Brentford Blogs

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

Being a councillor is often frustrating. There are big things like the redevelopment of the police station and the two connected buildings on the riverside by Watermans, the marina at Watermans Park, and the eyesore - once Brentford Nylons, once Alfa Laval and now a monstrous advertisement hoarding owned by Hyundai. In all of these there have been false dawns but at bottom, nothing at all has changed. Smaller things like the empty and barely-marketed shops, the unused former

As those who read this stuff will know, I am very young indeed and eager to discover more about the world around me. I subscribe to a 'newspaper' called the London Minute which gives really short updates on stuff that is going around the Big City, and I sometimes find things that I want to take a look at. So I cycled to Kew Gardens (where I was picking up a book from Hewson's Bookshop, much lamented in Brentford but still going in Kew) and took the District line through to Bl

This weekly blog has a tendency to grow like Topsy (who is Topsy?) so I will try to truncate it this week. Whether I succeed I will tell you in about 10 hours when I finish writing the ruddy thing. It has not been my purpose to bore Brentford into submission but it seems to develop that way. Perhaps I should announce that Brentford is going to invade Richmond because we need it for security. Tariffs on anything coming in over the river. That'll do it, but I might settle for

Thursday was a good day with a bit of good news. Well, it wasn't exactly news, but the arrival of Middlesex Cricket Club at the former Beecham sports ground in Swyncombe Avenue has moved on a stage. I remember when I was canvassing in 2022 I talked to a couple on The Ride (the other side of the sports ground). They asked me what was happening to the old sports ground. Now I have to make a confession. I had never noticed it was there. I knew there was a sports field, but I th

Still feels slightly fraudulent to write 2026. What happened in 1926? That was sightly before I was born. Well, quite a bit actually and my late mum was only 9 and my late father 17 in 1926 so they would have been struggling. What happened was the General Strike. I doubt the centenary will not be remembered by a repeat performance but these are difficult times. For some reason Googling 1926 raises the matter of the Tolpuddle Martyrs who seem to have been in the news nearly

2 weeks blogless - how does Brentford survive? Probably like me watching ancient films like Jaws and The Godfather on the gogglebox and on one occasion in my case visiting the friendly local Everyman for a new film called Eternity. Sort of fun if a bit empty and no patch on A Matter of Life and Death. I also got interested in numbers but you can read my erudite thoughts on the universe elsewhere https://www.guylambert.blog/post/numbers-and-a-bit-of-the-universe That aside I h

One of my erstwhile colleagues in Labour has had to resign from the Cabinet after the Solicitors Regulatory Authority closed his firm. Now they say " This person is allowed to practise as a solicitor, but 'conditions apply' means we restrict what they can do". Never fear: his wife (also I think chair of the council Labour group and of the constituency Labour party in Feltham and Heston) has been appointed as chair of planning, which should make up for the loss of Cabinet Spec

On Friday I caught the district line to St James's Park and made my way down to SMith Square. The meeting was in Transport House. Women of a certain age, and men of similar age like yours truly, remember Transport House as one of those places where meetings in smoke-filled rooms allegedly decided the future of our country. This was the headquarters of the Transport and General Workers Union, led by the legendary Jack Jones. His other half amongst the 'Terrible Twins' was Hugh

Well, as predicted, I went to the Holy Trinity Church in Hounslow to recognise Disabilities Day. The attraction for me (am I becoming anging groupie?) was not the speech from the always warm Ajmer Grewal or from the equally pleasant council officer who looks after these matters, nor even the speech from Louise Murphy from the highly respected independent thinktank Resolution Foundation. No, the attraction was the people from Speak Out in Hounslow. I find it impossible to see

Gosh it is astonishing that it has got round to December. Drizzly on my balcony this morning but not too cold, and a cormorant saw mw coming out and decided to fly by and wish me good morning. Incidentally, is it me? I have seen an unprecedented number of swans on the Brent this autumn and when I cycled through Dukes Meadows this week I had never seen so many of the blighters infesting the Thames. My social media has been infested recently with right wing correspondents assur