November 2007 Archives

It's worringly quiet in the Gazette newsroom today - infact apart from content editor David Tilley there is not a member of staff to be seen.

I would like to report that they are all out chasing stories for next week's paper but a combination of illness and holidays has reduced to Gazette reporting team to just one today - and that reporter is currently out of the office in Ruislip.

Two work experience students have pitched up to help out but thankfully the subs' are not yet shouting at the newsdeak for more copy to fill the early news pages.

However, I am not too worried at this stage about next week's paper as the news list is looking quite healthy and we have several good stories already in the bag so to speak and by Monday we should almost be back to full strength reporting wise.

I have just looked at the weather forecast which is likely to dictate what I do over the weekend and when.

It's looking like a case of two extremes:

On the one hand I will be battling through crowds of Christmas shoppers in Kingston - although at least I know what to get people this year - and my other persuit will hopefully be walking through the Surrey countryside and admiring its beauty as winter starts to set in.

Judging by the weather forecast it looks like the Christmas shopping will be on Sunday when gale force winds and driving rain are predicted - happy days!

I spent most of yesterday interviewing would be journalists for a place on our training scheme which starts with them spending 16 weeks in Newcastle.

It's always highly competitive for places on the training scheme and yesterday was no exception as the nervous candidates were put through their paces with a series of tests and then the daunting interview with myself and our editorial trainer Phyllis Hughes.

One thing that did come to light was ta general lack of knowledge from the candidates when it came to the current affairs questions.

And while I don't expect everyone to have a great knowledge of sport - and it's really not that important for a news reporter - I was a bit alarmed to see that one person thought that Russia were the last winners of the FA Cup!

The fact they beat England to a place in the Euro 2008 finals is bad enough but winning the FA Cup is quite simply unbelievable.

I have just opened up the latest sales figures and it looks like the pre-Christmas fall off we usually see has already started - just what you don't want to see when you have a management meeting later in the day with the MD.

Obviously I can use the fact that already people are too busy preparing for Christmas to buy a local newspaper - although I am not sure he will totally buy that at the moment.

Anyway, before having to face up to an afternoon in the management meeting I am off to our Bucks office in the delightful village of Chalfont St Peter for a meeting this morning.

My blog is back and thanks to the hundreds (well maybe one or two) who had noticed it had gone.

A call from a colleague asking if I was ok has prompted me back in to action.

It's easy to get out of the habit. A spell in hospital and then a period of recovery meant that the regular updates fell away.

Now back to full health the last few weeks have been fairly busy trying to catch up on things and plan ahead for the busy Christmas period.

This week's Gazette should now on its way to the printers and already is has a distinctly festive feel to it.

It looks like Uxbridge town centre is going to have a Christmas tree after all. When the town's lights were recently switched on there was dismay that the traditional Christmas tree was missing.

There were rumours of a row over its position in the town centre but, after a series of calls from the Gazette the council have announced that a Christmas tree will be put up in the centre of Uxbridge this week, and the lights will be officially turned on next week.

Our Christmas toy appeal in conjunction with Chimes shopping centre is proving a great success and already the Gazette offices are resembling Santa's grotto.

My biggest concern is where we are going to store all the toys if they continue to flood in before they are distributed across the borough in time for Christmas Day.

However, please keep the toys coming in either to our offices in Bakers Road or the Chimes Shopping Centre in Uxbridge.