And we’re off….

Shleepy 

This post WILL be short as I’m dog tired already, and we’re only at the end of day two. Maybe working till 11:30 last night stuffing envelopes for a supporters mailing wasn’t great in terms of my grabbing enough shuteye…

This could also have something to do with being up at the crack of dawn to speak to a researcher from Radio Five Live about the possibility of having some sort of local voice from the Lib Dems on their Breakfast programme that this morning came from Bury . She nervously enquired with her producer, who politely informed me that Sarah Teather MP was going to be doing our bit for adding balance to their programme from London. (Which to me defied the point of the Beeb sending a whole crew up here anyway…) And after I’d got up to get down there for 6.15am as well – how rude! Still our girl Sarah did well, even convincing an online listener to switch allegiance live on air! Having caught her speech at confidence, she is a very safe pair of hands and good at getting people on side.

Nominations are now finally in for the candidates in the locals (I am now officially ’The Ramsbottom candidate’)  and now we have to have our candidate here in Bury North’s parliamentary papers to be done as soon as possible. Will these pointless pieces of paperwork ever come to an end?? By the way if you haven’t had the time as yet to discover why you’d be silly enough to vote anything but Lib Dem in Bury North as yet, I suggest that you check out Richard Baum, our candidates website. He’s a man on a mission!

As you can tell, now Gordon’s hit the green light, everyone’s on the go – but trying to fit all that in with two kids on school holidays is not that easy either. I’m feeling a little guilty that I’m not out there with the troops tonight, but have been filling my time with my real job (exam marking waits for no man!) and doing the artwork for a campaign leaflet in one of our target wards. With only 29 days left (hooray for the facebook countdown calendar!) there are still plenty of jobs to be done. Including of course waflling into cyberspace for no good reason…

Chuckle

To finish I thought I’d share this with you, as it made me laugh at just the right time today. Sums up everything we already knew…  

I've seen many of these floating around, but this was the first to make me chuckle out loud...

An old grump writing to moan.

 Grumpy

 Last week I sent this letter to the Bury Times. Stuff not being done properly makes me grumpy and I’d had enough. They’ve decided not to publish (as yet) so you may as well have a gander at my chirpy, yet damning verdict of waste collection services in dear old Rammy.  

 

A blue bin with rubbish to be recycled in it - for all you Visual learners out there....

Dear Editor…

I have held off from writing this letter for many months now, as I wanted to see just how ludicrous things would get before I put pen to paper. I think we may possibly have reached the pinnacle now, so I feel confident that things couldn’t possibly get any more disorganised with our waste recycling here in Ramsbottom. 

At the end of last year, a new recycling calendar was put through our door after the Conservative council decided to change the delivery routes to ‘improve’ things for us all. Two weeks later, I received a different calendar in the post (this time in a costly envelope with a first class stamp) with a note to destroy the old one as it had been delivered to our route by mistake. A glitch? No, it was just the beginning. 

 On the first run, they missed us completely. But I bit my tongue – we’re classed as a farm route and I can understand why the blue bin might be missed as we’re classed as being in an ‘awkward’ place (that’s the call centre’s description – not mine). 

Then came the snow. Lack of grit equals lack of road. Lack of road equals lack of collection. It was the beginning of February before my Christmas wrapping paper was on its way. At least this time though they got it right for the blue bin, but mucked up the paper. Bags were taken – but not replaced. Oh dear. More phone calls, new bags delivered. 

February was mostly fine, we all thought we’d settled. Until we had the same problem last week when the green bags were not replaced after collection again. Personally I’m ok, as I managed to pull one out of a ditch at the bottom of my hill that must have fallen off of the truck – I have no idea how many others may be bagless. 

And then to top it all off, today I received a copy of the recycling calendar – the same one I received three months ago in the post! What a waste of money, time and my patience. When the Conservative council promised to make things ‘easier’ by changing the routes, was this really what they had in mind? 

All it means is that it has strengthened my resolve to become a councillor myself, and I would like to thank the frustrated residents of my street for offering to nominate me in the upcoming election. I hope I would never make as much of a mess of something which should be so simple. 

Yours sincerely 

Paul Jenkins 

Ramsbottom Liberal Democrats

Your feedback much appreciated

So here we go…

A month on the blog trail and I think I might just have cranked up the confidence for the big launch. Trying anything new is always hard, but I have to say I’ve not really been as nervous about anything for a while and that’s odd coming from a performer.

I guess I’m used to standing in front of people and talking – especially as a character. You can plan what you’re saying, you can react there and then if something goes wrong or gets misconstrued. You can also simply run away and hide if you do sink like a stone (or in the case of my brief foray into stand up – actually be booed off the stage – you have to love this business) But blogging? Well it’s out there – permanently. And you can pop in and judge me at any time. Bit of a scary thought that you could be in your PJ’s at three in the morning, slating my every word. But that’s the joy as well - you gotta love t’internet. It’s a damn fine thing.

So this is it – we’re going officially,publically, worldwide, oh my gosh live as of today.

Two posts down (so we’ve actually got some content to look at), advice from the guinea pigs who read the first couple in advance taken (thank you people for taking the time – much appreciated) and actual direction of the blog sorted. It’s going to be very much like thought for the day on Radio 2. Personal meanderings with the religion slipped in without you knowing. Except as a devout atheist (still not sure there can be such a thing) I’ll have to slip the politics in instead.

The “keep it short, keep it regular” advice will be taken (thanks Jacky) and the “you read me mine and I’ll read yours” deals will be stuck to – (with pleasure Alec).  More stuff will follow to make the whole thing more interactive (polls, debates, stuff like that) but for the time being it’ll be me waffling into cyberspace.

I hope I may inform, educate,  maybe even entertain as there seems to be a gap in the market for that sort of thing nowadays.

All quite exciting really – enjoy the ride.

PJ