This Week with Brian
Your Local Area
Including twinning, communal meals, no obligation, an aquatic seizure, two minutes’ action, a lively summary, controlled by parliament, finding a community, slightly weepy, keeping quiet for a bit, quizzing the French, summer revolutions, a farm of animals, a level crossing, lessons learned, a shocking leak, other scandals, nuclear weapons, more stolen data, a losable match, a land grab, every three weeks, a fire in the hold, talking business, controlling tigers, talking to moths, Queen Anne, three numbers and a low.
Click on the appropriate buttons to the right to see the local news from your area (updated every Thursday evening).
If there’s anything you’d like to see covered for your area or anything that you’d like to add to a segment that we’ve covered, drop me a line at brian@pennypost.org.uk.
Further afield
This week, we really have been further afield: to France, only returning on 17 July. Aside from the climax of the remarkable Test Match against India, I’ve paid no attention to anything that’s been happening in Blighty. For those who might be interested, here’s what the last week has been like for us…
[more below]
• Twinning
The Twinning Association that exists between Hungerford and Ligueil (about 50km south of Tours) in the Indre et Loire has been going since 1980. We’ve been members since about 2007.
Basically, the deal is that, whenever there’s not a global pandemic, the French go to Hungerford and the English to Ligueil every other year. For the hosts, the previous year is spent doing some fundraising and agreeing events and activities. All the guests need do is organise their transport (usually but not always as a group) and then have what amounts to a free holiday.
People tend to stay with the same hosts. As a result, we’ve got to know ours, Thérèse and Régis Joubert, pretty well. You don’t need to live in Ligueil or in Hungerford (neither we nor the Jouberts do, as we both happen to live in villages about 10km away).
Nor, is it equally important to stress, do you need to speak the other language. The linguistic levels vary considerably, on both sides. It’s amazing how far you can get with gestures, goodwill and Reverso.
• Communal meals
On this trip there were a lot more communal meals than previously, something that I hope will be emulated in the return fixture in 2026. Rather than concentrating on one big excursion to an attraction an hour away, all the events focussed on things that were happening anyway in the immediate area. These included the market in nearby Loches, an open-air concert, the 14 July ceremony in Ligueil and two firework displays.
There was a also a trip to a restaurant in a local campsite, a drinks reception at a local château and a visit to some fascinating underground caves in another one. By good fortune, the last trip coincided with the hottest part of the hottest day during our visit. The temperature underground was a delightful 16º or so.
• Food and drink
And so to the meals. These often went on, as meals in France can do, for some time. Most were in the salle attached to the Mairie on the main square. The hosts brought along food and drink and we all then disposed of it. Feeling that Thérèse and Régis had had quite enough of me, I tended to move around to talk to different people each time, English or French. However there’s no obligation to do that. In fact, there’s no obligation to do anything in particular.
The other lovely thing is that we didn’t have to make any decisions. We were just taken somewhere and there was something to see or hear, to eat or to drink. Absolutely fine with me.
Inevitably, such visits contain some memorable or striking events or aspects. Before history washes over them, therefore, here are a few stand-outs…
• An aquatic hobby
At Portsmouth on the first morning we met another boat passenger whose hobby, if that’s the right word, was travelling on Brittany Ferries’ ships between Porstmouth and Ouistreham/Caen as often as she could. The crossing is about six hours each way and she has about an hour in France before needing to go back.
We noticed her because she’d just had some kind of mild seizure and was being attended to by a couple of the Brittany Ferries’ staff, who clearly knew her well. For many, including me, a seizure would be a rational reaction to being told that you had to spend twelve hours on a ferry and, at the end of it all, ending up exactly where you’d started.
A chacun son goût. A few hours later I saw her on the boat and she seemed happy, if a little pre-occupied with ticking things off on a list.
