Personal Blog

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

It's Thursday so in my calendar it is Blogday. To a degree I welcome that as an opportunity to think back across my week and generally I enjoy writing it, though sometimes it feels like a chore. Let's see how this week goes. I'm finding it a bit more difficult than I normally do to keep up, as I am really the sole councillor serving Brentford West: there are a few balls in the air. Some are quite important, some less so, but one of the difficulties working in a council domai

I forgot to mention the Cycling meeting that was due on Thursday evening. It was a damp squib for me because they had to move the meeting from the upstairs room at the Express tavern because the Cycling people had been gazumped (remember when that was all the rage) by what looked like a birthday party. Cyclists were relocated to the bar downstairs which meant I couldn't hear anything because of the background noise. This has become a real handicap for me 😥 in pubs etc at bus

There's an old legend (maybe true, who knows) that a team of monkeys with typewriters would in time create the full works of Shakespeare. Sometimes I think that a single Brentford monkey has achieved something similar in volume, though of markedly lower quality. So this is 517 in the series. One of my friends observed that a lot of people in Brentford think this is absolute rubbish. I have always had plenty of faith in Brits and in particular Brentonians so this confirms my c

As planned I went out to Feltham to meet Afghan Radio. As I probably said before I had not engaged at all until recently but I find them very welcoming and friendly people and I am happy to do what I can to support them in integrating and contributing to our country, as they did when we made our (in my opinion) well-meaning but unwise intervention in their home country. As it happened Katherine Dunne was at the same event and by the time I arrived (I had warned them I could o