Some consumer clickbait from yesterday’s Bristol ‘Live’, a Reach plc local news title.
Articles for the same product also appeared in other Reach plc titles such as the Manchester Evening News and Birmingham ‘Live’, although their readers were not informed that curvaceousness comes in four colours, as were the good burghers of Bristol.
The reason for this is because the headline writers on those papers can recognise ambiguity, unlike those at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth.
More years ago than he cares to remember, your ‘umble scribe was asked by one of his local ward councillors (now retired) to come up with a hashtag to publicise our fight against grime – litter, fly-tipping. fly-posting and other environmental crimes – in Bristol’s inner city wards of Easton and Lawrence Hill.
And so #TidyBS5 was born.
Well over a decade later, it’s very encouraging to see others using it, as per this mattress currently gracing St Mark’s Grove.
First Group has a virtual monopoly on public transport in Bristol via its buses and GWR Trains. However, its inability to run any service to timetable – no matter how important – has earned it the nickname of Worst Group.
First Bus was all over the local media at the start of June when it announced the opening of a new bus depot in the city’s Hengrove area for servicing its fleet of electric buses which will eventually total 74 vehicles.
Your ‘umble scribe recently tried out one of the new double decker electric buses on the Number 24 route, which runs between Ashton and Southmead Hospital. On the whole the experience was very positive. The bus was clean, the ride silent and smooth. However, at this point a significant however enters the picture, namely that your correspondent was less than impressed by the greenwashing on the sides of the bus.
Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on “whitewash”), also called green sheen, is a form of advertising or marketing spin that deceptively uses green PR and green marketing to persuade the public that an organization’s products, goals, or policies are environmentally friendly. Companies that intentionally adopt greenwashing communication strategies often do so to distance themselves from their environmental lapses or those of their suppliers.[6] Firms engage in greenwashing for two primary reasons: to appear legitimate and to project an image of environmental responsibility to the public.
Whilst the engines of the new buses produce zero greenhouse gases or particulate emissions, that does not necessarily mean the vehicles are entirely free of emissions, especially when significant elements of the vehicle produce particulates due to wear and tear caused by their function. The two components involved are the brakes and tyres.
Until First acquires vehicles with zero tyre and brake wear, they should continue to be called out for being less than honest with the (travelling) public.
In a further perceived blow to Bristol’s allegedly long-suffering but volubly vocal motoring lobby, Bristol City Council has announced it is investigating alternative uses for two current car parks, according to Bristol247.
One of the two, near the SS Great Britain down the city docks and known as the Maritime Heritage Centre Car Park, is being investigated as a site for up to 150 flats. However, the fate of the other behind the Counts Louse (which some insist on calling City Hall. Ed.) is completely different; it’s due to be superseded by, er, jargon, i.e. special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand, in this instance something termed a last-mile micro-consolidation hub.
Thankfully a picture showing what this could look like has been provided by WSP, the city council’s chosen gibberish partners.
Yer tiz, as we say in Bristol.
Image courtesy of WSP
According to WSP, the gibberish “will provide a sustainable solution for freight deliveries, reducing reliance on traditional vans and supporting the city’s decarbonisation goals”.
Note how yet more jargon has to be used to explain the initial gobbledygook. If two loads of jargon are required to explain a fairly simple concept, perhaps the verbal diarrhoea merchants need to have a long sit down and a rethink. 😀
Ever since Æthelstan became King of the English in 927 CE, some in England – starting with Æthelstan himself – have had difficulty recognising where England ended and the rest of the world began. Indeed Æthelstan meddled so much in the land of the Scots that they allegedly nicknamed him “The Bastard“.
Given the dominance of England within the Untied Kingdom, this has persisted down through the centuries that separate the present from the days of Ælfred of Wessex‘s grandson.
The latest manifestation of this Englandshire = the entire UK occurs in yesterday’s online edition of Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s unfortunate newspaper of warped record, which managed to defy both demographics and geography in one awful little puff piece masquerading as “news“.
A screenshot of the headline of the offending article is offered below.
Although Wells is described in the piece as “England’s smallest city“, there is no empirical evidence provided of its lack of size. Your ‘umble scribe used a little-known research technique called using a search engine to provide an answer; in this case 5 seconds’ work gave a census population figure of 12,000 for Wells.
However, Wells is not the Untied Kingdom’s smallest cathedral city. Cymru has two cathedral cities that together have a combined population of well under Wells’ 12,000 souls. First of all there’s Llanelwy/St Asaph (pop. 3,485) and Tyddewi/St Davids (pop. 1,751), which is actually the UK’s smallest cathedral city in terms of number of residents.
Your correspondent is surprised that today’s ‘journalists’ are not familiar with this research technique he often uses, which is recommended they use as a matter of course. 😀
The monthly Barton Hill community litter pick took place yesterday. Eric, Alex and your ‘umble scribe spent just over an hour methodically removing litter from around Ducie, Strawbridge and Avonvale Roads, along with sections of the Urban Park.
After picking we all retired to the Wellspring Settlement for a brew and biscuits, as well as to discuss what we were going to do about the group’s award of the Lord Mayor’s Medal. According to the council, the medal “recognises outstanding and innovative unpaid service and support provided to others, especially selfless service to a voluntary body or to our community, or which brings distinction and quality to Bristol life.”
We were nominated for the award by local ward councillor Yassin Mohamud (we’ll see you at the Mansion House, Yassin!) and are deeply honoured, but at the same time vaguely ambivalent about it as an hour or so a month* is not a great deal of time to give up for our fellow citizens, although we have been turning out to tidy the area every month for either 7 or 8 years.
