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June 13, 2007
Fire alarm
On your busiest production day of the week the last thing you need is any distractions or disruption.
So when earlier this morning the fire alarms started going off at Gazette House my heart sank. It was a case off all out and we headed into the sunshine in Uxbridge High Street along with hundreds of other workers from neighbouring businesses.
The fire brigade duly arrived and some 15-20 minutes later we were thankfully given the all clear to return to our desks and the production team could move into overdrive to hit the numerous deadlines for the other papers, apart from the Gazette, that we produce here.
This week's Gazette is now out on the streets and has a good mix of stories with my favourite being the page three lead on a car load of traffic wardens who were spotted asleep and parked on a yellow line in Ickenham.
They were captured by an eagle-eyed Gazette reader who duly sent in the pictures of the traffic wardens in the car which has led to an excellent story for us this week.
We had a late change with the front page splash but finally went for the story of a grandmother who was stabbed with a needle as she boarded a bus on the Uxbridge Road.
Incidents of violence and vandalism are becoming all too common on buses around the borough.
Also in this week's paper we report on a man being jailed for nine months for threatening to beat and kill a passenger and in another incident a teenage girl was found guilty of racially abusing a bus controller and being in possession of an immitation handgun.
At the same time assaults on bus passengers by under-16s rose last year across London with teenagers being linked to more than 5,500 separate crime allegations - a staggering increase of over 2,000 incidents from the previous year.
In recent weeks we have highlighted growing concerns over the number of attacks on passengers and drivers on buses across the borough and reported on numerous acts of vandalism so I have to say these latest figures released by Transport for London (TfL) come as no real surprise.
Posted by aseal at June 13, 2007 10:05 AM