Bridgwater is dying. It’s a dump. It’s really dangerous here. There’s nothing to do and it should be twinned with Gaza. Or Hell.  Now, would you like to come to my cafe? Where is it? Bridgwater, of course. It does baffle me how people can run the town down and still expect people to want to come here. What we do need….and that’s everybody…is a sense of positivity, an optimistic outlook and maybe instead of constantly knocking, rather to big up the town.

Bridgwater is a great place. A history to be proud of, a location other locations would die for, and opportunities a knocking with industry choosing to visit the place time and time again. Hinkley now Gravity. The supply chains around both. Continue reading “Drawing a Line on the Bad News”

So, I’m sat in a bar waiting for the England game. Very subdued atmosphere. Then again, I am in Scotland. Nobody seems to want to talk to me. Admittedly I’m stripped to the waist and have painted a red cross on my chest. One guy mistakes me for a paramedic. I don’t yet know the result of the big game. (That’s a pre-season friendly between Forfar Athletic and Livingston) (I presume).

So, I browse some social media. There’s a whole section on the England v Spain game. “I couldn’t find an English flag, so I bought a French one and painted a red cross on it!”  Takes a few more lines to realise this history buff meant the French flag was white. Apparently because they surrender so much. Hmm, they didn’t at Dunkirk, they held the perimeter allowing the British French army to retreat. And that’s before we even mention ‘la Resistance’ Continue reading “Thank God Hitler Didn’t Have Social Media”

For the past few weeks I’ve not been allowed to have a newspaper column for fear that my scandalous political views (ie ‘the Tories might be a bit shit’) influence the readers of the Bridgwater Diogo, I mean ‘Mercury’. And of course realising that as a Godless Communist Catholic Anarchist, there might be some truth in that. So today, with only a few days until election day (and a few seconds until you remember you also have that postal vote form still hanging around un-filled in) I thought it was my duty to give a balanced and totally fair  summary of the candidates and parties standing for the election in Bridgwater. And how to make sure the Tories don’t get in again.

Continue reading “NOT The Leader’s Mercury Column:- “How Should I Vote?””

So, there’s an election. Everywhere you look there’s posters and billboards for candidates and parties, and in every pub and café bar people are talking about it and saying, ‘Please make it go away soon’.

Yes, here in Ireland they’re in the middle of their European elections and they do things a bit differently.

On every lamppost there’s 3 or 4 massive poster boards each with a smiling be-sloganed picture of the candidate and why you should vote for them. ‘Declan O’Houlihan -He’s great!’, ‘Mick Hogan-a man with a slogan’, ‘Maura McSweeney-I’m better than the rest of these gobshites’, ‘Podge Doonican-Why am I even standing!’.  And not just on every lamppost. The roadside is lined with them to the point of it being a potential hazard to road users as you get over interested. ’Paddy O Toole’, ‘Bridget McAvoy’, ‘Michael O Shea’ ‘Dangerous Bend’ …’Dangerous Bend??! Aaarghh! Continue reading “There’s an Election on then..”

You take a break and have a few quiet days away in Ireland thinking not much can happen in Bridgwater while you’re  gone and then, oh dear no, there’s an armed robbery and an armed Police response unit arresting people at armed gunpoint on the Cornhill. And my nice gentle article this week was all about picking up litter….. And then of course the Mercury change my clever headline about ‘litterati’ (get it?) to ‘a battle with the bottle’. I think I’d better have another Guiness…

I’ve tried most East European beers, Budvar, Pilsner, Tyskie, Hnus and so on. But I never realised how popular the Polish beer Perla was until I found it was the single most popular item on this week’s community litter pick. Continue reading “A Day with the Litterati”