December 2006 Archives

1. John and Chris are safely back from their ice skating experience in Hayes - they gave a virtuoso performance

2. The sales have started - when did they ever end!

3. The charity chuggers are back in Uxbridge town centre - let's hope they are gone by the start of 2007

4. The Gazette edition of December 27 is almost finished - you can look forward to more cracking papers in 2007

5. For those of you still waiting for your Christmas card from me - it's in the post

6. It's manic on the streets of Uxbridge - well I suppose it's Christmas

This is my last blog of 2006 as I will shortly, as the Chris Rea classic goes, be 'Driving home for Christmas.'

To my many, many, many, many (well you can always kid yourself) blog readers have a great Christmas and Happy New Year.

I will be back on January 2 with my first blog of 2007.

It appears the festive spirit has finally taken over at Gazette House .....

Yesterday afternoon a magician turned up in the office - where he came from I have not got a clue - but there he was performing his tricks to an appreciative audience in the advertising department, who seemed spellbound by his skills.

However, the newsroom failed to conjure up any great enthusiasm for some magic which, was something of a relief, as I did not want the reporters busy working on next week's edition vanishing in a puff of smoke.

The real talk of the newsroom is the opening of the ice rink in Hayes today. This is a really innovative idea by the Hayes Town Centre Partnership and I am sure it will prove highly popular over the next few days - especially as we now have just the weather for skating.

It appears we have some budding skaters amongst the Gazette news team and John Hughill and Chris Berry will be displaying their talents on the ice later today - will be well worth watching!

What slightly concerns me if having survived the magician's attempts to spirit away some of my staff will John and Chris survive the ice fields of Hayes. Watch this space......

We receive lots of phone calls and emails from readers with potential stories but one that has really caught my eye has just arrived.

A woman tells of her clamping misery and subsequent anger with a local restaurant (which for the time being will remain nameless) and the clamping company.

On the face of it she seems to have been dealt a harsh deal and it has cost her a vast amount of money, which she can probably ill afford, to get her car back.

There are occasions when motorists possibly fully deserve to get clamped but these seem to be far outweighed by horror stories of 'unscrupulous' clamping companies demanding excessive amounts of money for the return of the vehicle.

If you have a clamping horror story you want to share then contact me and in the meantime we will be looking in to the woman's plight with a view to running a story in the Gazette.

One of the stranger stories to hit the newsdesk this year came in yesterday afternoon - unfortunately just too late for this week's earlier than normal deadline.

It appears there is a milk thief on the loose in Hillingdon who to date has stolen more than 60 pints from the doorsteps of local residents.

The story understandably raised the level of newsroom banter with comments like 'they have got a lotta bottle' although I am not sure people getting up for their early morning cuppa and finding their milk has been stolen find it quite so funny!

Anyway, we will be covering this story in more detail in the next week's edition of the Gazette which we have already started work on having only just put to bed this week's paper, which is out as normal tomorrow morning.

So the tills are not ringing in the shops this Christmas - well you could have fooled me.

After battling through the crowds yesterday - 20 minutes to queue and pay for some cards - either people are doing a lot of window shopping or someone is having us on. Perhaps it's just a ploy to make us all feel guilty that we have not spent enough on presents already and need to rush out and get some more gifts!

Well at least the Christmas tree is up at home and the lights are shining brightly outside and a glass of mulled wine helped take away some of the stress of the Christmas shopping.

Talking of stress it's going to be a busy day at Gazette House as we race to get this week's edition completed by lunchtime. Considering it's Christmas week we have a strong news agenda and a really lively paper, which will be out on the streets on Wednesday as normal.

It's been one of those days.

Things got off to a bad start with a 6.30am puncture and then a two hour wait for some nice man to put the spare tyre on - when it comes to anything remotely mechanical I am hopeless.

I don't know what was worse sitting in the dark waiting or listening to the clatter of England wickets and then the Aussies plundering our bowling attack - I think the cricket wins.

A further hour getting new tyres fitted and I finally arrived at the office some four hours later than anticipated.

However, this week's Gazette is coming together and we will be featuring heavily on the Government decision to back the expansion at Heathrow Airport with a third runway.

