The Bristolian - 14/01/02
localnews4us@yahoo.co.uk | 17.01.2002 02:21
BRISTOLIAN EXCLUSIVE: BROADCASTING HORROR! SECRET SACKING ROCKS RADIO BRISTOL!
Popular RADIO BRISTOL presenter HELEN REED has been sacked from her job at the station - but listeners have not been told and other presenters sworn to secrecy. Helen was given no reason for her instant dismissal by Radio Bristol managing Editor JENNY LACEY, but was offered a hush-money payment of £5,000 to go quietly. Battling Helen, a member of the National Union of Journalists, refused the gagging agreement and is taking Radio Bristol to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal. The tribunal could blow the lid on management practices at the station. In her "Presenter Profile", management hatchet-woman Lacey's only significant achievement in 20 years of Radio is listed, Alan Partridge-style as "She was voted Radio Personality of the Year by the Variety Club in 1982"! Workers at the station see a different side of the boss's stooge: She was described this week to the Bristolian as "bullying", "hectoring" and "anti-women". The NUJ is backing Helen all the way, but the other presenters at the station have obeyed management diktats and said nothing. The conspiracy of silence extends to the Evening Post where the sacking of a popular presenter might be considered a good story, considering their usual diet of banal dross. Editor Mike Lowe would not touch the story however. Why?! Because of course the Post does not recognise the National Union of Journalists and is currently about to face action from the NUJ for union recognition. They would hardly support an NUJ member elsewhere, would they?? A typical Bristol stitch-up with ownership of all local media in the same few hands! In her Presenter Profile still up on the Radio Bristol site, Helen Reed is described in glowing terms for her work for the station: "Her warmth and style shine through on the radio". But not any more! Two questions for Jenny Lacey: WHY WAS HELEN REED SACKED, AND WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR LISTENERS?! Don't stay tuned to Radio Bristol for the answers.
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ARNOLFINI HORROR!
The ANOLFINI, cash fat from their recent Lottery Award, are currently drawing up a proposal to extend the building our towards the dockside. The plan is for the two sides of the building that run parallel to the water to be extended out over the cobbled public walkway, leaving a narrow walkway and nowhere to sit outside. This would change totally the feel of this area (the only place to sit outside by the dock in the summer), and is meant partly to discourage the "wrong crowd" from frequenting the Arnolfini. We thought Lottery Grants were supposed to encourage people into arts institutions, not shepherd them away!
------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT DID ELISABETH MURDOCH DO FOR FUTURE PUBLISHING?
Elisabeth Murdoch - daughter of Rupert - joined the Board of Bath-based FUTURE PUBLISHING in September 2000, just as the share prices started to tumble. Maybe some of Future's many Bristol-based workers could tell us just exactly what she did to earn her corn and save her company…
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HTV TO FLOG OFF BATH ROAD SITE! ANOTHER SENSATIONAL BRISTOLIAN EXCLUSIVE!!!
HTV Directors are secretly trying to find a buyer for their Bath Road TV studios at Brislington. The move will come as a major shock to even senior employees who are being kept in the dark about any possible move, and will also be a blow to local traders. GRANADA, who briefly owned HTV, have recently moved their staff out of the Bath Road complex up to Clifton, leaving much empty space behind. One possible new location for HTV would be HARBOURSIDE. Former HTV Chairman LOUIS SHERWOOD has been Chairman of Harbourside Centre and Vice-Chair of @bristol. The Clifton based Director of the Chamber of Commerce is an enthusiast for the Crest Nicholson production "Nightmare on Harbourside", and is still influential with HTV's directors. HTV employees desiring further information about their company's plans may contact your caring BRISTOLIAN - the Board of Directors have no intention of telling you anything!
------------------------------------------------------------
GREENBANK CORPORATE DEVELOPER HORROR EXPOSED!