• Zwei Minuten
There were also two Germans staying there who’d driven for fifteen hours from Ligueil’s German twin-town to see the Tour de France pass through Loches. None of the other four of us spoke any German and they spoke no French and hardly any English. This made the conversations between the six of us quite interesting.
The main thing I wanted to ask them, and somehow did, was whether it was worth the journey to witness something that lasted perhaps fifteen minutes.
“Nein, nein,” they told us. “Zwei. Zwei Minuten. Phew, phew, phew – gone!” They laughed uproariously. The brevity of what they’d travelled so far to see was entrancing to them. For them, and the Brittany Ferries’ fan on the boat, the passage of time obviously worked in a different way for them than for me.
• The big one
I’ve been to France many times, but never on 14 July. This is, for them, The Big One, commemorating the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and generally regarded as the start of the Revolution. Our trip had been deliberately timed to coincide with this.
The main participants at the Ligueil event included, as well as about fifty locals, the town’s firefighters; the Mayor; a deputie (basically, an MP); members of our twinning association; and several Ukrainians who had settled in the town. Each had their story to tell. I’ll restrict myself to two.
After the event I asked the Mayor, Michel Guignaudeau, if he could send me the text of his speech so I could translate and publish it for posterity. In fact, his address had been largely extemporised and all his office could send me was a photograph of a page of handwritten notes, much in a kind of shorthand.
However, I can confirm that it was a lively summary of the history of late 18th-century France, recognising the formidable achievements of the likes of Diderot and Voltaire but reminding us of the increasingly awful conditions in which the majority of the population lived.
The march on Versailles, in which local people had taken part, and the “treason” of Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes in 1791 in an attempt to raise foreign support to combat his disaffected subjects was also covered. He was kind enough to stress for the benefit of his English visitors who might have been alarmed by his anti-royalist sentiments that although we still had a monarchy, it was now controlled by parliament.
This, of course, is true: and perhaps not a bad result. However, this was France’s day, not ours, and not the time to debate the respective merits of our political arrangements.
• A bit weepy
The Ukranian contingent, several of whom I spoke to before and after the ceremony, had a more sombre and immediate story of repression and misery to tell. One young man, whose home had been completely destroyed by the Russians early in the conflict, had moved to France (where he had relatives) as soon as possible and settled in Ligueil.
His dream was to to become a masseur or physiotherapist, something which his obvious focus and energy seems to leave him well placed to achieve. His recently-arrived girlfriend, who as yet spoke no French, nodded encouragingly. I’m sure both will succeed in this lovely part of the world and I wish them all the best.
Another, older, woman, had come here for similar reasons at about the same time. Her speech, which was interrupted several times for brief eye-drying, reminded us that her country was fighting for the same values as had been the French in the 1790s. Liberty, equality and fraternity were, she stressed, not just part of France’s history but universal values and aspirations.
“In Ligueil,” she concluded, “we have found more than a refuge – we have found a community.” It was impossible not to nod, and wipe away a tear of ones own, at these sentiments.
All three national anthems were played. The Ukrainian one was stirring, particularly to those in yellow and blue. Our own I find a bit dull but to listen to it played and observed with solemnity on 14 July in France made me think of it slightly differently. As for the Marseillaise, whenever I hear it I recall that wonderful scene in Casablanca. All this had me wiping my eyes a bit as well.
• Chatterbox
After a walk around the town to settle our thoughts, another vin d’honneur and a meal followed. It’s possible that I spoke rather too much at and after the meal: certainly it was pointed out to me by one French person that I was a pipelette; a chatterbox or blabbermouth.
At first I resented the charge, but had to admit it was just. “If you think I talk a lot in French,” I replied, “you should hear me in English.”
I see now that this rather proved her point. I vowed to say less and listen more, a resolution I kept, at least for the next few hours.
• Views on the revolution
At dusk we assembled in what was, in the circumstances, the ironically-named Prarie du Dauphin park in the town for the second of the two epic firework displays we witnessed.
