NEEDED?

By the time this hits the streets the town council should have decided whether to spend large amounts of money on refurbishing the Walter Gidney Pavilion. There’s no doubt that it is not at its best at the moment but would spending a million and a quarter pounds doing it up result in an affordable hiring charge?

If the resultant cost is too much then we may finish up with a spick and span white elephant. Our cheap and cheerful venue was sold and demolished a few years ago and is now the site of a group of bungalows.

OK, the church hall had its shortcomings but at least it was rectangular, not “L”-shaped while some of the other halls, the Brook, the Comrades Club and the football club, have their own bars. Of course, if the Village College was still a village college according to the original concept, there would be numerous halls and venues available to the community.

QUIET

Jake the spaniel is quite taken with a bit of company. There’s nothing he enjoys more than some fuss, including a fair amount of ear scratching of course. But he also enjoys some quiet times when he can creep under the dining table and be alone with his thoughts.

The problem is that he can only get his “Jake time” when the humans are amused. Jake has found a way to keep his humans amused over the Christmas period.

St Andrew’s Church has brought out a quiz sheet called the challenge. It involves six categories of initials and if you can get all seventy questions correct you could win £20. Sheets are available from the JakHibs useful shop on Churchgate Street and should be handed in on January 9. So give your brain a bit of exercise and your dog a bit of peace and quiet.

HELLO!

I spent a quiet couple of hours at the weekend helping out my old friends of the Rotary club with their annual Christmas collection. It was quiet because Soham High Street on a Saturday isn’t the most bustling place you could imagine although my spot outside the Co-op was probably one of the busiest places.

Another reason for the quietness was, I’m sure, caused by the bucket I was holding. Lots of people when they see a collector develop an ailment that causes temporary, selective blindness. The see-through collector isn’t there demanding donations, he or she is offering the opportunity to help a worthwhile cause, in this case the MAGPAS Helimedix charity who save lives by helping road accident victims.

Even if this isn’t where you would like to deposit your change, at least give the person with the bucket a nod or even a “hello,” as being invisible is a very lonely state.

QUITE SAFE

Apparently the current issue of the American magazine “Playboy” is the last one that will contain photographs of naked ladies. As this was it’s main selling point you may wonder why people will buy it in future, surely not for the sodokus or cooking tips!

All is not lost for those who enjoy seeing pictures of people getting cold, though. The Christmas double edition of the Radio Times has picked up the baton with a feature on a forthcoming BBC programme that will involve numerous unclothed ladies.

Before anyone gets too excited it should be noted that the programme contains a version of the play “Calendar Girls” and is on the radio serial “The Archers” and a bit of radio nudity shouldn’t offend anyone.

TIDIER

Time was you could always tell if there had been a bit of wind. Apart from the twigs and leaves lying where you wouldn’t expect to find twigs and leaves there was always the rattling presence of supermarket bags caught high in the branches of trees. Now that the 5p charge for bags has been introduced everyone seems to be taking more care, after all, bags don’t grow on trees!

FOREGONE CONCLUSION?

Apparently we will be having an election next year for a new Police Commissioner as the current incumbent, Sir Graham Bright, one of the two Tory knights of Fordham, is standing down. His party have picked the man to stand in his place already, a chap called Jason Ablewhite, who is currently leader of Hunts District Council.

Nothing wrong with that but I did wish he had realised he was still just a candidate when he was interviewed on Radio Cambridge recently. Instead of saying what he would like to do he, several times, said what he would do. It seems that as far as Cllr Ablewhite is concerned we don’t need an election.

WRONG

In a recent survey Cambridgeshire was named as the seventh worst place to live in England. Part of the conclusion was based on the treatment of the homeless and the standard of the county’s schools. If you are in the prosperous south of the county then this assertion may seem preposterous but further north it may well hold water. It is doubtful if the majority of the people of Cambridge have even heard of Tydd Gote, let alone been there yet to them Cambridgeshire is their own inward-looking city.