For the last two years "GREENBANK DEVELOPMENT" have been pushing to build 25 new houses alongside the Cycle Path and Greenbank Cemetry in the teeth of local opposition, at the loss of existing green space. Posing as a small local firm building houses for local people, it can now be revealed by your sleuthing, sherlocking Bristolian that Greenbank Developments are in fact a front for the mighty PONTIN EMPIRE - which has made their owner JOHN PONTIN the richest man in Bristol, Operating out of the BUSH CONSULTANCY at BUSH HOUSE (home of JT DEVELOPMENTS), they are in fact the biggest developers in Bristol. THE PONTIN EMPIRE still has many unanswered questions about its past development schemes, in particular those involving the original Harbourside developments - Watershed/Bristol Exhibition Centre/Arnolfini, and their current developments opposite @bristol. All information on the JT Group gratefully received (NO MATTER HOW OLD). In the meantime, Mr Pontin has a fight on his hands at Greenbank!
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BORDELLO MEMBERSHIP SCHEME SCUPPERED!
Following on exclusive revelations in last week's Bristolian, LIZ LEWITT has scrapped her membership schemes for IL BOIRDELLO. Liz stated this week: "All the add-ons for which membership fees are necessary are not there, so I do not feel able to charge membership at the present time". Three months FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP will now be available. Well done Liz! Well done your caring Bristolian - saving our VIP readers £500 A YEAR. What a result all round!
Dear Bristolian
"That bloody list the end of the latest issue? That's fucking bollocks that is! That's the canonical list of the cream of local luvviedom and even if a tenth of them are paying members of Il Bordello then I'm Jeffrey Archer's secret love-child. Okay. I'm only bitter because I'm not interesting and glamorous enough to be on it myself." EUGENE BYRNE, VENUE.(see correspondence No.2 in next column)
------------------------------------------------------------
BRISTOL GETS INDYMEDIA!
"Bristol is the first city in the UK to launch its own indymedia website. Indymedia is a massive international network of groups across the world from Seattle and New York to Mexico, Italy and India. Bristol Indymedia is a site on the web where anyone can publish independent news and information. It is not owned by anyone and it has an open editorial system - everything gets published. There are some basic editorial guidelines to prevent the circulation of racist or sexist abuse etc. If an article goes against these editorial guidelines it will get hidden, but nothing is deleted. Whatever you submit gets published immediately so important news can get passed around the city (and beyond) quickly.
You can post anything you like: words, pictures, music, videos… We hope people will post a lot of stuff about Bristol, but anything goes. So if you know about something going on in town - don't wait for the media to tell you about it, get your story out now - put it on Bristol Indymedia."
http://bristol.indymedia.org/
TOXIC SHOCK!
North Somerset Council is ignoring a heavily contaminated site it owns at CLEVEDON. Independent consultant JULIAN PARRY published his fears in The New Civil Engineer in April, but the Council ignored them. 50,000 tons of highly combustible phosphorous buried at the STRODE ROAD SITE has been left just below the surface or has migrated upwards creating a potential fire hazard. There is a significant risk of the phosphorous igniting on contact with the air, and a severe fire at the site could produce a plume of toxic smoke affecting over 3 million people and spreading over Bristol. Strode Road is now public land and playing fields. Parry aims to sue chemical firm RHODIA (formerly ALLBRIGHT & WILSON) for estimated clean-up costs of £100 MILLION. PS: Any information on Allbright & Wilson - one of AVONMOUTH'S finest polluters - gratefully received.
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BRISTOL ART LIBRARY TO CLOSE! ANOTHER CULTURAL ATROCITY!
Have you heard the one about the City Council that is spending tons of money on a doomed bid to be CITY OF CULTURE in 2008, but at the same time planning to close down the Council Art Library, laying off staff and making access to this type of culture impossible! A move pushed through by Chief Librarian KATE DAVENPORT. Friends of the Art Library are battling to keep it open, but Councillor HELEN HOLLAND, Head of the City of Culture bid, is merely concerned about hushing up news of the closure. The City Council seems crassly determined to destroy it cultural assets with one hand, while perversely striving for international cultural recognition with the other. BONKERS OR WOT!!!
------------------------------------------------------------
PROSTITUTES DOSH STILL MISSING!
