World Cup fever for the price of a small house!
IT would appear that Weymouth is starting to be gripped by World Cup fever with a number of people from the town planning to jet out to South Africa.
Some are going for just a few days while others are planning quite a long stay.
So what is the biggest football tournament on earth going to cost fans from Weymouth and Portland to get there and watch?
Prices do vary, but if you take a simple average of the High Street then six days out there can cost £4,000 while three weeks can cost up to £8,000 depending on accommodation and the number of matches attended.
I suppose it also depends jointly on how keen you are and how much you can afford, but I did shake my head a bit at one tale I heard of three lads going out there.
The bill for their joint trip came to £24,000…. which is more than our first house cost when my wife and I got married in 1983!
I’m sure it will give them the experience of a lifetime but personally I shall be watching matches unfold from my armchair.
Staying neutral doesn’t always pay
DOG mess is not really a subject for a high class column like this but I have been forced to make an exception.
I was careful to stay neutral when I covered a recent council debate on dog orders being proposed right across Weymouth and Portland including a ban on fouling.
My neutrality continued right through a series of passionate comments by both sides. Opponents claimed it was not necessary to keep dogs on a lead in some areas such as the Rodwell Trail while those supporting the orders said owners would clean up more mess if dogs were closer to them where they could see what they were doing.
The result saw proposals adapted to exempt areas such as the Nothe Gardens but not the Rodwell Trail much to the disgust of several dog owners who said that keeping a dog on a lead there wouldn’t stop it going to the toilet.
I remained neutral at the meeting and was still neutral as I walked up Abbotsbury Road and took a picture of the Rodwell Trail to illustrate my story.
There my neutrality unfortunately ended as, camera work finished, I stepped back and trod straight into a large pile of mess on the pavement.
Consider how fortunate the owner of that dog was not to be there because I would have backed their dog being exempt from being tethered…. in favour of using the lead to string the owner up from the nearest lamp standard.
It took me half an hour, an old toothbrush and a lot of disinfectant to remove the smell from my footwear and, if my story and all future coverage will remain neutral, I personally have nothing but total support for the orders.
No turkey or tinsel for me
CHRISTMAS is barely an exploding cracker away yet incredibly we are being urged to book “turkey and tinsel” holidays nearly a year ahead.
I love Christmas with the best of them, but there are limits and this is one of them.
My blood pressure has scarcely had a chance to rise in annoyance at the persistent series of bronzed beauties with white piano teeth smiles fronting adverts for summer holidays on sun-kissed beaches.
Short-sleeved shirts still seem a long way off to me and I certainly don’t want to think about warm clothing before I’ve had a chance to enjoy the rain of an English summer.
So I have a suggestion to make to travel agents. Why don’t you do barbecue and deckchair holidays first and leave Christmas where it belongs… a long way ahead.
Don’t fall for the cactus vodka
ALL too often a trip out to a beauty spot can end in crime with cars rifled of their contents by opportunist thieves.
But one Weymouth couple fell victim to a theft scam while up a volcano on Tenerife.
They’d stopped to admire the view and as they opened their car doors to get out they were immediately approached by a man offering them local honey and cactus vodka from the boot of his car.
They were on holiday, relaxed and it was an unusual local trading offer so they went across and had a look.
But the man had deliberately struck so quickly that they’d been distracted and forgotten to lock their car door, easy meat for the man’s accomplice lurking nearby who stole their bag with passports and a credit card in it.
So the next time you’re out and about for a bit of countryside relaxing watch out for cactus vodka salesman!
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