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April 23, 2008
Wrong page
An early contender for press release of the year has arrived headlined 'A St Geroge's Day Protest - save an English icon.'
All very interesting so much so that I decided to read further.
It turned out to be a photo call as part of the Real Food Festival's campaign to 'Save the Cauliflower' which highlights the plight of cauliflower producers in the UK and aims to raise the profile of the iconic vegetable.
You may well ask what this has to do with the Gazette and the anwser is nothing what so ever.
However, it was a bit of light relief as I am not at all happy that one of the letters pages has not appeared in this week's paper and instead the memory lane page has appeared twice.
I am still trying to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong but one reader has already demanded that one of our reporters personally goes to their house and apologies for the error.
That will not be happening but all I can do is apologise to all our readers for the mistake.
That apart, I am pleased with this week's paper which has some really strong stories and includes a highly emotive interview with the parents of Emily Sadler, who so tragically died in the recent Ecuador bus crash.
This story really puts things in to prespective and one can't begin to appreciate the suffering the whole family are going through over Emily's death at such a tender age.
There are more important things than the wrong page appearing in the paper.
Posted by aseal at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2008
Counting the votes
As I predicted in a previous blog the entries in the readers vote section of our Top Toddler competition has seen the entries flooding in to Gazette House.
By the time entries closed last night more than 600 had been received which meant that content editor David Tilley has spend most of this morning locked away in an office counting them - he gets all the good jobs!
He finally emerged several hours later to triumphantly announce there was a clear winner. I am sworn to secrecy at the moment so you will have to buy a copy of next week's Gazette to find out who the winner is.
Chief reporter Chris Longhurst joined the early morning queues as the Post Office in Uxbridge town centre opened in its new home in WH Smith.
It seems the message didn't get through to a lot of people who were still turning up at the old site in The Mall Pavilions and standing in amazement at the closed sign.
I am sure there will be some mixed reaction to the move and we will featuring plenty of views in next week's paper.
We have been blessed with some really strong news weeks recently which has resulted in some strong sales figures for the paper.
This theme looks like continuing this week with a good meaty news list for a Thursday afternoon
and plenty of other stories and issues on the boil.
Posted by aseal at 3:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 9, 2008
Cheers to pub decision
I am glad to see that common sense has prevailed and that plans for another pub in Uxbridge town centre have been rejected.
It just didn't make sense to bulldoze a number of long established businesses in The Arcade in the High Street and replace them with a massive Wetherspoons pub.
These businesses have been at the heart of the town centre for many years and appear to be well supported by customers. In my opinion they provide a far greater attraction to the town than a giant lifeless Wetherspoons pub.
I was also amazed by the statement from Wetherspoons that the threatened shops would be able to relocate elsewhere in the town - quite where I would like to know and I am sure they would!
Unfortunately the decision to scrap the pub plan was made last night and too late to be included in this week's Gazette. However, you can read the story online and we will be following it up in next week's paper.
My postings have been rather sparse lately - not because there has been nothing say about the Gazette but it's been rather busy here with a number of things going on which have prevented me from having the time to write on a regular basis.
Back to this week's Gazette and it features more than 200 pictures of all the shortlisted finalists in our Top Toddler competition along with the chance for readers to vote for their overall favourite.
As usual I am sure this will prove extremely popular with readers and I expect the votes to flood in.
This is the second week running we have featured the Top Toddlers in the paper and I know for sure that our Production Editor is breathing a heavy sigh of relief that nothing has gone wrong - because believe me there is plenty of scope for that to happen!.
Posted by aseal at 11:21 AM | Comments (1)