Doris Venner v Ofsted

Two posts in two days!?!?! Surely not!!!

You're right. Not.

This came in from Sue last night and as a couple of the Brinksters went to Doris Venner in the deep and distant past I thought it worth posting though, to be fair, I didn't know they'd had a bad Ofsted until I got the email. I don't fancy digging out the whole report so can anyone fill me in on the background?? Here's the unedited Sue:

Looking at the recent Ofsted report for Doris Venner, you wouldn't think you were reading about the same Pre-school. The report, the 'ridiculous' findings and it's total inaccuracies have led to the Manager embarking on a lengthy, substantial and extremely stressful complaint procedure. The whole Doris Venner team should be commended on how they run the pre-school, the way they co-ordinate their vast curriculum and more importantly how they ensure the happiness, safety and well being of all our children. I know for a fact, irrespective of Ofsted, that is surpasses many of the other local pre-school settings. The children that go to and have been at Doris Venner are so much more sociable and happier than other children and I am so lucky to have been offered a place for my child. I've already had my 2nd child’s name down since he was just 2 months old...and there it stays! Please join me in supporting our local pre-school, DORIS VENNER. Together we can actually make a difference, and prove just how inaccurate the latest Ofsted report is. The damming report could damage the future of Worcester parks best pre-school....and I'm sure none of us want to see that at all.

To Maria and the team, Keep up the good work, you are doing a fantastic job, we the parents, existing and previous, are here to help you fight, Sue Watkins - A very happy Mum indeed!"

The Hamptons Blog back in circulation!

If you have an historical interest in Worcester Park bloggers you'll be pleased to know that The Hamptons Blogger has made a reappearance after an eight month hiatus and while Real Life™ conspires to keep me from the blogging world you will hopefully find some more entertainment there.

To my mind the record for the shortest ever Worcester Park blog has to be "The View From The Huntsmans" who managed to pique our interest by producing no posts whatsoever. Actually, Google seems to have obliterated any mention of that one from the record so perhaps I imagined it.... which wouldn't be a first.

Anyway, The Hamptons Blogger can be found here:
http://thehamptonsblog.blogspot.com/

Crawling in my skin these wounds they will not heal

Pardon the Linkin Park lyric in the title but it seems fairly apt in the circumstance.

In my more reflective moments I wonder if perhaps Luke Skywalker was talking about Worcester Park and not Tatooine when he said:
"If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from"
as Worcester Park can seem unloved by it's assorted Councils and like Radiator Springs from the Pixar movie "Cars" the traffic passes by but doesn't seem to stop any more, as the empty shops silently attest.

On the other hand the nastiness of the outside world generally seems to pass us by.... I don't recall any shootings or big gang fights with their associated knifings and since the Huntsmans changed things have calmed down a bit but then there are unpleasant things lurking in suburbia, as the Surrey Comet reports:

A sex shop owner faces prison after police found thousands of vile child porn images stashed in his safety deposit box.

Officers found around 21,000 images and 48 films in a deposit box belonging to Michael Geraghty, of Oaks Avenue, Worcester Park.

The 50-year-old admitted four counts of possessing indecent images and seven of making indecent images, Southwark Crown Court heard.

I've always assumed there must be a sex-shop owner living in Worcester Park as it's statistically quite probable, but this story does make my skin crawl for a variety of reasons, not least this statement about the images found:

They included images of babies less than a year old and others depicting sexual activity with children, the most serious category.

Oaks Avenue is only a few hundred yards from a couple of schools, depending which end he lives, but I think it's likely that he'll be going into hiding until he's sentenced rather than roaming the streets enjoying his last few days of freedom. I can't even begin to imagine what these children went through and as a parent the thought of this possibly happening to any of our children fills me with an unspeakable dread. It does happen, but it shouldn't..... ever.

Comments anybody?

Cat fight!

As I strolled down Brinkley Road towards Central Road this morning I noticed a black and white cat stalking down the pavement in front of me and it took a moment to notice the large, furry ginger object sat on a the short brick pillar at the end of a wall (there's probably a name for that but I'm not au fait with brickwork) which wholly occupied its attention.

"Cat fight" I thought to myself with the imagery of impending flailing of claws and paws floating across my mind and the ringing of approaching caterwauling in my ears. It was only as I drew level with the ginger shape that was calmly surveying both myself and the approaching cat that a thought struck me.

"That's a bloody big nose for a cat"

It was, of course, a fox and one that was entirely happy with me stopping next to it and staring at it. It was giving me the distinct impression that I was invading its personal space, despite being sat right next to the pavement on Brinkley Road. Cheeky thing.

For those that do like cats you might have noticed the "kittenify" link at the top of the right-hand column. If you don't like the pictures on screen just click on "kittenify" and it will sort them out for you.

In other (dare I say "real") Worcester Park news the Cazbar's cleaned their pool table:

W/PK BREAKING NEWS! CAZBAR have ‘cleaned’ their pool table & its currently out of use. Punters are up in arms, some have been seen to just looking in total disbelief at the table. Others have been struck down by poolitus, where they are unable to talk about anything else apart from the CAZBAR pool table. We are currently trying to contact the owner but rumour has it he is now in an underground bunker in South Wales.

A pair of spectacles.....

....in that this video shows a train actually running while it was snowing but the more impressive spectacle is the shower of sparks being thrown up by the train's "shoe" and the live rail because of the snow!

I'd seen the sky light up eerily with the flashes from the train when I left Brinkster Central and it was fortunate for me that my train happened to be on time that day, a couple of minutes after taking this video!