Worcester Park Christmas evening tonight!

Yes indeed! Tonight Central Road will ring to the sound of a marching band, carol singers, laughing children and quietly exasperated parents!

It should be a great chance to have some fun in Worcester Park and get some Christmas shopping done so do head down and make the most of the occasion. There's some rain forecast for this afternoon but hopefully it will have passed through by the evening, though you can always keep an eye on how it's doing here.

A special prize will be on offer to the first person who spots me in the crowd, though if you do see me that will mean that my evening will have gone pear-shaped as I'm supposed to be at a party up in London... you never know though.

On a more mundane note the event means that parking restrictions are in place on Central Road and that the side roads will be busier with traffic and the chances of parking in or around Brinkster Central will be virtually zero..

Have fun and let me know how it goes!

Worcester Park Cashpoint Smashed!

On the way home from my first Christmas party of the season last night I noticed that somebody had comprehensively smashed up the cashpoint at the Lloyds bank on Central Road. As you can see from the photo the scree had been completely shoved back into the unit and the front panel was quite broken.

There was nobody around to suggest that it had been done recently though presumably it had happened sometime after the bank had closed earlier in the evening.

I called the Police to inform them of the issue and it turned out that someone else had already called it in, which pleased me immensely so kudos to whoever it was who beat me to it... community faith level restored!

If you saw what happened or know anything about the incident then I'm sure the Police would be just as interested as me to hear from you.

Head Over Heels in Traffic!

More traffic problems this morning when someone found their Vauxhall Corsa inverted by Worcester Park station, according to the Surrey Comet here, together with a dramatic picture of the vehicle in question via Twitter.

Details are scarce so anything you can provide would be interesting, though they're unlikely to be quite as interesting as any dashcam footage that might have been available had one been installed, as is often the case in places like Russia.

Drivers there commonly install.dashcams for insurance reasons and the resulting video have proliferated while continuing to amaze and horrify in equal measure. Not for the easily disturbed. Drive safely people

Black Friday Mania Hits Worcester Park

... is probably an exaggeration but the pet shop on Central road did have this sign outside advertising dog and cat beds for half price!

Ironically that's probably one of the best deals out there as trawling through Amazon's wall of tat this morning has turned up such eminently resistible offers as "Unibond Aero-360 Moisture Absorber refills - pack of 2" for £3.89 (61% off) and the "Catit Litter Tray Filters" for £3.48, either of which would make a loved one's face light up in Christmas morning... with incandescent rage most likely.

The extent to which this has taken hold in the UK is probably a marketer's dream as it was previously the preserve of the US for whom Black Friday was the day after Thanksgiving. Seeing as we don't do Thanksgiving in the UK, other than giving thanks for not having the prospect of Donald Trump being in charge of our country, we shouldn't have a Black Friday by a process of logical deduction. And quite how Black Friday has now been strung out over a whole week by some stores I have no idea!? I certainly couldn't get away with telling my boss that I was celebrating Christmas Day for a whole week and that's why I wasn't going to be in....

If you've found any astoundingly good deals in Worcester Park do let me know in the comments!

Ne'er the twain shall meet

My train buddy from across the rails was bemoaning the fact that her neighbourhood watch meeting was discussing the prospect that her little corner of Worcester Park Old Malden was going to be adopted into the London Borough of Sutton at some point in the future.

"I don't want to live in SUTTON" she fumed.
"It's not even a ROYAL borough" she raged in a slightly suppressed commuter-ish way.

She did admit that the Council Tax was likely to be less but her opinion was that if you move into a borough on purpose then it's a bit underhand for some distant committee to take that away from you if it affects things such as services and perhaps the choice of schools, a big issue for secondary schools in Worcester Park.

Some Googling led me back to a Sutton Guardian article from 2012 which said that:

"The commission has also proposed changes to the Sutton and Cheam constituency which would include St James and Old Malden wards.Local MP, Paul Burstow, said: "The new proposals add Old Malden and St James from the Kingston and Surbiton Constituency of Lib Dem MP Ed Davey.
"In practice these proposals are not going ahead but if they did they are unlikely to dramatically change the political balance in the seat."

Looking at the Boundary Commission website suggests that in 2013 the review was put back until 2018

"A new law in 2011 set the timing of reviews of all constituencies to take place at fixed five year intervals, whilst also removing the ability of the Commission to undertake interim reviews. Although the first review under these new arrangements began in early 2011, Parliament postponed that review in 2013 for five years.

So it looks like my friend may have some time to wait before anything happens but it left me wondering whether Sutton is really so bad and whether being in a Royal borough is as good as it's made out to be.

Any opinions gratefully accepted, even if they're indignant and outraged ones.


P.S. Blogger is telling me this is my 500th post! Yay! Go me! There may, or may not, be cake, dancing girls and Justin Bieber...

New Christmas Lights in Worcester Park

As I strolled down Central Road on the way to the station this morning the undeniably eye-catching new Christmas decorations on the lampposts... erm... caught my eye. I'm presuming they were put up last night as I have no recollection of noticing them on the way home yesterday and whilst I may have been displaying almost terminal levels of inattentiveness I would have remembered them if I'd seen them.

The first thing I noticed was just how big they are, particularly in contrast to the petite ones of previous years (shown below), and the second thing is just how low they are to the pavement! I'd guess at 10 feet tops but possibly 8?

Now I'm not suggesting this for a moment but given how low they are I'd be quite prepared to put a bet on

at one of Central Road's various gambling establishments that by the time New Year rolls around some over-lubricated reveller with have attempted to swing from one, with potentially disastrous results.

Thoughts?

7/7 recollections of an adopted Londoner

What I've reproduced below is part of a longer post that you can find over here and was written back in 2007 by Worcester Park resident and American ex-pat The Noble Savage and is equally, make that particularly, relevant today.

If you're going to spend some time in silence today then reading this would be a fitting way to spend it.

Please feel free to add your own stories in the comments

"I was in central London the day the July 7 bombings happened. I pulled up to the train station and was told the Underground was shut. There were rumours of a fire. I called my boss to tell him I’d be late and asked him which bus would take me from Westminster Bridge to Oxford Street. I began walking to the bus stop when my phone rang and my boss was saying not to get a bus as there’d been reports of an explosion on one. He told me to stay away from tourist attractions and government buildings. He tells me this as I stood on Westminster Bridge. If I were one to freak out, I probably would’ve thrown myself from the bridge into the Thames right then and there. Amidst all the chaos and confusion, as I fought to stand still in a stream of people pushing forward, scurrying in all directions and at a loss as to what to do or where they should go, I made a decision. I would go on. So I began walking.

Police Request Help Finding Missing Girl

Just received this email from the Met Police asking for help

Police are appealing for assistance in tracing a 15-year-old girl who has been missing since Friday, 10 April.

 

Lauren Chandler went missing from an address in Orpington but is originally from Sutton. She is also known to frequent Bromley, Croydon, Lewisham and Wandsworth.

 

Lauren is described as about 5ft 4in tall, of skinny build, with mousy blonde hair and pale complexion.

 

She is not believed to have a phone, Oyster Card or have access to money.

 

If you see Lauren please contact police immediately on 101 quoting ref no: 15MIS012210. Any information can also be passed anonymously to the missing people charity on 116000.