Regular readers will know we have questioned many times the strange disappearance of £50,000 Government money given to set up a PROSTITUTION FORUM. Despite much bluster from councillors, ex-councillors (Dave Sutton) AND A VAST PANOPLY of Community Safety Quangocrats, the missing £50,000 remains unaccounted for. The Forum has not met for over seven months. We are joined in our questions by CAROLINE ROBINSON, Practice Manager at Charlotte Keel Health Centre. She writes to Jean Corston MP: "I would be very interested to know what the outcomes and work of the Forum are. I gather that the Forum has £50,000 of Government money to spend on this issue. It would be interesting to know how this money is being used, and whether anything is being done to alleviate the problem". HEAR! HEAR! This one's beginning to stink something rotten!
------------------------------------------------------------
CRIMINAL AND IDIOTIC COP CHASE No.9
Regular readers will know we have exposed the police regularly for their dangerous and unnecessary chases of "suspicious" cars through the City. Last Monday at 3.30pm - just as kids were being collected from local schools - the Cops again chased at full speed a car all the way from Southmead to Barton Hil. The car they were chasing finally overturned in AVONVALE ROAD - miraculously injuring no-one as frightened youngsters looked on. Yet again the police "suspicions" turned out to be wrong. There is no doubt that these gung ho cops will end up killing innocent bystanders in the next few months. Remember where you heard it first!
------------------------------------------------------------
EXCLUSIVE: Eurocash Backs Bristolian!
This week's issue is sponsored by: WOT 4 RECORDS, Dedemsvaart, The Netherlands. CHEERS! And thanks also to the geezer who shoved a few bob in the Bristolian's direction down the Duke of Cambridge last week! The Bristolian circulation is now a record 3,250 a week. £50 will sponsor an issue/£25 half issue/no reasonable offer refused! Become a media tycoon - sponsor the Bristolian! HEADING FOR 10,000 BY EASTER - DISTRIBUTORS AND ALL SORTSA HELP WELCOME!
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Bristolian,
"I re-read "Treasure Island" recently. Not only is Long John Silver a positive depiction of a person with a disability, as you suggest, but he is also a great man of the people. He owns a pub, has a black wife and is trying to wrest the goodies from the upper-class twit Squire Trelawney, the snobbish Dr Livesey, and the insufferably prissy Jim Hawkins on behalf of himself and his shipmates. Sooner a statue of him than Julie Burchill any day". EUGENE BYRNE, VENUE
------------------------------------------------------------
Q: WHEN IS AN "EXCLUSIVE" NOT AN "EXCLUSIVE" A: WHEN IAN "ON THE BALL" ONIONS WRITES IT ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE EVENING POST!
Last week's scoop-full Bristolian ran our "Bower Ashton site to be flogged off story" on Wednesday, and two days later on Friday "On the Ball" Onions ran it as HIS exclusive on the Post's front page. HO!HO! Onions, who is allegedly the Post's local government expert, spends most of his time regurgitating City Council Press Releases in prose so turgid that it sounds like a five-year plan from an East German tractor factory! By all accounts he sits excitedly by his computer on Monday afternoons waiting for the latest Bristolian to come through on his E-mail before trotting off for a tail-wagging session with pugnacious northerner wannabee-red-top Editor Mike Lowe. We congratulate "On The Ball"! Last time he pinched our Crest Nicholson story it took him two weeks to get it into the Post. As "On The Ball" himself might say: "No Bristolian - No Comment"!
------------------------------------------------------------
EXCLUSIVE:
Evening Post Editor, pugnacious northerner MIKE LOWE, whinges to the Bristolian: "I thought I asked you to check your facts. For the record PAUL KEARNEY is NOT MY BOSS and we have never discussed the City of Culture Bid. Sorry if that cocks up the conspiracy theory but that's life! Incidentally if you ask around you'll find that the City Council bods are unhappy with what they see as the Post's critical coverage of the bid". Bristolian comment: Oi! Pugnacious Northerner Mike Lowe - Stop Whinging. Don't let a little competition from a tatty two-sided news sheet rattle you so much. Just ignore us and keep pinching our stories. No-one will notice. Honest!
