Oops!

Heat waves...

Llandudno RNLI launched yesterday afternoon to save a man, from Penmaenmawr, who was clinging to a girder on the town’s pier when they arrived at around 2.43pm. The crew had only been notified seven minutes earlier and took him inshore. He needed no medical treatment.

An RNLI spokesman said: "He said he had just fancied a swim and was very relieved when we arrived."

In light of the incident, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is urging people to think carefully about how they can enjoy water safely.

Well, not jumping off the end of the town pier might be a start. But as the heat builds up, we can expect more daft things to happen. In the US, heat waves and murders move in step, it seems; and there’s no doubt that the incidence of petty squabbles and arguments increases during the hot weather over here. Part of this has to do with noise and thoughtless people; some who like to sunbathe outside the front door, for instance, and decide that they like to have music - their music, which they simply blast out as loudly as possible from inside the house. With everyone’s windows and doors open, however, this impinges on everyone else. So we probably need to take a leaf out of the Mexican’s book, and become a little more laid back during the heat. More realistically, invest in an iPod to listen to your music, and that way no one’s any the wiser...

Hot enough?

As we continue to bask in our little heat wave it's perhaps worth remembering how to stay cool in the house. Those who know about such things as weather are intimating that we might - this year - have a warm summer, if the Jetstream, El Nino and butterflies in the Azores behave themselves, that is. Trouble is, young kids and older folk don't cope with the excessive heat too well. So how do we keep the house cool?

Interestingly, closing all the windows isn't the first thing that comes to mind but when the weather becomes seriously hot that's what you need to do. The consumers' association recommends the following:

• Open windows upstairs over night to allow the house to lose the warmth and warm air.
• As it starts to heat up - say, about 1200, close all your windows
• Draw the curtains on the sunward sides
  
• Buy a fan. They're incredibly cheap - about £15.00 - and well worth the money in a heat wave. It doesn't matter that they only blow the warm air in the house over you; the effect of this is to cool you - 'onest!
• Don't cook hot food. Every time you use anything which produces heat, that heat has to go somewhere and that 'somewhere' is usually upwards - to the bedrooms.
  
• Drink lots of cold water. Fill two very large jugs with water and stick 'em in the 'fridge the night before. Why two? Because one is always cooling down whilst the other is always cold.
• Don't fall for the old wives tale that drinking hot tea cools you down. It doesn't. It makes you sweat, however, and that means losing even more body fluid than you will during the heat. Those old wives, eh...

Finally, spare a thought for anyone who's living on their own, who's elderly and who might not be able to cope.

Hot stuff...

Looks like another incredibly warm day for Llandudno. One big advantage about holidaying in the town is its position; rarely does it become oppressively warm, and today a pleasant breeze blew from off-shore throughout the day, keeping the temperatures at a tolerable 70F. It's going to be hotter on Saturday, however, and the heat doesn't look to let up until Tuesday at the earliest. Once, the BBC's weather page gave a detailed breakdown, with temperatures and windspeed, but since it's been 'improved, it's now much harder to get detailed information. Such is progress...

Shopping in Colwyn

The news that £14m has been awarded to Colwyn Bay by the WA seems - on the face of it - good news. However, the thoughts of those in power are turning to sea defences, Station road and possibly improving the shopping areas generally.

Colwyn Bay has always lived in the shadow of its famous neighbour, Llandudno, which isn't without its own problems. However, Llandudno has one significant and massive advantage over Colwyn Bay and that's in the town planning. Not the current town planning, but that which took place in the 1800s. Llandudno has Mostyn Street - a wide, spacious area which itself attracts visitors, simply because it's so pleasant to walk down. Colwyn Bay has a much narrower main road, which snakes through the town, bordered on either side by four-storey buildings. The effect of the narrowness is keenly felt and sharply accentuated by the height of the buildings on either side. To really make a significant difference to Colwyn Bay it's probably necessary to start again, by demolishing those high buildings at the narrowest stretch of road in the very centre, widening the road and then permitting new and carefully controlled construction at the width of Mostyn Street. Problem is, that's very unlikely to happen for many reasons, but it ought not to stop the Colwyn council thinking big. Tweaking, patching and fixing always tend to leave the place looking roughly the same, and what Colwyn Bay needs is a major reconstitution, to revitalise its tourist industry. After all, the best beaches are in the Bay and Rhos, and some of Wales' top ten attractions - the Zoo and the Little Orme. Attract a private investor with imagination and big plans, give 'em some head and stand back.

Two things that would revitalise the area: the reintroduction of trams and the creation of an entirely new attraction: maybe a cable car betwene the beach and the zoo, perhaps, or a permanent ice-rink, or - heaven forbid - even a monorail. But it's big money which needs major investors and a council willing to remove major obstacles quickly.

Are mothers-in-law getting a raw deal?

And days of now...

In days of yore...

Before the computer age..


Memory was something you lost with age
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano
A web was a spider's home
A virus was the flu
A CD was a bank account
A hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived



And if you had a 3 inch floppy . ...

