Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

The Birdy Song

Sometimes you just cannot get a bad tune out of your head, can you?

I’ve been whistling this one most of the afternoon in South Shields today. (Not that I want to call attention to myself, you understand).

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Plain common sense in letters page at last.

Good to read Mr. Thompson’s letter in the Shields Gazette yesterday, such a shame that the Rally Against Debt march in London will have been totally overshadowed by the screaming hordes and vandals of the UK Uncut march, but I suspect that the silent majority will still look on approvingly. Mr. Thompson makes the very valid point that the five years of austerity planned by the coalition government is designed to try and get public spending back towards the percentage levels of 2008, not a vintage year for poverty in the UK!

The proof will be in the pudding of course, we will see if the government can succeed, at present it can only be hopeful rather than certain; the current public spending and borrowing figures continue on their upward rise mainly because of the high levels of interest being charged on the debts deliberately built up by Gordon Brown’s Labour government. These were designed NOT to be a bogus remedy – as Mr. Thompson points out “spending your way out of recession” has done no good at all in Portugal, Ireland, and Greece -  but as a political weapon designed to implode within the government that Brown knew would  succeed his. He was determined to ensure that the unpopularity of putting right his wrongs would lead to the cynical return of the good old days of tax and spend!

One can only hope that common sense prevails and that this government CAN manage to get to grips with the structural deficit and debt, admittedly it has not been the major talking point on the doorsteps of South Tyneside during the past two weeks, people are more concerned over pot holes, street cleansing, and keeping council taxes down, but deep in their hearts they do not want to live in a bankrupt Britain.

Mr. Thompson take your bow, you deserve it.

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South Shields loses out on sunshine

Well we could have done without the fog today which hung around the coastal areas of the north east and sunk into depressions and low lying areas. Everything was set for a bumper Good Friday for sea front and town centre traders as weathermen forecast temperatures in the 20s. Oh well, if you lived in Simonside or Jarrow you probably enjoyed your barbecue in the sun!

There are certain things that we do by tradition in South Shields and there are certain ways of doing them which cannot be thrown away, Good Friday is one of those “events” in the calendar when tradition must be upheld. Preparations begin weeks earlier when parents and grandparents start buying new clothes for children, and some are even taken to Sunday School for the first time, parks and gardens are attended to, cleaned up and pruned, the fairground attractions are repainted, repaired, and spruced up, new rides installed, and all the boats on the South Marine Park lake are given an overhaul.

So we were ready as usual for crowds to flock to the Market Place, the West Park, and East Harton School following the marching bands in The Procession of Witness organised by the Sunday Schools Union, civic leaders attended to add an air of community spirit which we all approve of, and the Mayor gets to be driven around at breakneck speed to be at two events within fifteen minutes of each other. In years gone by, after the public service for Good Friday in the Market Place the bands would march down King Street and Ocean Road before peeling away towards their respective churches, the huge crowds following behind would then carry on down towards the beaches, parks, and the funfair. I don’t know if this still happens because I leave the Market in a hurry to get to the West Park!

So it was today, in order to photograph and document as much of the day as possible, for some reason I want things to go on as they are, and for the rest of the country to know what we do here at this time of year. I want them to know that on the whole they can come to South Shields early in the day and enjoy a great day out, queue with the rest of us for fish and chips, and (if your luck is in) get a sun tan on the beach or in the parks as an added bonus. I took a great many pictures today in addition to the few showing in the slide show below, so if you want to visit us and want to see more of our Easter traditions, keep an eye on South Shields Daily Pictures over the next couple of weeks.

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South Shields Labour candidate could perhaps have been a “Tiller Girl”

How does your email address sound and look to your friends? Must admit mine doesn’t exactly spark the imagination, and most other people just use their name(at)whoevertheispis(dot)com. However, every now and then one pops up that amuses, most of them are using Hotmail, Yahoomail, or Gmail and have some quirky link to their personality.

I recall that former Commons Speaker Betty Boothroyd used to be a dancing Tiller Girl, not sure how tall she is, and I wonder if a certain Labour candidate in South Shields for next month’s elections either knew her or had dancing or modelling ambitions of her own?

Joyce.longlegs(at)blahdeblah(dot)com conjures up all sorts of entertaining and strange thoughts.

Do you know anyone with a strange email address?

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South Shields Labour Party throw a few leg spinners too.