------------------------------------------------------------
Popular RADIO BRISTOL presenter HELEN REED has been sacked from her job at the station - but listeners have not been told and other presenters sworn to secrecy. Helen was given no reason for her instant dismissal by Radio Bristol managing Editor JENNY LACEY, but was offered a hush-money payment of £5,000 to go quietly. Battling Helen, a member of the National Union of Journalists, refused the gagging agreement and is taking Radio Bristol to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal. The tribunal could blow the lid on management practices at the station. In her "Presenter Profile", management hatchet-woman Lacey's only significant achievement in 20 years of Radio is listed, Alan Partridge-style as "She was voted Radio Personality of the Year by the Variety Club in 1982"! Workers at the station see a different side of the boss's stooge: She was described this week to the Bristolian as "bullying", "hectoring" and "anti-women". The NUJ is backing Helen all the way, but the other presenters at the station have obeyed management diktats and said nothing. The conspiracy of silence extends to the Evening Post where the sacking of a popular presenter might be considered a good story, considering their usual diet of banal dross. Editor Mike Lowe would not touch the story however. Why?! Because of course the Post does not recognise the National Union of Journalists and is currently about to face action from the NUJ for union recognition. They would hardly support an NUJ member elsewhere, would they?? A typical Bristol stitch-up with ownership of all local media in the same few hands! In her Presenter Profile still up on the Radio Bristol site, Helen Reed is described in glowing terms for her work for the station: "Her warmth and style shine through on the radio". But not any more! Two questions for Jenny Lacey: WHY WAS HELEN REED SACKED, AND WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR LISTENERS?! Don't stay tuned to Radio Bristol for the answers.
------------------------------------------------------------
ARNOLFINI HORROR!
The ANOLFINI, cash fat from their recent Lottery Award, are currently drawing up a proposal to extend the building our towards the dockside. The plan is for the two sides of the building that run parallel to the water to be extended out over the cobbled public walkway, leaving a narrow walkway and nowhere to sit outside. This would change totally the feel of this area (the only place to sit outside by the dock in the summer), and is meant partly to discourage the "wrong crowd" from frequenting the Arnolfini. We thought Lottery Grants were supposed to encourage people into arts institutions, not shepherd them away!
------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT DID ELISABETH MURDOCH DO FOR FUTURE PUBLISHING?
Elisabeth Murdoch - daughter of Rupert - joined the Board of Bath-based FUTURE PUBLISHING in September 2000, just as the share prices started to tumble. Maybe some of Future's many Bristol-based workers could tell us just exactly what she did to earn her corn and save her company…
------------------------------------------------------------
HTV TO FLOG OFF BATH ROAD SITE! ANOTHER SENSATIONAL BRISTOLIAN EXCLUSIVE!!!
HTV Directors are secretly trying to find a buyer for their Bath Road TV studios at Brislington. The move will come as a major shock to even senior employees who are being kept in the dark about any possible move, and will also be a blow to local traders. GRANADA, who briefly owned HTV, have recently moved their staff out of the Bath Road complex up to Clifton, leaving much empty space behind. One possible new location for HTV would be HARBOURSIDE. Former HTV Chairman LOUIS SHERWOOD has been Chairman of Harbourside Centre and Vice-Chair of @bristol. The Clifton based Director of the Chamber of Commerce is an enthusiast for the Crest Nicholson production "Nightmare on Harbourside", and is still influential with HTV's directors. HTV employees desiring further information about their company's plans may contact your caring BRISTOLIAN - the Board of Directors have no intention of telling you anything!
------------------------------------------------------------
GREENBANK CORPORATE DEVELOPER HORROR EXPOSED!
