razorkitty

harrogateconfidential - a website with a difference

For those of you reading this and who have an interest in Harrogate (not too many of you, thinking about it,) check out www.harrogateconfidential.com.  It's a new website that threatens to give all the goss about the A-listers of our genteel spa town.  Alas the inhabitants of gillsworld turned up for the launch party two hours late due to being engrossed in the X Factor/Strictly Come Dancing/chatting and consuming large quantities of Pinot Grigio. We thus completely missed the photographer.  Sighs of regret all round.

Washing One's Dirty Linen in Public

Without naming names (hey, I don't want to be sued) I can't help but be fascinated by the extraordinary foolishness of famous divorcing couples such as this one.  Respected columnist Mick Hume, writing in The Times seems to have got it just about right when he describes the warring couple as: ".... a celebrity divorce case that has become a PR battle of media stunts, leaks and briefings from “friends” on either side."  This doesn't put us PR folk in a particularly good light though, does it?  On the other hand, this is no more or less than a rather heightened version of gossiping in the coffee houses of Ye Olde Englande (cf Shakespeare, Johnson, Dickens et al).  I can't be the only one sniggering about the pettiness of each sides' allegations of bad behaviour.  Or wanting to know what will happen next.  And if that means I'm turning into a 21st century Madame Defarge I'm sure I'm not alone.  At least I hope I'm not....

Timely Warning for Hallowe'en

As the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and kids coming round to one's house in order to extort sweets approaches, it is with some foreboding that I give you all a timely warning regarding the joys of overdoing the pumpkin juice:

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2003/i_halloween-p1.php

Well who'd have thought it?

Isn't it wonderful how the very latest report from whatever quango/public body/lobbying group can tell us something we didn't know?  Or not, in this case. According to the report Saving Tranquil Places, a new audit by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), anyone seeking a quiet life should head for the windswept and rugged terrain of Northumberland. This news will have certainly come as a surprise to the rest of the UK, whose citizens had no doubt assumed Northumberland was a county criss-crossed by gridlocked motorways, the evening sky permanently lit up by the lights of a thousand all night raves as unfortunate inhabitants unable to escape the drugs-ridden urban hell riot in the streets.  And I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I was shocked to learn that the worst place for noise, congestion and pollution is Slough, which sits under the flight paths into Heathrow and is near the M4 corridor.  Who'd have thought it? That's put paid to my dreams of a fortnight's holiday in the picturesque Slough countryside with only the gentle sound of birdsong to punctuate the rural idyll. 

Is there a point to these surveys?  Or are they simply vehicles for publicity?