One ‘l’ of an image problem

STILL nearly a year and a half to go to the Olympics and already graffiti writers are flexing their arms if not their brain cells.

One Neanderthal who attacked the Westham underpass with white spray paint was seeking to get across a deeply philosophical message.

This is a family newspaper so I’ve had to edit it a bit but the gist of it ran: “**** the Olympics. Save the world.”

With such a heroic sentiment to express one can only imagine the pride this person must have felt when they stepped back to view their clarion call to action.

Unfortunately the message may have scored high on impact but it scored low on literacy and the writer must have been mortified to discover they had missed the “l” out of “world”.

Not daunted, they then sprayed an “l” just above where it should have gone with an insert arrow below it.

Sadly this merely highlighted the mistake but the real message here is that the council had better be ready to tackle this sort of thing quickly or Weymouth and Portland will have an “l” of an image problem come Games time.

Tricky things those skips . . .

CRITICISM has been heaped on that lovely new traffic junction at Boot Hill in Weymouth.

I understand that literally scores of complaints have been made about it to the council ahead of measures to clarify the junction, but it appears that not all the complaints may be justified.

One driver angry at being stuck near the junction for 25 minutes during its early days finally lost patience, turned round and went home where he wrote to the council and complained about the scheme.

Because it was still “work in progress” I’m told that staff took the trouble to try and check video footage of the area at the time the driver said he met problems to find out why he’d been delayed for so long.

Apparently their efforts bore fruit and it emerged that the driver in question actually had been delayed for 25 minutes as he claimed… but only because he had mistakenly been queueing behind a skip!

Fish and chips and change from 10 bob

TIME passes us all by but sometimes the developments that come with progress don’t register as strongly as they might.

This was perfectly illustrated when staff were left stunned by a pensioner in her 90s who came in to their shop to buy fish and chips, offered ten shillings and asked for change!

The incident at Alf’s on Chickerell Road began when the former Land Army woman came to get a meal, offered a 50 pence piece and said she expected change from her “ten shillings”.

Owner John Pearce eventually worked out that the last time the woman had bought fish and chips it had cost her eight shillings!

So John, a renowned local fund raiser for charity, played along and served her fish and chips, returned a ten pence piece to her and said: “There’s your two shillings change.”

He told the View: “She hadn’t bought fish and chips for years and paid eight shillings the last time she did.

“I thought it was lovely, so I served her and gave her “two shillings” change just as she asked.”

Some things are more important

PASSENGERS tell me that there is a bit of “them and us” creeping in to bus journeys on the new No 5 service in Weymouth which now goes via Lanehouse and Southill.

There was uproar in Southill when it appeared likely to lose large sections of its service but talks secured buses albeit using a slightly different route.

The new service now goes via Lanehouse and some of the people there are not happy at the alleged “upper class” attitude of passengers from Southill.

Jeering remarks apparently greeted one Southill passenger boarding a bus in front of four Lanehouse passengers who felt they had become victims of a bit of queue jumping.

Their response was to discomfort the Southill passenger with a series of pointed remarks made during their shared journey.

If that passenger did jump the queue then they shouldn’t have but — the last time I checked with clergy — two wrongs don’t make a right.

So arguing the toss over getting on to a bus is perhaps revealed for the petty parochial patter it is at a time when thousands of people are losing their lives in earthquakes or battles for freedom.

We all have to go!

THERE was consternation when male senior council figures came in to a toilet at Weymouth Pavilion only to meet women.

The ladies were there in connection with work planned for the toilets but their presence still shook the movers and shakers.

The whole situation was given a humorous conclusion by a male worker whose comment still left the senior council personnel... well, uncertain of where they stood.

The worker told them: “Didn’t you know? This is a uni-sex toilet now!”

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