Week ending 3rd December

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

The beep goes on … We learn that despite what Councillor Brian Rush reported in our blog on Monday, there are no plans to trial “silent running” of Boston’s Into Town bus service. Oddly, the denial comes from the selfsame person who reportedly made the suggestion in the first place – but we suppose that’s what they call politics.
Will he, won’t he? … We enjoyed the tongue in cheek letter in the local papers from independent councillors John Storry and Richard Leggott denying any suggestion that BBI Councillor Ramonde Newell had applied to join their group. In fact, Councillor Newell was uncharacteristically boasting that the BBI has been accepted as members of the Independent Network – despite the fact that it meets almost none of its joining criteria. Mind you, anything is possible, and we reported rumours recently that Councillor Newell had flirted with the ruling Tory group on Lincolnshire County Council, having already abandoned the BBI badge for the Independent alliance.
Sum of the parts … Talking of Councillor Newell, we note that he is quoted yet again as saying  that Boston is “the largest town by population in the administrative county of Lincolnshire.” Last time he said this (at a Lincolnshire County Council meeting) he was roundly hooted down and reminded that Grantham holds that particular honour . To avoid doubt, according to South Kesteven District Council’s website, “The town has a population of approximately 40,000 (38,240 at the time of the last census in 2001)” while Boston’s site says “The area has a population of 53,700, half of which live in the town of Boston.” That would appear to put Boston’s population well below that of Grantham.
What a difference a day makes ... A story which failed to make the Boston Standard’s website on Wednesday was – rather strangely – the non appearance of the newsprint version of the paper. Newsagents told us that it was “was running a day late” and would therefore not be available until Thursday. But the last time we can recall an event like that was when the lorry carrying Boston’s papers ran off the road after the company imprudently closed its town based printing presse. Never mind, soon they will be selling so few that it will be possible to send them by post!
Drowned out by flood news … Boston Borough Council’s latest bulletin hit the webwaves claiming to be a “record breaker at 33 pages.” It is indeed a lot of pages, but not hard to achieve if you fill enough of them with the same stuff. For instance, seven pages were devoted to flood related issues in the wake of the Boston 200 exhibition. That’s more than 20% of the total. By any stretch this would appear to be overkill, and we think that is now high time that Boston 200 and Son of Boston 200 are allowed to sink silently beneath the waves.
Just made it … Reading ever onward, we were struck by the similar three-page overkill with the “Beautiful Boston” competition with three pages devoted to the search for calendar pictures. We are told that some of best photos were selected, and the bulletin goes on to display 17 pictures described as “entrants” in the competition – including four by the same photographer. We have to say that this is very disappointing. Just 17 entries for a contest that needs to find twelve “winners.” What would they have done if one ten entries had come in, we wonder?
Christmas comes early … We’re also grateful to the bulletin for giving us the smile of the week in the form of BBI leader Councillor Richard Austin apparently showing off an early Christmas gift.

Well, it looks like a Star Wars light sabre to us! What do you think?
Christmas comes early - 2 … Just days after we pointed out the case of the disappearing committee meetings, we note that December has already suffered its first casualty. A few days ago, six meetings were scheduled. Now there are only five. The casualty is the Planning Committee meeting on December 14th. At this rate there will soon be none left.
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