As we waited for this to start, it suddenly became interesting for me to know whether or not the French people there believed that the revolution they were celebrating had been worthwhile. If the groups sitting there were surprised at a slightly hyper Englishman quizzing them on their motives, all were too polite to say so.
One lot agreed that revolutions rarely go to plan and that the affairistes (profiteers) generally come out on top.
Another said that it was a good excuse for a party. Did we have a similar event in England? I started to describe 5 November but then realised that the combined imagery of a Catholic revolutionary being burnt alive and a firework display to represent an exploding House of Commons that hadn’t in fact happened was too complex and ambiguous to expound briefly in any language. More importantly, it wasn’t in keeping with the mood of the occasion.
On being pressed, I admitted that most English people were probably unsure of what they were commemorating on that day. It was by then too dark to see if she was raising her eyebrows. I suspect she was. I hadn’t made a very good fist of that exchange. Undeterred, I moved on to another shadowy group.
“We had a revolution in England,” I said while talking to the next lot, “but most people don’t remember it. It’s not celebrated. No fireworks.”
“Really,” one of the people said. “Why not?”
“It didn’t last,” I said, glossing over the fact that in some ways the French one hadn’t lasted either, the Bourbon monarchy having, briefly, been restored within a quarter of century. “Also,” I added, “King Charles I was executed in January. Too cold for celebrations.”
We both agreed that, if you want to have a revolution, make sure you do it in mid-summer.
• Animal Farm
The final conversation returned to the idea of revolutions always going wrong. I mentioned Orwell’s Animal Farm (La Ferme des Animaux) which, I explained, absolutely nailed the issue: one of the best books ever written. One of the people asked me to repeat the title, of which none of of them had heard. He seemed interested in reading it.
Then the fireworks started. My interventions probably had a mixed result but I like the idea that, on 14 July, I perhaps convinced one French person to read Animal Farm. If that happens, my blabbering won’t have been entirely wasted.
As for the rest of them it probably gave them something to discuss the following day. “Oh, you met that English wierdo as well? Quel pipelette!“
• The level crossing
In a way, the most exciting incident had been saved for the last day,
The genius of those, including Ted and Daphne Angel, Charlie Barr and Penny Brookman, who’d organised and/or run the travel arrangements, had identified in the myriad confusions of the SNCF website a direct train from Tours to Caen in good time for us to catch the ferry. Changing trains (which we had to do on the way down) holds a peculiar terror for me, the missing of connections being the regular stuff 0f nightmares.
Unfortunately, just past Le Mans, the train hit part of an imperfectly closed level crossing, making a noise which it was clear no one on the train had ever heard before. We limped along at about 5kph for some time before we stopped; the driver seemingly got out and did something; and we raced away again, though about fifty minutes late.
Penny Brookman took charge, phoning Brittany Ferries and Taxis de la Cote, which was taking us from Caen to Ouistreham, to make them aware of our delay and, in the most pleasant possible way, defying either of their transports to leave until we were on board. Internally I fretted and fussed: but it worked.
There was still a final hurdle to clear. Valley Cars from Great Shefford had been contracted to be at Portsmouth to meet us – but would they be? Yet there Alex was, the minibus door open for us as we stumbled out of the passport and customs area.
I should have more faith…
• Lessons
What else have I learned?
That I’m a chatterbox: I knew this already, though it does one no harm to have this pointed out to me.
That whether speaking in English and, all the more particularly, in French, that I need to consider more carefully what I want to say before I start talking.
That I need to learn more about the French Revolution and reflect more on what is actually going on when we celebrate whatever we celebrate on 5 November before trying to explain it, particularly in a foreign language.
That I love communal meals and that we should all do more of these, food and circumstances doing so much to break the ice amongst strangers.
That, although I like my life to be under my control and following my routine, I can in the right situation (of which this was one) rejoice in having arrangements made by others and trusting that all will be well.