The plot thickens...

Spurred into action by a reader, I've brought forward this epistle, which deals with personal data.

The UK has a fairly tough Data Protection Act, but there's one important thing to remember about it: in the main, it applies only to personal data. Okay, but exactly what does that constitute?

The Data Protection Act 1998 applies only to personal data about a living, identifiable individual. From the Act itself:

Personal data is “… data which relate to a living individual who can be identified - (a) from those data, or (b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller, and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual.”

Perhaps the most important aspect regarding collection and use of personal data via websites is:

“The data subject has given his consent to the processing.“ (Data Protection Act 1998, Schedule 2, paragraph 2)

The definition of personal data is highly complex, so for day to day purposes it's best to assume that all information about a living, identifiable individual is personal data.

There are eight data protection principles, some of which aren't strictly likely to involve the average forum or blog owner. However, the three which do can be tricky:

• 2nd principle
• Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.
• 6th principle
• Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act.
• 8th principle
• Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area, unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data

The last one is what should concern any blog or forum owner thinking of publishing personal data on an individual. Essentially, because of the very nature of the internet, anything published on it can be seen world-wide.

Finally, there's what's called 'sensitive' personal data. That's the sort the government loses on an almost daily basis, by the way. It includes

* racial or ethnic origin;
* political opinions;
* religious beliefs;
* trade union membership;
* physical of mental health;
* sexual life;
* commission of offences or alleged offences.


Thus, no blog or forum owner should ever publish sensitive details about individuals if they wish to escape prosecution and it would generally be wise to avoid ever publishing details such as full name, address and telephone number unless the individual concerned has consented to it being published in that way by that website.

The flame wars...

As the internet expands, and the wise and foolish seek to make their fortune investing in forums and blogs, it's worthwhile taking a few moments to see what happens when personalities become inextricably involved with policies.

One great advantage of the internet forum or blog is the ability to enjoy debating and discussing. Most of us enjoy chatting about the slings and arrows life chucks our way, and the internet can be a great place to do it. Unfortunately, when the forum or blog is a very local affair, inevitably personalities become involved in the debate, and then things can turn ugly. This isn't news, of course; we've all known for a long time that the two subjects you should never bring up in a pub are religion or politics. The first, because religion is an intensely personal thing, which no one can prove or disprove and because its adherents rely purely on faith and the second because...er, well, the same, I suppose.

Recently, three local blogs and one local forum have been engaged in a spat, with a lot of unpleasantness in the fall-out. Now you may wonder why we're commenting on this. There's a simple reason.

The internet forum is almost certainly one of the best tools the internet has spawned for idea exchange. A good, well-run forum has a lively, engaging and welcoming community, which collectively seeks to debate, socialise, swap suggestions, help and mutually support its members. It's a real-person community, whose common affiliation is the computer and, secondly, technology as embodied by the internet. Over the past twelve years, forums have mushroomed and died, and - after that time spent working as part of this phenomenon - it's possible to identify the golden rules for a good online community or internet forum.

The first - and arguably the most important - is never, ever let debates degenerate into insults. The internet has more than its fair share of odd-balls, weirdoes, creeps, bullies, cyber-thugs, opportunists, liars, cheats and even some not-so-nice people, and at the first sign that a personality is making a stand on anything, the assembled forces of darkness will delight in launching their intercontinental ballistic abuses at their intended target.

Dodging this can be problematic, but not impossible. In fact, as more and more folk succumb to the lure of the internet forum, it becomes essential to provide a medium in which normal intelligent and caring people can feel comfortable.

But debating and discussing is what the internet is particularly good for, so how do we avoid the very situations that are currently erupting locally?

Professor Roger Fisher, Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, has some suggestions. Here's the list:

• Don't argue over positions. A position is where the debater stands in an argument.
• Separate people from the problem. You can sometimes help with a problem but you can't do anything about the person, so it simply degenerates into a slanging match.
• Focus on interests as opposed to positions. The latter is inflexible but the former can provide common ground
• Use objective criteria; stay fair and balanced.
• Explore options that can lead to mutual gain

If you read that carefully, and you're a parent of many years, you may find it strikes a chord. Interestingly, it bears a striking similarity to advice in a course book provided for therapists working with disturbed adolescents. Hmmm.

The best forums also need more; they need an outstanding team of administrators, with mature and sympathetic personalities, a high degree of intelligence and - above all - well developed empathy. The worst forums have owners and administrators who join in the slanging. And that's a recipe for disaster.

Oops...

If you're the black sheep of the family, here's the place to hide.

With a smile and a song...

The renowned Trinity Players have recently unveiled their long awaited summer season schedule. Every Wednesday evening, between 10th June and the end of September, this stalwart band will perform a show for the visitors in Trinity Church itself. All the proceeds from their shows go to charity; both local and national, and charities locally have benefited by over £85,000 since the Players were formed in the late nineties. The group has also toured Europe and further afield, such has been their popularity. Following some minor difficulties last year, they've now re-formed under a new Musical Director and the new show line-up promises to go down well.

