'WANKFACE McNULTY' SENSATION!!

Last Friday's unveiling of the Cary Grant statue @bristol proved a fiasco as the Bristol public comprehensively stayed away. Your Bristolian Reporter counted, at its height, 137 punters present, most of whom were @bristol/City Council employees given early release from torpor to make up the numbers. About 30 were parents of the primary school choir and the rest were the invited gliteratti of the Bristol social elite drawn like moths to the flame of fame. That left 28 actual punters in attendance, though one of these asked your Bristolian correspondent "Is this the place where they give out the free Hula Hoops?"!

It shows just how completely out of touch the Bristol Cultural Partnership and its associated @bristol/City Council cronies are where the punters are concerned. A security guard told the Bristolian that crash barriers had been erected as "thousands were expected". The yawning guard added "WANKFACE McNULTY FROM LOCKLEAZE WOULD HAVE GOT A BIGGER CROWD".


So, where was everyone, despite an eight page promo special in the previous day's Evening Post and Cary Grant hype for months. This is undoubtedly how the BCP will run their 2008 bid for European City of Culture - a load of top down cultural initiatives which will have the punters yawning with indifference and staying away in droves. And who can blame them?! Councillor SIMON COOKE took up the first two minutes of his speech listing the corporate sponsors "who had made it all possible". As he droned through "DELOITTE TOUCHE, EVENING POST, CREST NICHOLSON, EDWARD WARE HOMES, etc etc" their individual logos were flashed up on the screen for us to applaud in a taste of the corporate dominated BCP bid to come . In the meantime, the very presence of the Bristolian was beginning to niggle the high and the mighty: First up, some dog-collared god-botherer snatches Bristolians from the hands of his disciples and returns them before their minds are contaminated. Well fuck you too Your Grace!!! Then her Humourless Highness HELEN HOLLAND hoves into view surrounded by her usual coterie of fawning acolytes. This is City Council planning supremo Cllr Helen Holland who has single-handedly wrecked the city centre and sold the city's soul to corporations. "IT'S LIBELLOUS AND SCANDALOUS" she hissed. "Well, we do our best" replied our correspondent. Infuriated Holland spat back in a venomous tongue "AND I'M GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!". OOH-ER! GABBA GABBA FUCKING HEY HEY!" Maybe she'll sort us out in the same way she's sorted the buses out!


Next up was Evening Post Editor and dark henchman of the Evil Empire, MIKE LOWE: "Next time you write about my paper check out the facts with me first". OK Mike, check this one out: How come in Saturday's front page piece you failed to mention the breathtaking absence of punters from the Cary Grant unveiling instead referring to it as "a glittering occasion attended by film fans from across the city". Ha Ha! Who were they then Mike - Sid and Doris Bonkers from Downend, and a bloke looking for free Hula Hoops!


The real reason is that Lowe and Holland are in bed together (not literally, calm down both) on the Cultural Partnership where Holland chairs the Board and Lowe's boss - PAUL KEARNEY, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF BRISTOL EVENING POST AND PRESS LTD - sits on the Board. So we have a city council, corporate sponsors and Post all desperately trying to give the false impression of a successful event to keep the BCP bid staggering on towards certain failure.


AS MR W McNULTY OF LOCKLEAZE MIGHT SAY: " "PISSPOOR IS PISSPOOR EVEN WITH GOLD KNOBS ON".

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EVIL EMPIRE EXCLUSIVE: 96% of Bristolians think the Western Daily Press is Crap!

In an exclusive but admittedly brief interview with your caring Bristolian, Evening Post Editor MIKE LOWE was asked why he was now producing an EVENING newspaper at 7 o'clock in the MORNING?! Wasn't this a sign of competition with its own sister paper, the god-awful Western Daily Press? Were there two warring factions within the secret walls of the Empire? "No", replied Lowe "only 4% of readers of the Evening Post also buy the Western Daily Press." End of interview. The question remains however: WHO THE FUCK ARE THE 4% OF DERANGED BRISTOLIANS WHO BUY THIS FEEBLETON'S MIX OF FUCKWITTED FARMING NEWS AND BUSINESS PR HANDOUTS?! I think we should be told Mike!

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PUB WATCH by Man O'The Peep'Ole

JD Wetherspoon are to open two new pubs in the City to add to the six they already have. The first will be at Temple Quay to serve the new office accommodation next to Temple Meads. The second will be a two storey superpub - the biggest in the City - at Harbourside, as Wetherspoons buy into the Crest Nicholson dream (nightmare!). This week sees the re-opening of the Ropewalk Inn in Bedminster as a Youngs Pub - lets hope they haven't done too much of a corporate makeover of this "interesting" building, i.e. there's a tree growing through the ceiling!