That the various English and French and Anglo-French transport companies we used can generally be relied upon to produce travel connections that don’t lead to disasters. Also, that the people who organise these and are prepared to run the arrangements on the ground should be trusted and supported.
What has Penny learned?
Aside from the fact that I’m in many ways a morose travelling companion and a hyper-active guest (which she knew), that it’s possible for the monthly Hungerford Artisan Markets to function without her being there (as happened on the Sunday).
What have we both learned?
That the Hungerford Twinning Association is fun, friendly and provides for a week or so each year, an immersive experience into the lives of our nearest neighbours, and vice versa. I knew that anyway but this trip reinforced this.
One is always learning…
And finally…
• A vast scandal seems to be brewing about the leak of data , in 2022, of the details of over 18,000 people. These were, The Guardian explains, those who had “applied for asylum under the Afghan resettlement scheme, many of whom would have been obvious targets for reprisals by the Taliban.” As ever, the problem has been made far worse by the cover up. Can we expect Sir Wyn Williams, Jason Beer et al look into that as soon as they’ve finished with the Post Office charlatans?
• Then there’s another one – they’re coming at us like bullets – about the Kincora Boys’ Home in Northern Ireland. And we’ve not even mentioned about the infected blood nightmare.
• Given all of this, and other fiascos like HS2 and our government’s handling of some aspects of the pandemic, I think there’s a serious case to be made about the fact that we should no longer be able to have nuclear weapons or a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Can we really be trusted with these responsibilities?
• The BBC reports that the “chief executive of Co-op has confirmed that all 6.5 million of its members had their data stolen in a cyber-attack on the retailer in April.” She added that “It hurt my members, they took their data and it hurt our customers and that I do take personally.” What does that actually mean? Is this an admission of liability by the CEO that she’s responsible for what happened on her watch; or just a form of words? You choose.
• Last week, I said that Chelsea should be “very afraid” at the prospect of facing PSG in the final of the rather strange World Club Championship. Not a bit of, the Londoners blowing the Parisians away 3-0 and unlucky, by some accounts, not to have scored more. Whether PSG’s fast and interchanging pressing game – which Chelsea managed to counter – is a busted flush rather than The New Way Forward as many had predicted remains to be seen. Next up for the European champions is what suddenly looks like a very losable match in the perhaps equally unimportant European Super Cup against Europa League winners Spurs next month…
Across the area
• A land grab
The proposed local-government reforms have produced some eye-catching attempts for councils to re-draw their boundaries in pursuit of political, demographic or generally expansionist motives. One such has been the attempts by Reading to suggest that the eastern parts of West Berkshire should more properly be theirs: this in pursuit of the idea of a “Greater Reading”, whatever that means. This phrase was used a couple of months ago and the idea at least seems still alive now.
As I’ve suggested before, any attempt to re-draw boundaries on what are claimed to be more “logical” criteria, as Reading argues, is itself illogical – all administrative boundaries (with the exception of those caused by the sea, like with the Isle of Wight) are illogical. If we’re going to reform our system of local government – and, God knows, it’s badly needed – we need to do it with what we have already, not waste time on trying to re-draw the map. I’d say just the same if West Berkshire were proposing to annexe, say, Marlborough or Highclere.
WBC’s Leader Jeff Brooks is correct in describing this renewed attempt as an “unhelpful and unsolicited attempted land grab.” You can read the full statement here.
There are other factors at work here. All the new unitaries need to be of at least, or about, 500,o00 people. The Ridgeway plan (involving West Berkshire, the Vale and South Oxfordshire) would be about 470,000, so within touching distance of this. Losing the eastern areas to Reading would knock this back to more like 450,000. A possible merger between Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell would be about the same size as Ridgeway. The eastern march of West Berkshire would also make all the difference to this aspiration.
As with all these matters. what’s really important is what Angela Rayner thinks. If she has any sense, she’ll agree that re-drawing existing boundaries now would hopelessly slow down the process. If we’re going to do these changes, we have to get them done fairly quickly and with her legacy on this firmly in place before the next election. One division is as good, or as bad, as another.