Trinity is an easy-to-reach venue for visitors, being the most central point in town, and - having had a sneak preview of some of the items - I can heartily recommend their new show as being a great way to spend a couple of hours on Wednesday evenings. And you can do it, secure in the knowledge that you'll be helping some of society's neediest.

That's life

Two elderly ladies meet at the launderette after not seeing one another for some time. After inquiring about each other's health one asked how the other's husband was doing.

"Oh! Ted died last week. He went out to the garden to dig up a cabbage for dinner, had a heart attack and dropped down dead right there in the middle of the vegetable patch!"

"Oh dear! I'm very sorry." replied her friend "What did you
do?"

"Opened a can of peas instead."

Blogs, forums and bloggers part 4

Locally, there's a well-known character who places an astonishingly (and somewhat uninformed) high degree of trust in something called an 'IP'. He's been known to tell Oscar to check posters' IPs, as though that would impart something significant about the person, and one local forum eliminates members' accounts purely on the basis of the IP.

So what's an IP, then and how much can it tell you?

Try this. Click on this link. This is an example of Geolocation software, and you can see that it places you - well, not exactly near to where you live. In fact, to anyone who really understands them, IP addresses are not that effective. To be truly effective, you have to take a court order out against the ISP concerned to force them to reveal to you who is behind any given IP address, and that's not a process which is either easy or simple. Once you've got the IP address above, you can try this. Here, you can see that it finds out your ISP.

Every device connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by decimal points and look something like 127.0.0.1.

Since these numbers are usually assigned to internet service providers within region-based blocks, an IP address can only be used to identify the region or country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet. An IP address can sometimes be used to show the user's general location, but nothing more. In fact, the nearest that anyone can tell about you is the ISP you connect through. If you use BT, which most do, then your IP will be the same as or very similar to anyone else who uses BT.

In conclusion, therefore, No one outside of the law courts can tell who you are by your IP. Anyone who tells you otherwise is fibbing.

For the truly paranoid, however, it's possible to conceal your IP address if you really want to, although it should be stressed that for every method of concealment, there's always an expert somewhere that will be trying to overcome it. However, there is really only one way to avoid anyone finding out your IP (which, remember, is only the IP address of your ISP, away:-) and that's to use a proxy server. Unless you own your own proxy server, and you're wealthy enough to have a place somewhere several thousand miles away to keep it, then any proxy server you use could be compromised and your information seen by someone.

All this really means is that the internet is a perfectly safe place and at least as safe as the rest of the real world. The normal forum owner or Blog writer has no more chance of finding out who you really are from your IP address as the man in the moon.

Blogs, forums and bloggers part 3

So how many folk visit blogs and forums? The world's most popular forum site, In Japan, has more than 2,000,000 daily visitors. By contrast, most local forums will be lucky to have twenty. But there's degree of ego involved with running a forum or blog; in fact, the very act of writing a diary for public consumption is inherently egoistic. However, most blogs are themed and many are about issues so, for instance, we have political blogs - the fastest growing segment of the quaintly named 'blogosphere' - issue blogs, such as Oscar's, which devote their pages to local matters, usually involving council inaction and a host of other types including blogs specialising in reviews, tips, lists, research, information and a whole lot else.

But the blogger's world can be lonelier than the forum owner's. In part this has to do with stats.

'Site stats' purport to show how many visitors your site is getting. In theory, each time a hit is registered, it means a denizen of the WWW has clicked on your site to read it. Unfortunately, that's not the whole story. It's a bit complicated, but there are two main methods of obtaining site stats: Logfile analysis and page tagging. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but the site owner wishing to sell advertising on the back of his stats is not going to concern himself with those. However, they are very important because of what's called the 'hotel problem', ironically.

The way to picture the situation is by imagining a hotel. The hotel has two rooms (Room A and Room B).

As the table shows, the hotel has two unique users each day over three days. The sum of the totals with respect to the days is therefore six.

During the period each room has had two unique users. The sum of the totals with respect to the rooms is therefore four.

Actually only three visitors have been in the hotel over this period. The problem is that a person who stays in a room for two nights will get counted twice if you count them once on each day, but is only counted once if you are looking at the total for the period. Any decent software for web analytics should sum these correctly for whatever time period, thus leading to the problem when a user tries to compare the totals.

This is only one problem among many for web stat users, and forums are particularly prone to various errors of magnitude when they try to use stats to sell advertising. A forum with only twenty members can produce stats showing in excess of 20,000 hits per month when, in reality, the stat system is counting every page, every arrival and every lookup as a unique visitor.

Then there are 'bots.

Many search engines and many companies routinely use 'netbots'; cyber programs that trawl the internet. Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone. The largest use of bots is in web spidering, in which an automated script fetches, analyses and files information from web servers at many times the speed of a human. Unfortunately, many stats counters don't differentiate between an electronic visitor and a human.