This threatens to wipe out more than 700 homes in and around the village of Sipson alone, and the environmental impact on parts of the borough could be massive.

We will be featuring heavily on reaction to the news from campaigners who have been fighting a long battle against the proposed third runway.

As part of our festive coverage we have been talking to people who live and work at RAF Northolt whose partners are serving their country thousands of miles away on how they will be spending their Christmas.

Meanwhile reporter John Hughill has been spending a few days out on the road with Father Christmas and getting a few tips of the trade. It's all building up to a cracking edition.

A bit like the cash tills in the High Street shops this is a particularly busy time for newspapers.

While some other busnesses might be slowing down for Christmas at the Gazette it's full steam ahead for what promises to be a hectic week or so.

Both the Gazette and its sister free newspaper the Leader print 52 weeks of the year and while the paginations of the papers might be smaller than normal we have far less time to get them out.

We have to finish the Gazette 24 hours earlier next week on Monday lunchtime and then have the following weeks edition completed by the Friday morning.

And while our pre-press manager can usually be sweet talked when it comes to deadlines on this occasion he is showing little festive cheer by making it clear our pages much reach him on time. Even the tempting offer of a bottle of his favourite red wine has so fallen on deaf ears when it comes to deadlines.

The judging for our Local Heroes 2006 awards has now been completed and I have to say that once again there were some fantastic entries.

It's always difficult for the judges - which this year included Rachel Davies, principal of Uxbridge College and the Mayor of Hillingdon David Routledge - but generally we were all in agreement on the winners in the various categories.

Everyone is now sworn to secrecy until the gala finals night on January 18 when the winners will be announced and presented with their awards - it promises to be another fantastic evening celebrating the local heroes in the borough.

On the subject of Kelvin Mackenzie and my previous blog it seems that the poor Granada producer is still struggling to find him an editor's post. He has been on to my collegue at the Reading Chronicle for a second time and met with the same reply - a resounding NO.

I had an interesting call yesterday from a Granada TV executive producer wondering whether he could parachute (ex-Sun editor) Kelvin MacKenzie into our office as a 'consultant editor' for two months and see what happens.

It's a fascinating idea and I am sure that Kelvin would have some interesting thoughts on the Gazette and how he could boost its circulation - not that it's doing badly. However, I politely declined the offer - I am not sure I could cope with the disruption or vouch for the sanity of my team after the two months.

However, it also seems that the Gazette may not have been Kelvin's first choice for a 'new job' as the previous day he had contacted my colleague at the Reading Chronicle http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk Simon Jones with the same offer. He also politely turned the invitation down.

A large chunk of today will be spent carrying out the highly enjoyable task of judging the shortlisted finalists for our Local Heroes 2006 Awards, run in conjunction with Uxbridge College. It's never an easy task and once again entries have flooded in and there are some truly amazing stories to look at.

I will let you know later in the day how the judging went - although I am sworn to secrecy on revealing the winners before the big night on January 18 when the awards will be made.

Footnote: It appears Kelvin is still searching for a taker as my colleague Ian Carter at the Croydon Advertiser http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk has also rubbished the idea of letting him loose in his newsroom.

Well we got there in the end and the final pages are now safely with our pre-press department.

Unlike previous weeks we have not had any late breaking stories but staff shortages have slowed us down today and the subs have been chasing the newsdesk for pages - it's always fun listening to these conversations and the various excuses.

We finally splashed on the story about the council tax bill reduction for many pensioners in the borough although judging by some of the reaction we have got it seems that there is a fairly lukewarm response to the news. I think we will get plenty of comments on this story in the coming days.

Everyone can now take a well earned breather before we start work on next week's edition.

On the subject of staff shortages we were missing our chief reporter Chris Longhurst this week who is on holiday.

However, it appears he might be doing a bit of 'moonlighting'. He was spotted out in Eastcote last night by our office manager Lynne, who reported seeing Father Christmas and his helpers, one of whom was Chris, preparing for Christmas.

Now I don't think she had been on the sherry so I can only presume that has taken on a bit of part-time work over the festive season - although I am sure it's all for a good cause.