This from a few of the election leaflets being distributed on behalf of Labour in South Shields:

The Tory-led Coalition government have -

• Imposed £35m worth of cuts on South Tyneside Council with more to come
• Odd then that the total budget requirement for this year is only £11.7m less than last year and that the net budget requirement is £0.7m higher. Also odd that they don’t disclose that Alistair Darling planned to make cuts just about of the same order as the present government if Labour had won the general election, indeed Darling declared that cuts would have to be harder and deeper than in the Thatcher years.
• Increased VAT to 20% meaning we all have to pay higher prices for everyday things.
• Why don’t they mention that Labour’s last Chancellor wanted to introduce two similar rises?(As disclosed by Lord Mandelson)

Your Labour Council will -

• Improve our town centre – from Ocean Road to King Street and the Market Place.
• Please don’t laugh, I know you have heard this MANY times before and are still waiting to see it happen! Perhaps they meant replacing a few more paving blocks.
• Continue to bring down Council Tax by looking at better ways of delivering services – no increase in Council Tax for 2011!
• This one spun so much it missed the wicket keeper! Seriously can you believe that statement? For a start lets break it down into two pieces, firstly the claim that Labour will continue to bring down Council Tax, the word continue suggests an ongoing process, something which has happened before, is happening now and will happen in the future. Can anyone remember when Labour last did anything except INCREASE Council Tax in South Tyneside? No……neither can I.
• Secondly the use of the exclamation mark after – no increase in Council Tax for 2011 – suggests that Labour was in some way responsible for this first ever freeze, when we all know they could never be responsible for anything except tax rises. This is the most outrageous use of “spin” I’ve seen for years in this borough. The Council Tax freeze has been imposed on our council by the Conservative led coalition government, and  if our council manages our money well we may find that it is frozen again next year as the grant system rewards prudence.

Finally there is a statement that Labour is (amongst other things)

• Committed to driving down Council Tax.
• Well, it beggars belief really, can you recall all of those consultation exercises and public polls that offered you a choice of four levels of council tax rises, but never once offered a freeze or a cut? Can you really believe they are committed to driving down Council Tax in South Tyneside – I cannot!

Don’t be taken in by this spin and please remember on May 5th. that in South Tyneside Council Taxes under Labour have done nothing else except rise inexorably year after year after year. It was a Conservative led government that brought you this year’s tax freeze!

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Much new support on the streets of Cleadon Village and East Boldon

Just as we were discussing last week the state of some local parties on South Tyneside and the apparent resistance of people in South Shields to join their local parties or volunteer (for either the Conservatives, Labour, or the Liberal Democrats), news comes from the Jarrow constituecy of a resurgence in interest in party politics, particularly from the younger age groups.

You will remember that I mentioned an influx of younger members to the Jarrow Conservative Association in my last post on the subject, and notwithstanding the lingering problems they have over the eventual resignation of independent councillor David Potts, association chairman cllr. Jeff Milburn happily tells me that they are enthusiastically getting on with the job of fighting the local elections in Jarrow. More than that, the Jarrow Tories can call upon almost 200 members for support many of them in the 17 – 35 age group! This influx of new blood has happened over the past couple of years putting them in the position of having “competition” for the opportunity to stand as a candidate and represent the party in the local government elections. Jeff is delighted with the current state of affairs in the Jarrow association where fund raising has been going on for aome time in preparation for this month’s campaign. Jeff knows that Labour’s Joan Atkinson will prove stiff opposition in the Cleadon and East Boldon ward, she networks well with two Twitter pages and a blog, but he is confidant that his large team of young enthusiastic keen young legs will help sitting councillor Donald Wood successfully defend his seat.

Jeff (who is younger than I) told me:

“I really want to emphasise and let people know that there is a world of difference between South Shields and Jarrow, we have very much a young vibrant party of people here, we are well organised keen and energetic. We have no shortage of volunteers, of course we will always welcome more if anyone wishes to join us, who wouldn’t? However, there is certainly a different balance to the party here in Jarrow and the future looks great for the association”

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Say NO to AV

I know I’ve already made one post on this matter, but I really do believe we inherently like our current system of electing MPs for South Shields, Jarrow or anywhere else for that matter, it is simple, easy to understand, easy to operate and has worked well for hundreds of years.

Here are a couple of videos to help simplify the understanding, please vote NO to AV on May 5th.