* = As organisers, Eric and myself have a bit more work to do, but it’s not really onerous to send out monthly reminders and then contact Bristol Waste’s community engagement team to arrange collection of our full bags, order fresh supplies of rubbish sacks and the like.
Advance notice: May’s pick will take place on Saturday 3rd May.
According to the city council’s website: “The Lord Mayor’s Medals are awarded to highlight the local, unpaid community work and achievement that’s helped to improve the lives of Bristol’s citizens.”
Good news was received this morning that the Barton Hill Litter Group I help organise has been awarded a Lord Mayor’s Medal after being nominated by Lawrence Hill ward councillor Yassin Mohamud. Thanks, Yassin! 😀
Alex, Steve and Ronit with the fruits of the March 2025 litter pick. Image courtesy of Eric Green
We’ve been sent a letter to confirm the award and attend the award ceremony next month at the Lord Mayor’s official residence, the Mansion House.
The letter from the Lord Mayor’s office is quoted in full below.
Dear Barton Hill Litter Group,
Re: The Lord Mayor of Bristol’s Medal As you may be aware, the Lord Mayor of Bristol’s medal is awarded to Bristol’s unsung heroes who serve the people of Bristol through voluntary and community work or charitable acts of work.
I am writing to inform you that Barton Hill Litter Group have been selected as a recipient.
The medal will be presented in a very special ceremony on:
Tuesday 15 April at 3.00pm and will be held at The Mansion House, Clifton Down.
The Lord Mayor would be delighted if you and a guest could join him and other recipients. I will also be writing to the person who nominated you to attend the ceremony.
I would be grateful if you could confirm your attendance via lordmayor [at] bristol.gov.uk by Wednesday 9 April. If you are unable to attend, please let me know if there is anyone who can represent you on the day?
Bristol City Council will issue a press release and the press may wish to contact you in advance of the ceremony. Please can you confirm if you are happy to be contacted by the press and for information on your nomination to be released publicly (including social media).
Yours, etc.
Congratulations to all our regular and occasional pickers. You’ve done yourselves, us and the district proud. Give yourselves a hearty pat on the back!
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons The best part of 30 years ago,the late cycle campaigner Chris Hutt of Bristol’s Cyclebag remarked that perhaps the simplest way in which mobility within the city could be improved would be to tweak the timings of pedestrian crossings so that they switched over to the pedestrian green phase within seconds of the button being pushed.
Fifteen years after Chris’ death it looks like something similar to what he suggested is finally being implemented – albeit half-heartedly – by Bristol City Council.
Today’s Bristol Post reports that around 100 crossings – i.e. a fraction of those in the city – will be changed as suggested by Chris all that time ago.The change has been described by councillors as a “cost-effective way to get traffic-calming measures” that have already proved popular on some busy roads. The setting, known as “pre-timed max”, will also be installed on new crossings as they are provided.
In addition, the tweak will only be made to stand-alone pedestrian crossings, not those associated with junctions where they are just as badly needed and could be equally as beneficial.
Commenting on the scheme, Green Councillor Emma Edwards said: “When people realised what had happened, I got phone calls saying ‘can we have one down here and there, and it would be useful here’. Residents really love them and it’s such a cost-effective way to get traffic calming measures in and to help with things like school routes.”
What has taken you so long, Bristol City Council?
Your ‘umble scribe’s best guess is that the idea was filed away in the “not invented here” cabinet combined with the propensity of highways department staff not being able to see beyond the bonnet of their respective motorised tinned three-piece suites.
Given these shortcomings, your correspondent is only prepared to give the council one extremely grudging cheer.
It’s been a good day for a tidier and hopefully more pleasant and liveable BS5.
For the second week in a row, Bristol City Council had arranged for skips to be dropped at four sites in Lawrence Hill ward for residents to fill with the rubbish that couldn’t be collected by normal waste rounds. The sites are shown on the following map.
Before providing the skips in Easton last week and this week, St Paul’s residents had previously benefited from their presence on the streets.
Yesterday morning your ‘umble scribe received an email from a council contact: could I possibly help out at one of the sites?
I duly did, turning out at 9.00 am for skip delivery. It didn’t actually turn up until nearly 10 am. By 10.45 it was full and your correspondent regretfully had to turn people away or direct them to the other skip sites.
I was very pleased to be relieved by a proper council officer at 11 am.
While babysitting the skip, I also had one Bristol Waste‘s community engagement officers stop for a chat. She had organised a community litter pick on Stapleton Road for later that morning. I saw them on my way for a late breakfast; they were hard at work and doing a good job near the junction with Easton Way.
Anyway, well done to Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste for arranging some extra resources for tidying BS5 and the community litter picking team. Your efforts are appreciated. One repeated remark which was made about the skips was can we please have them again, possibly regularly?
Google Translate, the Mountain View behemoth’s translation service is noted for not being very good on technical terminology, even of the most basic kind. Furthermore, it also struggles with a little thin called context, i.e. the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea and in terms of which it can be fully understood.
When Google Translate gets the context wrong and confuses protecting the public with ancient Greek mythological figures, the result is at the very least amusing and at must alarming and downright dangerous, as revealed by the following social media post by Prof. Jenni Barclay of the University of Bristol.
Prof. Barclay’s research is the reduction of risk and prevention of disaster in volcanic settings, with a particular focus both on volcanic processes and the social processes that amplify volcanic risk.
My question for Prof. Barclay is are mermaids a social process? 😉
