Go on! Go to the Monopoly site and say you want to vote for a wildcard location and then put your vote in for Worcester Park to appear on the next Monopoly board:
http://www.monopoly.co.uk/vote.aspx
The highest wildcard vote so far is for a place called Covington with a measly 43 votes. I'm sure we can do better than that!
Long-struggling elder brother of John Major who serenely endured a brief unwanted celebrity
Terry Major-Ball: born Worcester Park, Surrey 2 July 1932; married 1960 Shirley Wilson (one son, one daughter); died Chard, Somerset 13 March 2007.
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For a long time it thrived, the family lived pleasantly in Worcester Park, Surrey, and business did not finally finish until 1962 when Terry was 30. But, long before then, Tom, an old Bohemian with very little insurance - 66 when his younger son was born in 1943 - would be struggling on in a business falling slowly into decline. A plan for sale which fell through created commitments. Tom insisted ruinously upon honouring debts instead of ducking into bankruptcy, which high-mindedness brought about effective ruin with family and works removed to rented rooms in 144 Cold Harbour Lane Brixton and a rented workshop nearby.
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A former Worcester Park resident, hence the relevance, in case you were still trying to work it out.. I did notice the bit about "a business falling slowly into decline". That sounds like Worcester Park, even back then.
There was indeed activity in the former Kinder Cafe, as reported in my last post, and it's going to be a.................... charity shop. My heart sank when I saw that Central Road was going to get yet another. God bless the people from Fara who get the chance to compete with the other charity shops for our consumer pennies but I'd rather see some decent shops on Central Road. With the Thomson travel agents closing last week and the unsurprising, deserved but swift demise of the Worcester Supermarket this week there's not much cause for celebration on the retail front.
I've heard it said that the arrival of Pizza Express, Marks & Spencers (now gone) and the more recent Sainsburys have 'inspired' the landlords to raise their rents in expectation of impending retail payday. If true the net effect has been to squeeze the small businesses which make Worcester Park the quirky little place it is, causing some to shut up shop or leave. Rumoured interest by other companies such as McDonalds and the proposed expansion of the Hamptons won't dampen their enthusiasm for rent rises either. Anybody want to say whether that's true or if I'm barking up the wrong tree?
I know you've been gagging for your latest installment of Worcester Park life, as gagging is frequently cited as a reaction to the content. Apologies for that but I've been poorly so haven't felt like it, but hopefully this will make up for it.
Yes, it's over. When I went to work yesterday morning the counter of the Worcester Supermarket had gone, together with all the valuable stuff, and when I came home they were boarding it up. That has to rate as the shortest and most spectacularly bad business idea to grace Central Road in living memory and I can't say I'm going to miss it. Well, I could, but I won't. Mr Ink next?
In other news the "To Let" sign above the former Kinder Cafe has gone and Mrs Brinkster spotted someone in there yesterday so it's possible there could be some action there shortly.
It sounds like the developers of the Hamptons are looking to build more than the previously agreed number of houses on the land and have set up public meetings to explain their plans. I have two main issues with this. 150 extra dwellings could mean roughly 150 extra cars trying to get onto Central Road in a morning, which is bad. The other thing is if you want to visit a friend in the Hamptons you need to get a visitor's parking pass. assuming you have more than two friends this is going to mean that some, most or maybe all of them have to park on Green Lane which will mean:
a) Annoying the neighbours on Green Lane and,
b) Acting as a magnet to car thieves and vandals.
Just a thought.
Lastly, if anyone knows any easy way to export all of my 20six entries then I might move all of the content to Blogger or Wordpress. Any ideas?
Clan Brinkster departed the fair streets of Worcester Park and headed up to Norfolk last Wednesday, hence the lack of posts. I've been there enough times to know it well but one thing in particular did take me by surprise this time around, and that was the sheer volume of roadkill! It seems as though anything feathered or furry had surrendered to the attractive draw of the local tarmac and cast itself upon the oncoming traffic with unprecendented zeal with the aim of creating a memorial carpet along the local roads. I thought it could become one of those family travel games, "C'mon kids, lets play 'Guess The Roadkill'" but I didn't try it out on the rest of the clan, though my young daughter did display a fascination for describing the last repose of a (fortunately intact) rabbit by the side of the road as we whizzed past. Lucky she didn't see the other ones then.
On an entirely separate topic on returning to WP we were greeted by a now-open Caffe Picollo on Central Road, which looks great and, according to Mrs Brinkster, was doing a steady trade... particularly impressive considering the dearth of publicity. It has a deli inside taking up part of the space, which immediately increases the chances of getting us through the door! Looks like a welcome addition to Central Road, though I have to take this opportunity to say I actually saw a real customer coming out of the Worcester Supermarket having apparently bought something. There's a turnup for the books!
So I'm not going mad. Not quite anyway.
On Sunday I browsed to the Local Guardian website and they had an excellent April Fool gag about a dinosaur skeleton (the fabled 'Cheamosaurus') being found in Nonsuch Park. I fully intended to post about it on Monday morning but when Monday came the article had entirely disappeared from their site!! After much huffing and puffing Google's webcache has coughed up an archived version here, which I suggest you read before continuing.
You'll notice that the tone of the article is quite straight-faced, which leads me back to my question in the title. Were the Guardian writers perpetrating the gag or was it them who got pranked by some joker? The reported discovered of the bones was one Ross Geller, otherwise known as the paleontology-loving character from Friends played by David Schwimmer? They also quote John Hammond of the British Museum, but I think you'll find that John Hammond was the eccentric owner of Jurassic Park.
A more mundane answer could be that a junior staffer put it on the site and the editor went nuts on Monday morning when he found out and had it removed. There's no doubt it's a (very neat) gag but the question for me is still, whose?