For the last two years "GREENBANK DEVELOPMENT" have been pushing to build 25 new houses alongside the Cycle Path and Greenbank Cemetry in the teeth of local opposition, at the loss of existing green space. Posing as a small local firm building houses for local people, it can now be revealed by your sleuthing, sherlocking Bristolian that Greenbank Developments are in fact a front for the mighty PONTIN EMPIRE - which has made their owner JOHN PONTIN the richest man in Bristol, Operating out of the BUSH CONSULTANCY at BUSH HOUSE (home of JT DEVELOPMENTS), they are in fact the biggest developers in Bristol. THE PONTIN EMPIRE still has many unanswered questions about its past development schemes, in particular those involving the original Harbourside developments - Watershed/Bristol Exhibition Centre/Arnolfini, and their current developments opposite @bristol. All information on the JT Group gratefully received (NO MATTER HOW OLD). In the meantime, Mr Pontin has a fight on his hands at Greenbank!
------------------------------------------------------------
BORDELLO MEMBERSHIP SCHEME SCUPPERED!
Following on exclusive revelations in last week's Bristolian, LIZ LEWITT has scrapped her membership schemes for IL BOIRDELLO. Liz stated this week: "All the add-ons for which membership fees are necessary are not there, so I do not feel able to charge membership at the present time". Three months FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP will now be available. Well done Liz! Well done your caring Bristolian - saving our VIP readers £500 A YEAR. What a result all round!
Dear Bristolian
"That bloody list the end of the latest issue? That's fucking bollocks that is! That's the canonical list of the cream of local luvviedom and even if a tenth of them are paying members of Il Bordello then I'm Jeffrey Archer's secret love-child. Okay. I'm only bitter because I'm not interesting and glamorous enough to be on it myself." EUGENE BYRNE, VENUE.(see correspondence No.2 in next column)
------------------------------------------------------------
BRISTOL GETS INDYMEDIA!
"Bristol is the first city in the UK to launch its own indymedia website. Indymedia is a massive international network of groups across the world from Seattle and New York to Mexico, Italy and India. Bristol Indymedia is a site on the web where anyone can publish independent news and information. It is not owned by anyone and it has an open editorial system - everything gets published. There are some basic editorial guidelines to prevent the circulation of racist or sexist abuse etc. If an article goes against these editorial guidelines it will get hidden, but nothing is deleted. Whatever you submit gets published immediately so important news can get passed around the city (and beyond) quickly.
You can post anything you like: words, pictures, music, videos… We hope people will post a lot of stuff about Bristol, but anything goes. So if you know about something going on in town - don't wait for the media to tell you about it, get your story out now - put it on Bristol Indymedia."
http://bristol.indymedia.org/ TOXIC SHOCK!
North Somerset Council is ignoring a heavily contaminated site it owns at CLEVEDON. Independent consultant JULIAN PARRY published his fears in The New Civil Engineer in April, but the Council ignored them. 50,000 tons of highly combustible phosphorous buried at the STRODE ROAD SITE has been left just below the surface or has migrated upwards creating a potential fire hazard. There is a significant risk of the phosphorous igniting on contact with the air, and a severe fire at the site could produce a plume of toxic smoke affecting over 3 million people and spreading over Bristol. Strode Road is now public land and playing fields. Parry aims to sue chemical firm RHODIA (formerly ALLBRIGHT & WILSON) for estimated clean-up costs of £100 MILLION. PS: Any information on Allbright & Wilson - one of AVONMOUTH'S finest polluters - gratefully received.
------------------------------------------------------------
BRISTOL ART LIBRARY TO CLOSE! ANOTHER CULTURAL ATROCITY!
Have you heard the one about the City Council that is spending tons of money on a doomed bid to be CITY OF CULTURE in 2008, but at the same time planning to close down the Council Art Library, laying off staff and making access to this type of culture impossible! A move pushed through by Chief Librarian KATE DAVENPORT. Friends of the Art Library are battling to keep it open, but Councillor HELEN HOLLAND, Head of the City of Culture bid, is merely concerned about hushing up news of the closure. The City Council seems crassly determined to destroy it cultural assets with one hand, while perversely striving for international cultural recognition with the other. BONKERS OR WOT!!!
------------------------------------------------------------
PROSTITUTES DOSH STILL MISSING!