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FIGHTING FUND: full-issue sponsorship from a top geezer - DAVE

£30 this week, our first full-issue sponsorship from a top geezer - DAVE, Bristol's most loyal (only?) Carlisle United Fan. Cheers mate!
Yes, Dear Readers: you too can be as popular as Dave by sponsoring the Bristolian! If you can't afford the £30 it costs to print an issue, just dip your hands into your well-lined pockets and bung us what you can (contact details on front page).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS FELLOW BRISTOLIANS!
By Mr N.E.P.TUNE There will be no Bristolian for three weeks now (Sob! Weep!) - next issue 7.1.02. The last six months has seen our circulation shoot up from 10 copies to a staggering 2,000 a week, and our swelling organ is fast establishing itself at the punters' choice and voice. Our next target is to creep past Venue's 10,000 circulation by Easter 2002. We've broken many major stories the Post won't touch, and exposed the corporate stitch up of our city. In 2002 we'll be launching our FREE THE FROME campaign. They way we treat our poor old river is a disgrace. The vast majority of Bristolians favour the digging up of the Centre and the restoration of the Frome to daylight. So do we! And if no-one listens, we'll just have to dig up the Centre ourselves!!!


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CORPORATE BASTARD SCUMWATCH

The South West Regional Development Agency, the regional quango currently stealing away what few powers are left to local councils, has appointed a new Chief Executive. It is none other than corporate scumbag Geoffrey Wilkinson, "retired" Managing Director of The Laird Group. The multionational has a history of "consolidation" and "downsizing" and have thrown tens of thousands of people onto the dole over the last 20 years. In the 80s they were a heavy engineering group but ditched that to make a fast buck in car spares. When they fucked that up in the 90s they went into electronics (to make a fast buck). And now that electronics is going down that pan and he's been fired he's turning his attention to governing us (for a fat salary, naturally)!! Wilkinson, despite having control of public money and services is, of course, totally unelected and says he will be "bringing sustainable prosperity to each and every part of the region". Yeh - just like he did to all his ex-staff living below the breadline on the dole after his fuckwitted decisions. Laird also have something of a reputation for tax avoidance so its quite fitting that the tax payer should provide him with a bit of extra wedge now that he's out of work .

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SECRET ODEON/CREST NICHOLSON DEAL WILL CLOSE ANOTHER CINEMA!

The implications of the Crest Nicholson Harbourside takeover continue to reverberate across the city. In a secret deal the Odeon Group has agreed to devleop yet another multiplex at Harbourside which will lead to the closure of the Odeon in Union Street - still the easiest city cinema to access by bus. It is thought that the London based property developer DAVID LEWIN - who has recently bought the ABC in Whiteladies Road from the Odeon Group, to close it down and turn it into a fitness centre - may also be interested in purchasing the Union Street cinema. Lewin has close links with the Odeon group and bought up a number of their former cinemas. His interest in developing fitness centres may well appeal to Crest Nicholson's construction arm Pearce Construction who are currently specialising in building LIVING WELL fitness centres around the country. A perfect stitch up for Lewin, Crest Nicholson and Odeon who got all the profitable angles covered while the city council plays patsy and we press out noses to their corporate windows and wonder what other deals they're cooking up for our city.

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ST GEORGE'S GIVEN FREE TRANSFER

St George Community College, Easton's local secondary school, has been sold to the renowned intellectual hothouse that is Bristol City Football Club. The club will pay £1.35m over five years for a seat on the board. They intend to base their own football academy there, turn the place into some kind of sports school (lots of jobs in that, kids) and will pay to set up nine "learning villages" and a "sports dome" to attempt to appease the locals. So look out for the David Beckham Science Village, the Ian Bowyer School of Citizenship etc etc. Of course, now that the school is private, they'll be able to select the kids. So goodbye locals and hello privileged people. Other shareholders in this new business venture include local property magnates (and sometime polytechnic) UWE and inevitably the Bristol Chamber of Commerce. All have put out reams of PR guff telling us how great this is. Yet none can explain how exactly a Division 2 Football Club is qualified to run a school. Or why anyone in their right mind would want a Football Club to run school. A local said: "I don't give a fuck about villages, domes, Bristol fucking City or any other gimmick. Why can't the government pay to give our kids a decent education. I want my child to go to college and get a good job. How do I know this poncey sports academy will even let them in?" The City Council has been silent about the whole affair, presumably glad to see the back of another school it couldn't manage properly and afraid to upset its friends in business by standing up for a community's school being bought out from under them. The primary school league tables are upon us. Milpond Primary at Baptist Mills didn't do too well. How long before the city council decides to close the school and sell the land to Crest Nicholson?

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KNOWLE WEST NEWS By our correspondent Phil Wood

Gary Hopkins (you know, the one who uses a basin to shape his haircut and local Lib Dem Nurd) has got his comeuppance from Knowle West residents. He requested to join the steering group of the local Neighbourhood Renewal Fund. On the first meeting of this group, Terms of Reference were drawn up, and it was said that no-one on the group should make personal or disparaging remarks about any other group member and that no-one should have a political agenda. As a result, when Hopkins applied to join the group, a vote was taken and he was told he would not be allowed to be a member due to his past record of causing trouble and delving into people's private affairs. Paul Chamberlain (whose wife is also a Lib Dem) resigned from the board of the Knowle West Development Trust** in protest. I'm sure he will be sorely missed!!! Perhaps the time has come when residents will not be pushed around any more. I certainly hope so!

**Just what shenanigans are going on at the Southmead Development Trust, as the local Labour Mafia fork out £1.5 m for their OWN BAR!!! See next issue.

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