This is why making money from an internet forum is usually a forlorn hope, unless you're in the same league as Google or the Japanese. Site statistics showing apparent 'hits' can be all but meaningless.

Blogs, Forums and bloggers Part 2

The most popular Blog in the Llandudno area is almost certainly Oscar . Oscar's dealings with councils and councillors is the stuff of legend and the posts made are frequent, interesting and often of some controversy. However, much of the controversy stems not from Oscar's postings but from those of the readers who choose to comment. And herein lies the problem for any blog or forum owner. What sorts of comments can be published without issue?

The Blog (and forum) owner is legally responsible for what gets published, whether in their own articles or the comments section by others. The major risks are

• Defamation
  
• Copyright
• Trade secrets
• Invasion of privacy
• Retaliation

Curiously, it's the last which causes most problems in Blogs and Forums. However, the one likely to worry a Blog or Forum owner most is the first: Defamation.

The Law Society says this:

Does your site contain gossip, or other comment upon individuals?

Gossip tends to be defamatory. The UK’s strong defamation laws mean that it can be difficult to defend a defamatory comment, even if it’s true!

Worryingly, this also applies to 'user-edited' content, which means the comments posted by your readers. This is one reason why most Blog owners enable moderation in their comments. It's not simply being censorious. Blog owners like Oscar, who prefer anonymity in which to function, are conscious of the risks inherent in any blog which discusses the actions and behaviour of others, even councillors. Having said that, if what you say can be proved beyond doubt, you're very unlikely to be clobbered with a multi-million pound lawsuit. And private, non-commercial blogs and forums are even less likely, since suing individuals can be expensive and with little return.

It's a different matter if your Blog or Forum is commercial - i.e. you take in advertising or other forms of revenue. In fact, making money from a forum or blog is notoriously difficult, not to say risky.

A little light relief...

Blogs, Forums and bloggers...

For those who can spare the time, several blogs and forums have appeared around the Llandudno area in the past year or so. This, of course, is one of them, but we started this one specifically to try to avoid the issues which have plagued others.

Many folk are not too sure what the difference is between a Blog and a Forum, so here's the guide....

A Forum (the name - fora - originated in Latin about 2000 years ago and meant a public square or marketplace used for judicial and other business) is literally a 'meeting place' and is seen by many as a critical start to the truly democratic process of the Western world.

A Blog is a sort of diary, often written by more than one person, which tends to have a theme, such as a geographical area, a hobby or interest, or a profession, for instance.

What's the main difference?

A Blog consists of the articles written by the Blog's owners, and comments submitted by the readers of the Blog. These comments usually have to be approved by the Blog owner prior to their publication and do not normally appear on the blog page until 'summoned'. A Blog is also a single or group perspective on things.

A forum is an online discussion board (it developed from the traditional bulletin board, and is a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system in days of yore) and provides a medium through which anyone can discuss anything that the forum owner(s) permit. The big difference here is that a forum is a vibrant, online cyber-community.

Okay, so that's pretty boring. What else is there to know?

This is where it gets interesting. The web has one characteristic which is both a blessing and a curse. Anonymity. Most forums and Blogs allow their members to post under pseudonyms. The rationale for this is the very public nature of anything posted on the internet, so it makes sense to have as little about yourself and your privacy exposed to world wide onlookers as you can. And there's a lot of those. However, it's this very shroud of secrecy that also allows the more irrational or disruptive to post things they wouldn't normally say out loud, and certainly to someone's face, and this is where the problems start.

Certain individuals or groups of individuals delight in creating mayhem on forums; it's much harder to do on Blogs, since the Blog owner moderates comments posted and can simply delete those they don't deem suitable. However - and this is the big difference between Forums and Blogs - a forum consists of actual cyber-conversations between real people, so deletion in that medium is much more noticeable.

So, why do some people get their comments deleted?

The internet community has developed (actually, mainly adapted) words to describe unacceptable behaviour in forums. There are three main ones:

Troll
Sock Puppet
Spammer

A Troll is simply an antagonist, someone who posts deliberately to create a response from others and is often rude, sometimes even obscene, and disruptive. A Gravedigger Troll deliberately posts in old topics, simply to revive an all but dead topic.

Sock puppets are the bane of forum administrators. Where the Troll is at least up-front, the Sock Puppet registers many times under different pseudonyms, so they can post entire topics and conversations supporting their own points of view, which appear as apparently different members. There is no reliable way to combat this, despite some people having an unfounded reliance on IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. IP addresses only reveal the ISP used, and not the individual address of the person registering.

Spammers are people who simply try to flood a forum with the same phrase or word, often related to a product they're trying to sell. To avoid this, some forums require administrator-approval for registration, which can reduce, although not always eliminate, SPAM.

Er yes, but deleting posts?

In a forum, the aim is to have an enthusiastic, intelligent discussion venue for those with similar or common interests. This ambition can quickly degenerate if the forum becomes the playground of the disruptive. So two classes of people in a forum police the place. They're known as administrators (admins) and moderators (mods). Admins are all powerful, and can delete or change anything and anyone. Mods have their powers prescribed by admins, and usually help out, rather than take executive decisions.