• Three-weekly collections
From Monday 22 September, West Berkshire Council (WBC) will be moving to three-weekly collection of general refuse (black bins). You can see more in a statement recently issued by WBC. This includes assurances that no other arrangements will be changing and that help will be available whose genuine needs, such as for medical reasons, might be in excess of what will be provided.
There are several reasons for doing this, including saving money, hitting government targets and achieving a higher recycling figure: in 2022-23 WBC recycled about half of its waste but has some way to go to catch up with its erstwhile partners in the proposed Ridgeway Council, South Oxon and the Vale currently being in first and third place.
Reducing the frequency is an attempt at behaviour nudging. This seems like a reasonable thing for a council to do in pursuit of such objectives. Some people, of course, don’t like being nudged.
Others will feel that they’ll be inconvenienced. This may happen. However, no system’s perfect and to accomplish the least bad option which annoys the fewest number of people is sometimes the most a council can hope for. Many people, however, will probably find that their black bins aren’t anywhere near full at the end of the fortnight unless there’s been some serious household clearing-up. WBC has also pointed out that about 40% of what’s in the black bins should be being put elsewhere.
Others might argue that all these changes are to the detriment of people with large families and/or little space or time to deal with all the sorting the is now demanded of us.
As regards to the capacity of what’s collected, this has actually increased since recycling was introduced in 1996. Then, we all had one 240l black bin for everything, collected once a week. Now, taking into account the various other receptacles and the differing frequencies, it’s more like 315l a week. (This assumes that people use one, paid-for, green-waste bin. If you don’t need this then you don’t have to have it.)
In fact, the effective maximum is quite a bit more as there’s no limit on the amount of bottles, paper, tins and plastic that can be collected: the 315l figure above assumes you used one of each of the bins or bags provided.
There are also now mini recycling centres, kerbside battery collections and the ability to take soft plastic to supermarkets. None of these were available before. Again, I concede that these are easier for some people to use than others.
Some organisations, including the peculiar Taxpayers Alliance, are seeking to portray this change as a massive dereliction of duty by local councils; part of, as one report claims, a “shocking” trend of service reduction; almost an attack on our civil liberties.
Councils are indeed shedding services, often by stealth, a separate issue which we consider here. However, I don’t think that these proposed changes merit some of the extreme reaction they’ve received.
That said, two questions remain, which have caused some of the disquiet in West Berkshire.
The first is that the consultation didn’t produce an overwhelming vote in favour of the change and that some feel that the preferred route was not clearly enough expressed.
The second is that, because the matter was slightly sprung on members by being introduced as part of the budget discussion in February, there wasn’t time to have a proper scrutiny of the whole waste strategy. The bin collections are just one part of this, though the most visible one.
(Portfolio holder Stuart Gourley disagreed with me here, telling me that “the waste management strategy overall, where the change in frequency was mentioned heavily, was scrutinised at least twice prior to the budget meeting, and we quite clear that changing frequency was the direction of travel.” My point, which I hadn’t made clearly enough, was that this was a matter that perhaps should have gone to the Scrutiny Committee, given hiow many people – ie everyone – it affects.)
Indeed, apart from roads, it’s hard to think of any service the council provides which pretty much everybody uses. More than anything else, this is perhaps what’s made it such a big issue.
• Scrutiny
Last week we published the full text of a statement by the Chair of the Resources and Place Scrutiny Committee about the unsatisfactory impasse regarding the official publication of the report into procurement and related matters at the proposed Sports Hub in Monks Lane.
We’ve referred to this many times and tried to catalogue the series of very poor decisions that have been taken since 2018 regarding the LRIE generally, the Faraday Road (FR) football ground and the replacement (or non-replacement) for this that the Sports Hub was intended to be (or not be).
