Out of office five months?
IN the event the Guildhall ever offers IT training to councillors, perhaps they could start by contacting Mick Ford, the Tories’ man in Delapre and Briar Hill. We emailed him the other day and received an out of office email bounce back stating. “I am currently unavailable. I will be back on 26th September. If your matter is urgent please contact Councillor Brendan Glynane or Geraldine Davies” (Lib Dem and Labour respectively). Mick’s out of office appears to have been like this for months now until just the other day when, finally, Aufona sent him a blank message and received nothing back. Do you suppose his constituents have given up the ghost trying to contact him?
PS: Anyone heard the one about the current councillor who is allegedly too busy to speak to constituents and has been advising them to contact the previous incumbent in the role? We have.
INTERESTING to see that, in the week when The Mack watched a webcast with Cobblers chief David Cardoza, a job has come up at the Guildhall for a new director of regeneration, enterprise and planning. This is, of course, the job occupied by David Bailey, who is skipping off to early retirement. We couldn’t possibly comment on how The Mack and Bails got on during their brief working relationship, but Bails is hailed in some quarters as the man who has been the major player in the Sixfields expansion story that has dragged on for the past six years or more.
Would-be applicants (get your CV in before February 10) can draw inspiration from the covering letter from Chief Dave. And whoever does come through in the end to Team Northampton will be richly rewarded for their efforts. The salary is £108,000 a year.
LAST week we regaled you with news of a Labour Club trip to Ireland back in the late 1980s. Well, veteran party supporter Geoff Howes rang us to point out a couple of small inaccuracies. The Volvo bus (owned by a chap named Bill) didn’t get stuck under a bridge, but actually had to have its tyres deflated to get on to the ferry in Holyhead in the first place. Once that little obstacle was surmounted they moved on to the capital, Dublin, staying at the Palace Hotel. In passing, Geoff mentioned some other good jollies around that time, including one to the Belgian city of Oostende. We’d be happy to take any grainy memories from that particular jaunt through Belgium’s prolific beer offering, if you have them . . .
QUAINTEST image of the week was this picture tweeted by the colourful “MEP-still-in-waiting” Rupert Matthews. The historian and chronicler of all things related to ghosts and UFOs is, as we know, still hoping to be the next Euro MP for Northamptonshire. But he took time out from his hectic schedule to post this picture from, er, Kent, of a “Nice Teashop in Herne Hill”. Whether Roger Helmer would have approved of that Belgian bun slipping into view on the right is another thing...
AUFONA got rapped over the knuckles by @louise mensch this week for a tweet alluding to her turning her derriere on the Rear of the Year contest (#notinterested. #feminism). But at least we were a bit nicer on her than blogger Guido Fawkes, who mercilessly lampooned her for her appearance on Wednesday’s Newsnight during a debate on feminism, sold by GF as “Twitter’s Next Top Model”. @louise’s least favourite paper, the Daily Mail then laid into her yesterday for being the chief culprit in the shrieking that goes on in the Commons during PMQs. Or as their sketch-writer Quentin Letts put it, “a sound shrieky enough to curdle a mobile blood bank”. #Harsh.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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