Grave concerns

Alan and Giuseppe have both been in touch today to let me know that the Old BBC Sports Ground / Cemetery planning application for Motspur Park / Worcester Park border is now live and can be found here. The plans looked like this when they had the original meeting in October last year:

A petition has been started to oppose the proposals and if you want to add your signature to it you can find it here.

I'm off to Arizona tomorrow for a week, leaving Mrs Brinkster and the clan behind, so do let me have any Worcester Park stories you hear and if I'm able to get online in sunny Phoenix then I'll pick them up and post them.

Welcome

Greetings to all of you who've made the trek across from my old blog site on 20six. You've probably noticed it was down most of this week so I've left it behind and moved to pastures new!

If you haven't been here before you'll have missed a couple of posts I made this week when 20six was down so read on you gorgeous things!

Oooh. and it makes me wonder

In the eight minutes it takes me to walk from Brinkley Road to the station of a weekday morning I find that all kinds of things will pop, as it were, into my mind. Some of these things are related to Worcester Park but others are not. I am keenly aware that the vast majority of these things are of no interest to anyone except myself but in this instance I've decided that a trifle such as that shouldn't stop me blogging about it.

If you've been down Central Road in the last couple of weeks you'll have noticed that our dearly beloved Council have been installing traffic calming measures (i.e. big humps) at the end of each road connecting to Central Road. In what was possibly a moment of lucidity this morning I realised that what they were actually doing was building a rather wide and steep canal.

Being a reader of this blog already demonstrates impeccable taste and dazzling intellect, although in some cases potentially poor time management, so I invite you employ your hemispherical talents and do me the honour of thinking about it for a minute. Normally when it pours with rain on Central Road the drains fail to cope and it cascades down the hill until it comes to a road junction at which point the water will run off down the side road instead. Now that we have these crafty canal walls speed humps the water won't be able to dissipate down the side streets and will head off down the length of Central Road and collect at the bottom, potentially flooding the small businesses in that area, or carry on to the bridge and make it even more inaccessible than normal.

Now this may not happen and some unforeseen factor will mean that this all the water will be happily dispersed but if it does happen then do remember you read it here first.

Earthquake carnage

On my way to the station this morning I surveyed Central Road for signs of last night's earthquake and my keen eye picked out the broken wires hanging listlessly from various buildings, torn up road surfaces, traffic backed all the way up the road and an upended rubbish bin........ so no signs at all in other words. Let me know if you felt anything as I was soundly asleep at the time, which I'm rather disappointed about.

On the subject of the torn up roads the traffic-calming-in-progress outside KFC claimed a rather nice Lotus Elan as it's victim yesterday when the driver beached it on the exposed brickwork. Lots of metallic scraping noises were accompanied by the pained expression of the driver. Stone Place is the next target so I anticipate tears before bedtime while people try and work out the detour to get to Waitrose.

For those of you who've been conversing with me by email or via Facebook about my many recent visits to the Royal Marsden the results are back and they're good! Email/message me and I'll tell you all the gory details.

If you've been frustrated in your attempts to get a dose of Brinkster-style Worcester Park happenings on 20six this week it's apparently the fault of a Chinese ISP who has taken a leaf out of the books of the ISPs in Pakistan who blocked Youtube this week. Having seen what could be done this Chinese ISP has taken to blocking sites it deems to be undesirable, which for some reason included 20six, this blogs current home. Grrrrr...

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!

As posted yesterday I headed off to the Huntsmans for dinner, albeit a little later than advertised, to see what they had to offer. Despite it's fearsome reputation the handful of people in there weren't drunk or spoiling for a fight and there were no dogs of any size in sight so I ordered my unadventurous chicken burger and chips and settled down with my beer in a seat near one of the big TVs. I find that having a TV in a pub can be a mixed blessing but it wasn't too loud and, whereas this time yesterday morning I didn't know or care who Lily Allen's top 10 British artists are I can only now say that I don't care.

My food arrived reasonably swiftly and I confess to being surprised when it arrived as I'd had very low expectations as to what would turn up and had a small chuckle about the "Fine dining at it's best" comment on the front of the menu but I was pleased to see a decent looking burger, salad and fries (the thin things, not 'chips') garnished with chopped parsley. It was all hot and tasty and inside the burger I was even more surprised to find pieces of real chicken, not some squashed down, breadcrumbed, 10-for-a-quid frozen food type stuff. The bun was a bit firmer than I might normally go for but I know some of you like your buns firmer than I do [snigger]. The picture doesn't really do it justice and on the whole I'd say it competes favourably with most pub grub I've come across so would urge you to give it a try.

The only slight downsides I could see were a couple of signs of the former clientele etched into one of the seats and a slightly forlorn Christmas decoration on the mantelpiece (see top picture) but gazing out of the windows at the bustle of people and traffic making their way home from work I could easily imagine it as a place to sit down and have a quiet chat or bring a group of friends to. It was a bit busier when I left and there were another couple having dinner, suggesting that I'm not entirely out of my mind for trying the food.

I know that picking one hour on a Wednesday night isn't exactly representative of what it may be like the rest of the time but I wasn't put off by the place so would encourage you to give it a go and support one of Worcester Park's most historic pubs!

And click this - http://worcesterpark.myminicity.com/

Cold feet?

Instead of bringing you the latest news I thought I'd pass on this Youtube nugget, the description of which reads:
"Worcester Park bridge got flooded and i was on the bus with Sean and Max. We went through the flood and the bus got flooded and our feet got soaked."

You'd have to be a bit more desperate to watch "gangstas in worcester park" though. I hope they're suitably embarrassed.

As Mrs Brinkster has taken the clan away for the night I may brave the Hunstman's Hall around 6 this evening to see what their new menu has to offer. If I do go, and if I survive the experience, I'll post about it tomorrow.

Lloyds bank robbed?

I've had an anonymous post today which I thought I'd reproduce here in the hope of getting more info:

"Just tried to pay my bills in Lloyds and it is closed. Police car and Group 4 van. Finger print team are in there and the door is locked. Just thought you might want to know that exciting things do happen in Worcester Park!!"

If you do know what's happened then please do write a comment and a big "Thank you" to the anonymous commenter for letting me know!

I 'heart' Worcester Park

The phenomenon that is Valentines Day is upon us and the Brinkster fridge is stocked with scallops, oysters and bubbly... though I haven't quite worked what relevance the usual Valentines frippery has to do with commemorating the life/death of an obscure ancient Roman martyr... but then neither have I quite worked out why celebrating the birth of Jesus seems to make me want to by an iPod.

For me Valentines Day means two things. Firstly that Worcester Park restaurants will be heaving, with the hordes of the disorganised peering longingly through the windows. Secondly it means that there won't be anywhere to park on Brinkley Road as restaurant-goers joust for spaces and probably hold up all the other traffic in the process. All things considered staying in sounds like a good plan. Our record is having to park 25 houses away from our own on a busy night.

Your useless fact for the day is that until 1969 the Roman Catholic church apparently had 11 different St Valentines Days in the calendar.....

And click here - http://worcesterpark.myminicity.com