Here's the big problem.

Every forum depends on the quality of its Admins for its success. The admins ought to be a coherent team of individuals who are - at least - possessed of similar belief, honesty, intelligence and experience if any forum is to work. Admins should also post under a name and not a capricious pseudonym. In fact, members of forums should also be encouraged to post under a true first name (not a surname) as this generally inspires a stronger community sense within the group. Forums fail because the Admin team is either weak, inexperienced, lacking in judgement or dishonest; that latter aspect will ensure a forum's eventual demise.

That's enough for this one -'onest!

Here's another idea...

In the Americas, observation cars such as the one above are a common feature on their more picturesque routes, such as trans-Rocky and Canadian. In this small country of ours, however, we also have extremely picturesque routes and one of those is the track which winds between Llandudno and Blaenau Ffestiniog. Currently, Arriva run a couple of trains at peak times before there's a gap of about three hours between successive runs for the remainder of the day.

Now, folk are paying a fair whack to travel on the old coach which runs around the Orme, and this run is so successful that shortly Arriva will be mounting an open-top bus service on a regular schedule.

People love trains, however; there's something indefinably magic about them , so there may well be a market for a tourist train running between Llandudno and Blaenau, particularly now that the Welsh Highland track has been significantly extended. With a little co-operation and imagination, folk could buy a narrow and main gauge rover ticket, and spend a week exploring the area on normal and narrow gauge trains. A real incentive to visitors would,. however, be the addition of an observation car to the normal Arriva valley line train. This is a great time for investment and imagination; all the indicators are telling us that more people want to spend their money in the UK this year; how about making it worth their while?

Hmmmm...

Last month, a world-wide survey was conducted by the United Nations.

The only question asked was... "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey failed because...:

In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.

In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant.

In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant.

In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.

In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.

In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.

In the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.

The cost of drink....

Today a Llandudno teenager has been sentenced for an attack on a security guard at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. His defence was that he "had a difficult life, sometimes took drugs, and had drunk a large amount of alcohol.

"The last thing he remembers is being on a bench on the promenade," said his solicitor."The next thing he remembers is being in the police cell at St Asaph. He was clearly very drunk and he is appalled by his behaviour,"

Hmmm... I doubt it. In fact, A & E staff at hospitals increasingly find themselves in the front line treating drunks and drug abusers. Perhaps it's time to limit treatment to those who actually want it and are in a reasonable frame of mind....

Here's an idea....

Several factors are starting to come together for Llandudno, at the moment. The state of the economy, which has seen bookings rise significantly in the resort's hotels, the need for employment, which means people with a good idea stand to make money, the lack of parking space in the main town and the desire of visitors to browse shops.

Now, what deters folk from buying lots of stuff when they can't park near the shops? It doesn't take an Einstein to realise that the magical appeal of lugging bags full of goodies around can lose its lustre pretty quickly. M & S realised this some years ago and introduced their now famous 'collect by car' service. But what if that idea could be developed and taken to the next logical stage?

The world's biggest holiday destinations discovered the idea years ago, and it's become a massive success story, boosting revenue in both hotels and shops. So what is it?

If you visit Universal Studios or Disneyworld in Florida, they go one step further. After purchase, they deliver your goods to your hotel free of charge. Now, for this to work, the hotels have to sign up to the idea as do the shops, and there would be a fair amount of logistics to cope with. However, could it be done?

A family of Visitors staying, at say - the George, browse Mostyn St on Monday looking for goodies. They buy a couple of books from WH Smith, Mrs Visitor then sees something nice in Clare's, they all pop into Boots to buy factor 1 sun cream and other bits and pieces before picking up some fascinating stuff from the Gift store. Instead of carrying these around with them, however, each shop bags the goods, then affixes one half of a receipt label to the bag. This label shows the hotel the Visitors are staying in, the room number, and - importantly - the leaving date. The shop then stows the bags somewhere for later collection.

Between 1600 - 1800, a van collects from all those shops signed up to the scheme. It stows the goods and, while driving from point to point, the bags are sorted according to the hotels that have signed up to the scheme. When the collection is complete, the van then repeats the process, but this time delivers to each of the subscribed hotels, who store the sealed bags in their reception areas. Some time later, the Visitors return from their stroll along the prom to find all their goodies awaiting them, in sealed bags, at the hotel. They're refreshed (because they haven't been lugging bags), happy (well, they're on holiday:-) and, best of all, they leave Llandudno with a very positive image.

The two questions, of course are simple: who will start this and who will pay for it? At the outset, this would have to be funded by the shops, since they're the ones that would be getting the most out of the idea. But once visitors realised that by staying at a hotel that sported the 'Hotel delivery' logo, those hotels might start attracting more custom and then could reasonably be expected to contribute. As to who starts the idea...well, this could be the next big thing if there are still any entrepreneurs out there.