The problem is that the redevelopment of FR became an article of political faith by the then administration about ten years ago. Every legal, commercial and procedural decision had to be predicated on this assumption. This has led to what one can, taking the most charitable view, call a series of confusing assertions about what the Sports Hub was (or wasn’t).
The Scrutiny Committee has tried to pick through all this but, several months on, its results are still not officially known.
I don’t believe the members have any desire to see heads roll but merely to be sure that things are done better next time. The irony is that everything has gone wrong with these interlocking projects: even an attempt to try to look at what went wrong has gone wrong.
Most people won’t have followed many of the issues, some of which are very arcane. However, the suspicion lingers that (a) matters were in various ways handled badly in the past and (b) there’s no certainly that they’ll be done better in the future. Public money – quite a lot of it – has been involved in this and, as we know, there’s not a lot of that around. We need to have confidence that our councils are acting in our best interests, not pursuing vanity projects.
As it is, the issue burns on: a fire deep in the hold of the ship, causing smoke and flames to appear in unexpected places. Screwing down all the hatches and portholes is no way of solving this.
It may prove impossible to agree a report which satisfies everyonene. The time might have come for a more general compromise statement which regrets mistakes and confusions, points to some lessons that have been learned and moves the whole thing on, draws a line, turns a page, etc etc. No one will be completely placated by that but it could well be better than the festering alternative.
• No money lost (part two)
West Berkshire Council has issued a clarification of an issue we wrote about last week. This concerns an accounting muddle about payments of housing benefits. As we pointed out, WBC did at first say that there had been a loss but this was subsequently corrected once the figures had been examined more closely. The “local media source’ (not us) had therefore correctly reported a statement that wasn’t correct.
Anyway, here’s WBC’s take on the matter:
“Please note the following correction in relation to a news release published last week with the heading ‘No taxpayers’ public money has been lost in housing revenue reconciliation’:
“We’d like to take the opportunity to correct a news release published last week about a reported overpayment of housing benefits which stated that information reported in the local media was incorrect.
“The media article was an accurate report of the Executive meeting, but was based on a statement made during the debate that failed to make clear that the overpayment was accounted for by money held in another finance system. It was incorrect and we could have been clearer in how we explained this. We apologise for the error and for any offence caused to the local media – which was not our intention – and are happy to clarify the situation.
“We would also like to again reassure residents that all the relevant benefit claims were processed correctly and there was no overpayment to residents claiming housing benefit – and that there has been no financial cash loss to either residents or the Council.”
I’m not sure about “the statement made during the debate that failed to make clear that the overpayment was accounted for by money held in another finance system.” My understanding is the the Executive member genuinely thought at the time that overpayments had been made, and (candidly) said so.
I guess it’s better this way round than the other: fudging the matter behind accounting jargon at the meeting and the following week being forced to admit that it had actually been spent. Maybe there’ll be another clarification about this next week…
• News from your local councils
Most of the councils in the area we cover are single-tier with one municipal authority. The arrangements in Oxfordshire are (currently, at least) different, with a County Council which is sub-divided into six district councils, of which the Vale of White Horse is one. In these two-tier authorities, the county and district have different responsibilities.
In all cases, parish and town councils provide the first and most immediately accessible tier of local government.
West Berkshire Council
• Click here to see the latest Residents’ News Bulletin from WBC.
• Click here for details of all current consultations being run by WBC.
• Click here to sign up to all or any of the wide range of newsletters produced by WBC.
• Click here for the latest news from WBC.
Vale of White Horse Council
• Click here for details of all current consultations being run by the Vale Council.
• Click here for latest news from the Vale Council.
• Click here for the South and Vale Business Support Newsletter archive (newsletters are generally produced each week).
• Click here to sign up to any of the newsletters produced by the Vale’s parent authority, Oxfordshire County Council.
Wiltshire Council
• Click here for details of all current consultations being run by Wiltshire Council.
