high speed, but because of the track we are unable to run the trains at the speed they are capable of. This is not about providing a high speed service it is about providing hundreds of extra seats for our passengers. It is confusing, but that is the name of the train." It doesn't take a mental giant to work out that the simple answer is to change the name of the train. But perhaps EMT is as short on mental giants as it is on reliability.
Misuse of language runner up goes to the Boston Standard for the report which reads: "Driving his moped while over the drink-drive limit has seen a teenager banned from the roads. ------ ------ was sat on the bike in a Coningsby lay-by with the keys in the ignition when police spotted him." Was sat? Lincolnshire dialect at its best perhaps, but not your English as she is writ.
Saying it with flowers award of the week goes to Boston Borough Council whose ground staff have been busy packing the A52 roundabout near Tesco with bedding plants. Of course, it couldn't be anything to do with next week's visit by the Princess Royal, could it? Even though any royal motorcade will come this way from Grantham.
Too old to rock award goes to us. Although we're too ancient and crabby for all this new fangled pop music, we were a little surprised at the apparent arrival from nowhere of the Boston "punk pop rockettes" Brit Chix on our screens in the finals of Britain's got Talent. Could these Chix, who have apparently been together for six years, be none other that the long running Boston girl band Ttorria? Yes they jolly well could. See the internet for the same information about both bands. Why the name change, we wonder?
Finally, our We couldn't possibly comment award goes to this cutting from the Boston Standard (below.) You'll either get the joke, or you won't

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