Getting your goat

The army will be rounding up goats on the Great Orme this summer - and keeping one of them as a regimental mascot.

This summer, the goats will be corralled and approximately 75% of the nannies will receive a contraceptive injection, which should prevent pregnancy for up to three years. Enquiries are also underway to move a small number of goats to other locations in the UK. If suitable places are identified, it is envisaged some goats could be relocated at the same time as the main round up.

Highlight of this year's work will be the presence of 1st Battalion of The Royal Welsh, who will be helping to round-up the goats in exchange for a new regimental mascot. Billy, the former mascot, has retired and the regiment will pick his replacement during their visit.




They're a wonderful tourist attraction, but lacking natural predators and enjoying the support of the visitors, who summon the RSPCA at the drop of a nanny, the herd has grown to such a size that the Orme can no longer support them during the winter months. If we don't want to see kids dying for lack of nourishment then there are really only two options: enforced contraception or the re-introduction of a natural predator - say, a pack of wolves. That in itself could be very beneficial to the tourist industry, since wolves tend to evoke the sort of gushing sentimentality employed by those who've never lived with them. Schools could even organise days out, to watch the wolves hunt down the bunnies and possibly dismember the odd small dog - all exciting stuff. Maybe a new entry for one of Wales' top ten attractions?

Swings and roundabouts

Gareth Owen, who has worked as a volunteer on Llandudno's Victorian Extravaganza board for seven years and is the current Extravaganza Chairman, slammed Conwy County Borough Council for not supporting the May Bank Holiday event.

The council has cleared litter from the streets following the event, free of charge, for the last 22 years. Mr Owen, who is the longest serving member of the board, stressed the notice had been a "kick in the teeth" for organisers.
He said: "They don't support the event, but they will be ploughing thousands of pounds into the Penmaenmawr Boat Race and other events, and there is only £1,500 budget for the extravaganza and transport festival."
This year last minute sponsors stepped in to help with the £59,000 event. Mr Owen stressed concerns have been raised over the years that the event was swaying away from the Victorian theme, but argued without the additional funds gained by the rides the event could not go ahead.

Andrew Scarett, events co-ordinator for the extravaganza said the news of Mr Owen's resignation was a "sad loss" for the town. He said: "I can see both sides. We are all volunteers and we all work so hard and it is demoralising when things like this happen."

Andrew Scarett is a very long time member of the event, having started to participate 20 years ago, along with his father, a long-time supporter. However, it's not simply Conwy that's at fault. Successive Llandudno councils have also offered little or no support, and have in the past been swayed by insidious comments from bitter Extravaganza exiles, in particular an ex-committee member whose short-sighted and selfish actions precipitated the loss of the event's founder, Margaret Lyon, and, through sheer idleness, nearly allowed the event to founder in the following years.

Gareth Owen has worked flat out for the event, and isn't the first to resign; most only stick it for about five years. But should the event end, what - if anything - will replace it? Perhaps we should be looking for something new....

Looking up and looking out

Hotel booking website Hotels.com has seen a surge in searches for Britain’s seaside resorts.

Most popular destinations are along the English Riviera, with searches for towns such as Torquay and Newquay up more than 160% on this time last year. Traditional British seaside destinations have also become more popular, with searches for Blackpool up 140%, Llandudno up 130% and Brighton up 50%.

This is excellent news for the town, as more folk spending more money mean a nicer town for all of us who live here. Everything is connected in the financial maelstrom currently swirling around the world, and - although we're in a period of negative inflation - council tax will never go down. In fact, we all know it will continue to rise, no matter what the inflation statistics say. But the more businesses that actually pay business rates (charities are exempt) the more money flows into the council's coffers and - hopefully - the less quickly the council tax will rise.

It's fashionable to blame the councillors for everything, from the cleanliness of the streets to the weather but there are actually some whose passion is the quality of Llandudno and the impression it makes on visitors. Without naming names,

• which councillors spend a lot of their time helping local charities in their own time?
  
• Which councillors campaign endlessly for environmental improvements in the town?
  
• Which councillors work hard and selflessly to make Llandudno a better place?
  
• Which councillors have worked together and across party lines entirely in their own time to present major festivals to bring folk into Llandudno?
  

Some of the answers might surprise you...

Charity begins

One thing which has always impressed us is the number of folk who give of their time to volunteer, for no reward. There are 33 listed charities in LLandudno and more than 40 in Colwyn Bay, and that excludes churches. Many of these act as social focuses for people; Rotary, for instance - which holds weekly meetings - has members from professions across the board and a fine reputation for working hard for local charities. The Talking newspaper comprises a band of extremely dedicated individuals who give selflessly of their time to help the blind and partially sighted, a growing number in the area. The hospice is well known, as is the Air ambulance appeal, and the list includes numerous charities dedicated to helping young people. In these recessionary times, charity shops, however, are not always a welcome indicator of the financial health of a town but these shops are also seeing a drop in donations and more haggling at the check-out till. It's another worrying symptom of the recession; when money become tight, the vulnerable are the first to lose.