Regular readers will know we have questioned many times the strange disappearance of £50,000 Government money given to set up a PROSTITUTION FORUM. Despite much bluster from councillors, ex-councillors (Dave Sutton) AND A VAST PANOPLY of Community Safety Quangocrats, the missing £50,000 remains unaccounted for. The Forum has not met for over seven months. We are joined in our questions by CAROLINE ROBINSON, Practice Manager at Charlotte Keel Health Centre. She writes to Jean Corston MP: "I would be very interested to know what the outcomes and work of the Forum are. I gather that the Forum has £50,000 of Government money to spend on this issue. It would be interesting to know how this money is being used, and whether anything is being done to alleviate the problem". HEAR! HEAR! This one's beginning to stink something rotten!
------------------------------------------------------------
CRIMINAL AND IDIOTIC COP CHASE No.9
Regular readers will know we have exposed the police regularly for their dangerous and unnecessary chases of "suspicious" cars through the City. Last Monday at 3.30pm - just as kids were being collected from local schools - the Cops again chased at full speed a car all the way from Southmead to Barton Hil. The car they were chasing finally overturned in AVONVALE ROAD - miraculously injuring no-one as frightened youngsters looked on. Yet again the police "suspicions" turned out to be wrong. There is no doubt that these gung ho cops will end up killing innocent bystanders in the next few months. Remember where you heard it first!
------------------------------------------------------------
EXCLUSIVE: Eurocash Backs Bristolian!
This week's issue is sponsored by: WOT 4 RECORDS, Dedemsvaart, The Netherlands. CHEERS! And thanks also to the geezer who shoved a few bob in the Bristolian's direction down the Duke of Cambridge last week! The Bristolian circulation is now a record 3,250 a week. £50 will sponsor an issue/£25 half issue/no reasonable offer refused! Become a media tycoon - sponsor the Bristolian! HEADING FOR 10,000 BY EASTER - DISTRIBUTORS AND ALL SORTSA HELP WELCOME!
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Bristolian,
"I re-read "Treasure Island" recently. Not only is Long John Silver a positive depiction of a person with a disability, as you suggest, but he is also a great man of the people. He owns a pub, has a black wife and is trying to wrest the goodies from the upper-class twit Squire Trelawney, the snobbish Dr Livesey, and the insufferably prissy Jim Hawkins on behalf of himself and his shipmates. Sooner a statue of him than Julie Burchill any day". EUGENE BYRNE, VENUE
------------------------------------------------------------
Q: WHEN IS AN "EXCLUSIVE" NOT AN "EXCLUSIVE" A: WHEN IAN "ON THE BALL" ONIONS WRITES IT ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE EVENING POST!
Last week's scoop-full Bristolian ran our "Bower Ashton site to be flogged off story" on Wednesday, and two days later on Friday "On the Ball" Onions ran it as HIS exclusive on the Post's front page. HO!HO! Onions, who is allegedly the Post's local government expert, spends most of his time regurgitating City Council Press Releases in prose so turgid that it sounds like a five-year plan from an East German tractor factory! By all accounts he sits excitedly by his computer on Monday afternoons waiting for the latest Bristolian to come through on his E-mail before trotting off for a tail-wagging session with pugnacious northerner wannabee-red-top Editor Mike Lowe. We congratulate "On The Ball"! Last time he pinched our Crest Nicholson story it took him two weeks to get it into the Post. As "On The Ball" himself might say: "No Bristolian - No Comment"!
------------------------------------------------------------
EXCLUSIVE:
Evening Post Editor, pugnacious northerner MIKE LOWE, whinges to the Bristolian: "I thought I asked you to check your facts. For the record PAUL KEARNEY is NOT MY BOSS and we have never discussed the City of Culture Bid. Sorry if that cocks up the conspiracy theory but that's life! Incidentally if you ask around you'll find that the City Council bods are unhappy with what they see as the Post's critical coverage of the bid". Bristolian comment: Oi! Pugnacious Northerner Mike Lowe - Stop Whinging. Don't let a little competition from a tatty two-sided news sheet rattle you so much. Just ignore us and keep pinching our stories. No-one will notice. Honest!
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Homepage:
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