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No sponsors for Great North Dog Walk, taxpayer chips  in again.

It was £500 of our cash in 2009 and Brian made the point that the Great North Dog Walk in South Shields seems to have a last minute crisis every year, this year South Tyneside Council (on our behalf) has doubled your contribution to £1000. This year’s taxpayers double your money cash give away will provide oodles more, indeed lots more than the £500 worth of water a couple of years ago. If this amount of cash can now stretch to providing water, poop scoops, security barriers, PA systems and insurance then we ought to stop worrying about the council’s ability to provide services during these austere periods, they are obviously experts at making our cash go further!

Notice how the numbers keep rising too – 30,000 visitors each year, 18,000 dogs, £4.2m raised!

Some questions

• Where did they all park?
• Did you see those 30,000 visitors last year?
• How much cash did the sponsors  provide previously?
• Did you see more than 4000 dogs per hour on The Leas?
• Why have all of the sponsors apparently pulled out?
• How many questions do the Council put to the organisers?
• Where are the accounts published?
• Why has Mr. Carlisle failed to answer my email?

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No….they won’t be designed by The Joker either!

Antarctic penguins proved an unlikely inspiration for some of the greenest homes now under construction in the North East. Work is now under way on 21 carbon-negative homes at Reed Street, South Shields – and their design was partly inspired by the way penguins huddle together to survive extreme cold, says Lynda Peacock, Group Director of Development and Regeneration at Four Housing Group. Extreme conditions in the Antarctic see several thousand emperor penguins huddling together to reduce the amount of surface area exposed to the north wind, thus retaining heat in spite of the bitter cold.

The new homes are designed to imitate the penguins, with the main habitable rooms facing south and exposed northern elevations kept to a minimum. This maximises the natural heat and light from the sun, helping residents save money on bills as well as reducing the development’s environmental impact.

These new homes in Reed Street, South Shields will be primarily tax payer funded by The Homes and Community Agency and are promised to be “carbon negative” employing the very latest in “green building” techniques and will feature solar photovoltaic panels to produce some electricity (which I approve of), and a biomass heating system (which I am not so sure about) to produce heat in these super insulated houses opposite The Eureka.

I think I need to learn more, I have taken advantage of just about every scheme and tax payer funded initiative available to stuff my loft with several feet of insulation, filled my wall cavities with insulation, added pvcu double glazing and doors etc. etc. yet in my mainly south facing location I have yet to feel much benefit, we felt as cold this winter as we did in any other, so we probably used as much gas fired central heating as normal. Notwithstanding the self generated electricity that these houses may be provided with, and I have yet to try calculating how much CO2 the production of solar panels emits, there is the question of biomass heating systems which from what I read in Wikipedia could have an unbalancing effect on some eco-systems and the

combustion of biomass creates air pollutants and adds significant quantities of carbon to the atmosphere that may not be returned to the soil for many decades.

Additionally one has to consider the production of all of the building materials used to erect these homes, the heavy plant and diesel used to deliver materials to the site, the production of all of the tools required by construction workers, the production of all of the safety clothing that they will no doubt require during the building phase, what exactly is the cost of all of this in CO2 emissions?

Finally, on completion, there will be people living in these homes, decorating them with materials that emitted CO2 in their manufacture, eating food that had a cost in CO2 emissions, and unfortunately they will be breathing air and exhaling more CO2 into the atmosphere!

Can someone please explain to me what exactly is meant by a “carbon negative” penguin inspired flat, and which Joker invented the term?

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Rising debts force sale of Newcastle Airport

Newcastle International Airport is 51% owned by seven local authorities including our own South Tyneside, the remaining 49% is owned by Copenhagen Airports International. According to unconfirmed reports in the Sunday Times the airport’s loan of some £320m is due for repayment in December 2013.

The report alleges that the airport has been put up for sale by our local councils, whilst the CEO of Copenhagen Airports Rasmus Christiansen says:

“We don’t comment on market speculation. We are often approached by airport investors but we are not in a formal process to sell Newcastle.”

What is not clear is whether the seven local authorities and Copenhagen Airports would be liable to clear the debts prior to a possible sale, or whether a prospective new owner would buy the debt too. This liability may hamper a possible sale, or hang a heavy millstone around the necks of thousands of council tax payers.

It must be hoped that KPMG can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Watch this space!

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