Kids again....

A husband and wife decided they needed to use "code" to indicate that they wanted to "enjoy relations" without letting their children know, and they decided on the word Typewriter.

One day the husband told his five year old daughter, "Go and tell mummy that daddy needs to type a letter".
The child told her mother what her father had said, and her mother responded, "Tell your daddy that he can't type a letter right now because it's not working properly."
The child dutifully returned to tell her father what mummy said.
A few hours later the mother told her daughter, "Tell daddy that he can type that letter now."
The child told her father, returned to her mother and announced, "Daddy said never mind with the typewriter. He's already written the letter by hand."

Their fate is sealed

According to suggestions in another local blog, collectors for the Extravaganza might have been using open buckets to collect money. In fact this used to be the case in the early days, but was stopped because of the rules which state "No person under the age of sixteen will be permitted to act as a collector. All collection boxes must be sealed and must display the name of the charity or the fund in a prominent position." When it was stopped, it meant that folk couldn't contribute as easily during the parade, when people used to throw a few bob at the bucket. However, difficult as it might have seemed, there's good reason for the rules, since those who contribute need to have safeguards in place to ensure their contributions reach the right place. No system is foolproof, of course, but the public would soon stop giving at all if money were appropriated through a flagrant disregard of the regs. Needless to say, if all boxes were sealed securely and all collectors vetted and identified, then this doesn't apply to the Extravaganza at all and apologies would be in order.

Kids - again!

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT !





1. You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up. 



2. Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.



3.. Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young. 



4. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said 



5. The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own



6. We childproofed our homes, but they're still getting in.

Winning again!

Just last week, 104 resort and rural beaches qualified to fly the coveted blue and yellow Seaside Award flag. The North Shore and West Shore in Llandudno, Rhos On Sea, Old Colwyn, Llanfairfechan and Penmaenmawr were all included in the winning list, which requires beaches to have attained a minimum European Union standard of bathing water quality, and met a long list of strictly monitored land based criteria.

In a year when tourist numbers are expected to be higher than usual, owing to the somewhat miserable economic climate, this is really good news for the town. All we need now is a lot more sand on North shore :-))

Well trained

This weekend saw the Welsh Mountaineer excursion to Blaenau Ffestiniog hauled by two steam locomotives from Llandudno Junction, the first time in ten years that steam has pulled trains along the Cnwy valley.

More than 400 people were on board the train hauled by Stanier Black 5s 45231 and 45407 which were regular visitors to the Blaenau branch before steam was withdrawn by British Rail in 1968. With rail travel on the increase it's long been thought that a special scenic carriage, with plexi-glass roofing could be used on the Llandudno - Blaenau Ffestiniog line which would probably prove immensely popular for visitors. The Conwy valley line runs through some of ther maost spectacular scenery in the UK and investment in that line in tourism terms would certainly seem to make sense.

Kids....

Yesterday, in response to my posting, Trojan wrote:

"You are obviously not a parent of a teenager yourself, it is impossible to keep watch over someone 24/7 what are they supposed to do, chain him up? Neither of us know all the facts yet you come out with all these assumptions, when the parents are probably just a normal loving couple whose son has gone off the rails leaving them at the end of their tether."

Our two boys are now in their twenties, but when they were 13 we knew where they were and what they were doing. Thirteen is barely out of childhood and, whilst I accept the point that teenagers as a class can be very trying, I also suspect there's a reason why this boy has "gone off the rails" to use Trojan's expression. But he's right in that we don't know even a fraction of the facts behind the case. However, there is a trend that 'parents' are increasingly expecting others to look after their children which is - in my view - wrong. It's also interesting that when instances of children running away are investigated, almost inevitably there's more to the case than meets the eye and that usually has to do with flawed parenting. In this case, I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I wonder....

Kids...

The Bolton news reports that a distraught couple, whose 13-year-old son has been missing for almost two weeks, have made an emotional plea for him to return home.

Jack Pearson was last seen in the North Wales holiday resort of Llandudno.

His parents Roy and Maria Pearson, of Lonsdale Grove, Farnworth, fear he may have run away with a group of fairground workers.

Initially, we might feel sorry for this couple, but the mother then revealed that "since March, Jack has been missing for around four weeks in total. But this is by far the longest time he’s been gone. He’s been going to work on different fairgrounds in the North West but in the past has been brought home by police."

This is a thirteen year old, isn't it? Not twenty-three or thirty-three? Maybe I'm alone in this, but shouldn't parents be parents? How can this boy 'go missing'? How can these parents not know where he is when he's thirteen, for goodness sake?

When did we, as a society, start to abdicate our responibility as parents? When did we start to expect schools, social workers, the council - in short, everyone else to do our job for us? Perhaps it's time to start pregnancy licensing. Having a child isn't a right; it's a privilege, a wonderful, demanding, life-long commitment to another human being, enforced by nothing more than love. Maybe that needs to change...