• Click here for the latest news from Wiltshire Council.
Swindon Council
• Click here for details of all current consultations being run by Swindon Council.
• Click here for the latest news from Swindon Council.
Parish and town councils
• Please see the News from your local council section in the respective weekly news columns (these also contain a wide range of other news stories and information on activities, events and local appeals and campaigns): Hungerford area; Lambourn Valley; Marlborough area; Newbury area; Thatcham area; Compton and Downlands; Burghfield area; Wantage area.
• Other news
• Congratulations to three West Berkshire Council employees and bee-friends, Vicky Trentham, Caroline Booth and Kris Mcdonald, have been involved in winning the UK wide DEFRA Bees Needs Champions Award 2025 for their volunteer work with the Countryside Area Team at the Newbury & District Agricultural Society. Together, they designed and built several pollinator initiatives, including a bug hotel, a dead hedge and bee posts on the Newbury Showground site to add to the area’s biodiversity.
• Trading Standards officers are warning pet owners to stay vigilant following a government warning about dangerous counterfeit flea treatments circulating online. You can find more information here.
• If there’s anything you’d like to ask the Leader of West Berkshire Council, Councillor Jeff Brooks will be answering your questions live in a new event being streamed soon across YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn. The event begins at 6pm on Wednesday 23 July and will last for up to an hour. Questions can be submitted to the Leader in advance by email to asktheleader@westberks.gov.uk by 4pm on Tuesday 22 July. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions during the event using the comment feature on your preferred platform.
• You can find our about fostering in West Berkshire by clicking here.
• West Berkshire Council, in partnership with Veolia, has teamed up with Green Machine Computers to launch a new electrical reuse scheme at both Household Waste Recycling Centres in Newtown Road and Padworth. Residents can now drop off used mobile phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers at dedicated collection points at either site, giving their old devices a new lease of life. More information is avaailable here.
• West Berkshire Council has news of Bikeability courses, “training programs designed for today’s roads. It teaches practical skills for safe cycling and builds confidence” for those aged ten to seventeen. More information can be found here.
• A statement from WBC explains that “Everyone is Family campaign, run by our leisure operator Everyone Active, is back with a variety of family-friendly activities at Hungerford Leisure Centre, Kennet Leisure Centre, Cotswold Sports Centre, and Lambourn Centre, all for just £2 per person from Saturday 19 July to Wednesday 3 September.
• Children aged from four to eleven years can visit any West Berkshire Library to sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge. If you would like to get involved by volunteering to help run the Reading Challenge at your local library this Summer, you can contact the team here.
• The animals of the week are these moths, and some other animals, which seem to be able to determine the health of the plants on which they’re planning to lay their eggs by the sounds that the plants make.
• A number of good causes have received valuable support recently: see the various news area sections (links above) for further details.
The quiz, the sketch, the fact and the song
• Here we are already at the song of the week. As I went for an Oasis song last week, it seems only fait this time round to go for one from their (much better) Britpop rivals Blur: so here’s This is a Low.
• So next up it’s the Comedy Moment of the Week. A bit more Fry and Laurie, this time with their high-energy, bullshit-spouting, whisky-sodden tycoons in Talking Business.
• And so next it’s the Unbelievable Fact of the Week. This has been gleaned from Edward Brooke-Hitching’s The Most Interesting Book in the World, described as “a miscellany of things too strange to be true, yet somehow are”. This week’s is that Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men fragrance has been used by forest rangers in India to pacify tigers.
• And finishing up as ever with the Quiz Question of the Week. This week’s question is: With which element are the numbers 234, 235 and 238 associated? Last week’s question was: Who was the last King or Queen of England? The answer is Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714 but who ceased to be Queen of England when the Act of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
For weekly news sections for Hungerford area; Lambourn Valley; Marlborough area; Newbury area; Thatcham area; Compton and Downlands; Burghfield area; Wantage area please click on the appropriate linkheariain
