Beeston public loo: RIP. Never the most beautiful of buildings, but my, have they saved us on occasions. But no more: the bulldozers saw them off last month. But it’s ok! The council have arranged a scheme to pay local businesses to use their bogs. Oh, what’s that? They haven’t? Ahhh. Well, I’m sure all councillors who made this decision will not mind you using their toilets. Addresses available online.
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Weirdest place The Beestonian has been: 10, Downing Street. Apparently we’ve been used as an example of excellence in hyperlocal media, at a presentation to the cabinet. This beats our previous weirdest reader: we heard some months back that as part of the plans for the Prince’s Foundation to work on the Barton’s development, a copy of The Beestonian was sent to Prince Charles to illustrate the spirit of the town. Of course, this information will not in any way influence our impeccable independent journalism.
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Grammar schools eh? Great idea.
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Y’know, I always find this column is easier to write once I’ve had a nice cup of tea and a few DUCHY ORIGINAL oat biscuits. Y’know, the ones that cost about three quid a crumb Talking of posh nosh, Marks and Sparks food are coming to town. Yes, everyone’s favourite purveyor of over-priced grub that isn’t from Waitrose are setting up shop on Chilwell Retail Park. A pipeline supplying every house in Attenborough with organic balsamic is being installed, and the ducks down the nearby nature reserve will now be fed artisan ciabatta instead of the usual Mighty White.
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Yes, we know that you should not feed bread to ducks. But this is no ordinary bread. This is slow baked, herb infused Marks and Spencer bread.
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We don’t condone graffiti, but we find it so hard to walk past this business and not write ‘scissors’ in marker pen.
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Our beloved and totally sober MP went off on one recently, when Twitter seemed to unanimously question her rather overwrought appearance on BBC’s Question Time. “I HAVE NEVER USED THAT WORD” she thundered to a twitter user who mentioned Anna’s well-documented use of the C- word “DELETE THIS DEFAMATORY TWEET”. Calm, Anna, calm. While it is an offensive to many, we’re all open minded enough to use the word ‘Conservative” without much embarrassment.
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Brilliant work from Beestonian Lewis Stainer, for recently setting up a food collection for refugees. His hard work persuaded a massive amount of food, mainly own-brand tins, to be donated. This will be then sent to Calais to keep the stateless, stranded refugees there some sustenance while our elected leaders continue to dither. Well done Lewis. Next year, with M+S firmly part of Beeston, it’ll probably be all spiralised courgette and quinoa. Or maybe we can hope there will be no need, and solutions will be found to give the hopeless hope. Sadly, that’s as likely as some shiny public Armitage Shanks being stuck in the centre of town.