What price friendship?

THE father of a drunken teenager who froze to death said yesterday he’d had justice for his son when a coroner criticised police for refusing to give the 17-year-old a lift home. It transpired that Lee, was drunk, covered in mud, had lost his shoes and was spotted by motorists staggering on the A550 in Flintshire trying to wave traffic down.

Two police officers said they were happy with their decision not to give Lee a lift the two and a quarter miles home from where they found him near a roundabout on January 30, 2004, after having been alerted by Motorists reporting a young man on A550 staggering across the road trying to wave traffic down. Some cars have to swerve to avoid him.

What is probably the most disturbing factor in all this is the final sentence in the timeline report given to the coroner:

"Lee goes out for a drink with friends to the Cross Keys pub, Buckley. He leaves pub but appears to have set off in the wrong direction."

The poice might certainly have been remiss in not assisting in getting him home but where were his friends? Teenagers do get drunk - it happens - but their friends usually look out for them. In this tragic case, it seems, they weren't prepared to take the trouble.

It's a great day

Someone up there must like us. It's 0800 as I write this, and the sun is a brilliant ball of light in a cloudless sky. We must be doing something right...

It's at Extravaganza time that the urge to wax nostalgic becomes almost impossible to resist. Did you know for instance, that this is the 21st year of the event, started by Cllrs. Margaret Lyon and John Boyle, who actually had to put up their own houses against any potential loss made in the first event? It was originally intended to 'kick-start' the season for the town and - to be fair - the first couple of events were quite astonishing. Stilt walkers vied with fire eaters, Ladies' barber shop groups with the amazing Alexander's Victorian roadshow, and the fairground really was Victorian. The event was then taken over by the Llandudno Heritage Trust, an umbrella organisation formed to ensure the Extravaganza's future and to improve the town generally. That organisation did a lot of good, runing the event for six years under the presidency of the stalwart Frank Gorka, but the sheer time involved and the criticism from the bitter and uninvolved eventually ensured that others took the reins. During that time, the rugged, resourceful and relentless Ricketts started the Transport Festival, thus ensuring that the event became even bigger and appealed to a huge cross-section of visitors. Fortunately for Llandudno , there have always been others - others like Gareth, who are prepared to work twenty-five hours a day to ensure it takes place.

Of course, a lot's changed since then, but some of the criticism aimed at the organisers is unjust. Few realise the amount of time that goes into the event, and even fewer what it all costs. Extravaganza planning, for instance, starts roughly fourteen months before the event. There are showmen's guilds they have to negotiate with, coal dealers (the steam engines have to run on something:-) and all those great traction engines don't turn up out of the goodness of their hearts.

And then there's today. Saturday. Ask any member of the committee what day's the worse and it's Saturday. This is the time when the shopkeepers demand that the ride which was assembled overnight is too close to their shop and will lose them trade, so it's got to be moved, no matter that it took eight men six hours to erect. The steam organ is too loud, and it's stopping people coming into the shop. The road's closed two feet too far in the direction of their hamburger stall. And, of course, some of the issues which arise because stall owners, ride operators, performers et. al. have placed their stalls, rides and shows in the wrong place, despite pretty clear maps and instructions that they've been given at the outset. Well, they reason, once I've put me ride a bit nearer the people, they won't be able to move it, will they? Human greed and opportunism are not pleasant, and they appear in spades during the event as everyone and anyone tries to make a fast buck on the backs of the volunteers who mount the event.

Oh yes; they're all volunteers. Folk like you and me, who give of their time because they believe the event is important to Llandudno and that it matters. Perhaps the grasping, the greedy, a lot of the council and the bitter, twisted and selfish should take a break, leave Llandudno for the weekend and let those who come to enjoy the event and gain a great impression of a future holiday destination have a great time.

Good luck, everyone!

Ups and Downs

Up.......

THIS weekend’s Llandudno Extravaganza has returned to its Victorian roots.

Fighting back against accusations that the event was straying from the original theme, a number of 19th and early 20th century style attractions will be featured.

They include the spectacular Professor Voltini’s Electric Show in which the professor appears to put a bolt of electricity through his wife, and the longest traditional helter-skelter slide in the UK.

The usual array of steam and traction engines will be bigger than ever and includes a rare 1907 engine called Little Mac and the Foden agricultural engine Victoria, built in 1899, which is believed to be the oldest Foden vehicle in existence.

“For the last two years our aim has been focused on returning the event to the original Victorian concept and this year’s event promises to be more spectacular than ever,” said committee chairman Gareth Owen.

and Down.......

REVELLERS set to flock to North Wales for a bumper Bank Holiday bonanza have to first endure A55 misery.

Thousands of fun-seekers heading to the Llandudno’s Victorian Extravaganza, The Transport Festival and Colwyn Bay Prom Day are expected to hit major traffic jams on the expressway near St Asaph where the Welsh Assembly are carrying out roadworks.

The single lane closure will halt reams of vehicles coming in and out of Conwy.