Disabled "treated like animals" by H&F Council

Our esteemed local authority has had bad write ups from the Standard on a couple of occasions now, most recently in this article. Wednesday's edition was just as damning with a story about how the cuts the council have been making in order to realise their much trumpeted council tax reductions have actually impacted on real people, this case the disabled.

Do we really want to save a few extra pounds a month each for this sort of thing? The Council won the legal battle but they've lost the all important one in the well cliched "Court of Public Opinion". But we can look forward to seeing our council in the firing line a lot more, they seem to be 'pioneers' of the sort of experiments the national Conservative Party want to see. Today's speech by George Osborne reported by the BBC here to local councils specifically holds Hammersmith & Fulham Council up as a shining light.

Super Sewer - do we have one already?

Judging by this report from the Guardian today the Thames in West London, including in W12 and W6, is already acting as a very super sewer, with 20,000 (yes twenty THOUSAND) tonnes of raw sewage having been disgorged into our waters over a short period in July because of heavy rain. Barbecue summer it was not.

I still think Thames Water have to stand condemned for having put profit before people by selling the one place that could have sited a perfectly useable sewage treatment plant without infringing on Furnivall Gardens. They sold that site to property developers to be turned into penthouse flats and are now demanding access to our parks as I reported here to turn them into entry points for the proposed new sewer.

H&F Council, who have run a campaign against this proposal are coming in for some heavy flak for their stance from other parties, with the Labour Opposition claiming that H&F are exaggerating the impact the new treatment plant would have and the Liberal Democrats claiming that the sewer should be built as a matter of priority.

With these sort of figures I dont think there is any doubt for the need - it will be interesting to see for how long H&F can now hold out against the tide, and a very brown tide it appears to be.

What is the point of the BBC weather service?

And why are we paying for it? Not content with having got their predictions for this summer in England completely wrong, I am currently sitting in an office in Kampala, Uganda where there are clear blue skies and a sun that is already very hot (its only 9am).

Imagine my surprise then to check the BBC weather service this morning which reports 'current conditions' as being stormy thunder showers with lots of rain. They couldn't be more wrong - and thats not even predicting anything, just accurately reporting the present that they can't even manage.

I mentioned this to my colleagues here who just laughed - they long since stopped using the BBC because it never gets it right. CNN and several other services have it completely right today and are apparently far more reliable. All of which would be by the by - were it not for the fact that we are taxed to pay for this completely pointless service!

Hereby concludes my rant.

Loftus Road killing: Accused "hunted like a pack"

The four men accused with this brutal murder which took place on our streets at christmas time last year have started their trial at the Old Bailey. Each is accused of murder but the prosecution cannot say which of the four actually fired the shots that killed Mr Brown. They all deny the charges.

The prosecution's case makes depressing reading on two levels for me. One being that any explanation of what led up to the murder was always going to be bad, but on another level the sheer pathetic nature of it is what leaves me wondering how anyone could be that stupid let alone so callous as to kill an unarmed person by repeatedly shooting them in a street.

Craig Brown, it is alleged, had been involved in some kind of fist fight with one of the gang who lived in Hammersmith. During this fight he bit or somehow injured their ear. Their pride dented they obviously decided the best next course of action was to go and kill him.

And this is what now happens on our streets with increasing frequency - either involving guns or like here or here with knives. The common thread isnt just the act of killing someone, its the fact that it always seems to be about something so incredibly dumb. And if you need anymore evidence of just how dumb, here are our very own W12 thicko crew.

Uganda calling...

Sorry for the radio silence, at least I warned you – internet access is quite easy here but all the internet cafés seem to have abysmal connection speeds so I have waited till getting to the office to drop this update through.

So.. have I got a Shepherd’s Bush update for you? No I have not! So let me tell you about this place instead .. weather here on the weekend was equatorial Africa at its best – scorching on Saturday and then stormy on Sunday. While I come to this region quite a lot it’s the firs time in Kampala, and to be honest its one of the safest cities in this region I’ve been to its also one of the most dull!

That said the abiding memory I have from walking the streets here is the shocking divide between have and have nots. People frolic in the high class hotels while just outside infants sit on almost every corner. Some of them don’t even beg, they just sit there staring.

I handed over a suitcase full of baby clothes that our own kids have grown out of on the Friday. It’s a fantastic orphanage but deals with the harvest of that poverty in its work. Many of the children have HIV and nearly all are abandoned in places that are so well used for that purpose the orphanage workers check them regularly. Roadsides are well used but I also heard of a little girl thrown into a latrine pit.

The days of Idi Amin are long gone here but its one of the most unstable regions in the world with armed conflict in the north of Uganda itself and across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda lies to the south and Kenya to the east.

Looking forward to getting back to the Bush, and I promise to post at least 3 W12 related stories from here, but whilst I’m away why don’t you suggest some? Use the comments section.

For now goodbye from the heart of Africa

Service outage possible

Unlike those tube announcements that proclaim "good service" for everything short of a total meltdown I  have to warn readers to be prepared for a slow down in updates over the next week or so. I fly to Uganda tomorrow for work and will be in that part of the world for a couple of weeks. So this Busher will be updating about the Bush from the African bush!

Bearing in mind I will be largely cut off from the online world for days at a time so please use the comments section to post any news or comments up for your fellow readers.

Will still update from Uganda but as I say, perhaps not quite as regularly. Au revoir!

Bush tube staff revealed

As part of a fantastic project Creative Review have been off interviewing and photographing staff members of the Tube from across London. The pic on this article is our own Busher with some info about his life and work.

It's all too easy for us to forget that our transport systems are staffed by human beings. That means they have their own good and bad days. Just like us.

It doesn't help that they seem to be led by an anti Londoner dinosaur but if you were a tube worker what could you really do about that anyway? I once ran alongside him on a treadmill at Leyton Fitness First you know.

And spare them a thought next time you're off out on the town, which involves a little too much alcohol - they cannot do that at all unless its part of their annual leave. They're all subject to alcohol tests and if found with almost any amount - they lose their job. I imagine that goes through their minds as they shepherd the rest of us with alcohol related social lives through the barriers at night. Mind the Gap, sir.

Ridiculous local councillors

No, this isn't a political rant, but I thought this website which I was sent today was worth sharing!

Our borough is at the centre of some very controversial issues and the battle for the Hammersmith constituency will be a knife edge one at the general election. With that in mind you can rest assured to be bombarded with images of concerned looking politicians and wannabe politicians on leaflets and flyers of various kinds in the months to come.

What better way to set the scene than this superb collection of local politicians from across the UK attempting to look like ordinary folk!

Popular blog gets more popular

It's that sickening Oscars style moment when I tell you how many of you love me again. Yes, more of you read this blog this month again, with the total of over 3,600 visits in August. Thats up a few hundred from last month. Thanks for your interest and I hope you carry on reading. I'll be here as long as you do. Now then, I'd like to thank my mom, my agent, my pet dog ...