Personal Blog

I am going to try to make this shorter, partly because I am pressed for time, and because this is always too long! On Friday we had a convivial meeting of the three Musketeers of the Green Party in my localest pub the Watermans Arms. I had been away and for an entirely different reason Rick Rowe had been out of his home. I am not going to dig through all the entrails of what happened a couple of weeks ago, but the fact that a retired MP has been murdered puts these things int

I did promise to continue my non-Brentford travelogue, but in fact, it will turn into another endeavour. A year or so ago, I had the idea of following (via a very scenic route) my friend Tom Levitt's lead in his book The Business of History, published last year. This was a kind of update of another book, written in 1925 by one William Beable called The Romance of Great Businesses. Beable selected 32 businesses on slightly eccentric criteria, and only 4 of them survived intact

This will be a different one, because it will cover a bit of councilloring with a week of leisure in between. So I go back to Thursday 26th of flaming June. There were times during June when we called it flaming in a way some less prim people use another f word. I went to Lambert Lodge to talk to a resident with certain woes which I will keep private. Productive I hope, though the matter still needs work. I had an excellent cup of tea though. Saturday 27th because it started

I'm taking a week away this week. I wanted to do that straight after the election but it was too complicated then so I have followed my pattern last year: if you were watching, in January I planned to drive to John O'Groats but gave up at Inverness due to floods, snow and cowardice 😊. In the summer I visited a lot of new countries for me Sweden, Finland, the 3 Baltic republics and Poland. all alone in my car. I enjoy my own company (good job one person does) and I like drivi

A friend of mine who has the loyalty or insanity of saying she always reads my blog, (or is a liar) told me that last week's completely lost her. It didn't seem all that different to the others I do each week and I only know that some people read it because they tell me. But I notice on my website, I get the numbers who read it there. I suspect more people read it on TW8 or from the newsletter TW8 send out. Still, my numbers over the last 3 weeks for online readers are 118,

So where I left you I was off to my first Planning Committee for more than 4 years. We covered 3 applications. One was the former leader of the Conservative group who has now lost his seat to Green Councillor Rick Rowe. He wanted an uncontroversial extension to his home, but the convention is that Councillors' applications are formally reviewed. It was quite unnecessary since he is no longer a councillor, but of course we passed this with no discussion. The next one was a rat

I did go in search of heavy horses but they hid from me. Well, technically the person who invited me was not around so I had a luxury sausage sandwich in the Tesco cafe, perused a copy of Practical Classics and dreamed that one day I might buy an iconic Austin Allegro. Except it would be a nightmare because my days of even replacing a bulb are far behind me. I had to buy some booze and nibbles for my (then) upcoming celebration. There is no Harrods branch in North Feltham so

On Friday morning I was up in the Potting Shed having a coffee and the evilly irresistible bacon brioche (wrongly described IMO as a bap) with a friend of mine. We discuss matters of Brentford and (less obviously) Armenia and Georgia. Always a pleasure being in our lovely park and having been there through the difficult period when many were telling me we were destroying it, I am proud of the park. A friend of mine had been on some course or event at the Manor and said unprom

A friend of mine suggested that I should consider the idea of 'burnt out'. She has actually written books about that but I don't think it applies to me. But I am a little 'worn out' at present. The campaign was over several months and quite intense, getting to know how a new party works, getting to know new people whilst at the same time old friends being critical of my new party. Trying also to keep strong relationships to the many Labour councillors who have been my friends

This is a separate Brentford publication which I plan to develop in a way to keep track of matters that take months or years to progress. I also would like this to become interactive. I'm not sure how to do that in this web tool soin the meantime I welcome any feedback, ideas, potential additions etc. You can email guy.lambert@ hounslow.gov.uk Or you can leave a comment on the blog itself. Watermans replacement BW A priority for our town but nobody quite believes it is going

Well I am rather busy being half on holiday so less real action than normal. In terms of action around the ward - not much, though I did attend a meeting at the University with the unfortunate residents and leaseholders at Holly House. I was pleased to see 4 representatives of the recently-appointed builder and generally I thought they presented helpfully. They also say they have 2 of their people on site most of the time, and their plan to actually finish the job were reason

Here I am again. Sorry. But don't blame me. You could have done the decent thing and put me and a lot of other people out their misery, but you insisted on voting for me to continue like Nigel Farage's hero Vladimir Putin into another term. I did not get 99.8% of the votes as Vladimir and other political giants do in other highly democratic administrations like North Korea, but I have to say I was greatly heartened by winning with quite a comfortable margin above my main oppo

On Friday I was back to W Middlesex for another bout with A&E. This time, all they needed from me was a blood test, which was done at about 9.15. Sometimes I am too polite because I know they have to wait for blood results to come back and it was mad busy. Eventually I politely enquired of the receptionist. He scrolled down his list and seemed surprised. He said he would talk to the doctor. 5 minutes later doctor called me and apologised (I had obviously fallen through the ne

This turned out to be a very health week. Starting on Thursday I had an annual update with a nurse in the Wellesley Road surgery in Chiswick. I was diagnosed a year or two ago with a lung condition, though in truth it has caused me no problems at all. Last year the nurse made me blow into various devices but she couldn't find anything interesting, other than possible asthma. Did I want an inhaler? Well no, because I couldn't see any point. This year she didn't do much in the

My last company car was a BMW 525i. I went to France on business and left it outside my house in Chiswick. My (then) wife rang me and asked me where my car was. I said it was outside our house. She said it wasn't. We reported it to the cops and my business trip was truncated. The cops from Brentford Police Station (this was 2001) first said it would have been stolen to order from Eastern Europe. Then they said they had found it in Slough. I said when will I get it back? They

We are now in the period known colloquially as Purdah. It is formally known as the 'pre-election period' because (according to my bible Wikipedia) Purdah has a sexist taint. I have never taken too much notice of this over the last n elections because it refers to new announcements by public authorities (ie the council) of new policies which might affect democracy. That of course is why the council (and its political masters) have churned out masses of announcements via its ov

As promised, I attended the council's Festival of Imagination. There was a lot of stimulating input from people associated with Hounslow Arts Centre. A little bit about the Arts Centre: it has or uses a place within the largely defunct Treaty Centre once (and perhaps still) known as the Paul Robeson Theatre. I have been there a few times over the years. most recently for the panto there. On that occasion I made the mistake of driving and ended up with a parking ticket for par

Another Thursday another dollar (except the dollar) It was freezing yesterday despite a deceitful sunny morning, but today it feels like spring is back. Talking of which, I was out on my balcony when a bird disappeared. And then reappeared. I don't know which family he/she belongs to, and I doubt it is a swift (perhaps a tit - but not my speciality) but it is very pleasing to see there is a Swift Brick, or at least a gap between the bricks, which seems to be providing a home

On Friday I did get up to my resident in Boston Manor Road. She has a difficult problem which I'd better not talk about. She is getting support from social services and from her daughter's school. Not much I can practically do but I can show some support and press the people who can actually help to step up - so that's my approach. One of the learnings as a councillor - there are very many, and there are still new things all the time - is how hard life is for very many people

My life is getting more green-tinged with contacts with people in my 'new' party increasing, but I still cling to my taste for serendipity. For reasons I have forgotten, like why I was a few moments ago in the bedroom, my mind wandered a few weeks ago onto the matter of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. These Martyrs are somewhere in the background of the minds of all respectable lefties but I didn't know anything about them, nor where Tolpuddle was. On Friday I decided I would benefit