In-fighting

My favourite message on the website yesterday was posted in response to a complaint about the level of in-fighting amongst readers from different parts of the borough.

It read simply: "Why don't people use the comments space to write something more constructive rather than argue amongst themselves?" Because we are the Jeremy Kyle generation."

They were spot on as well. Last week I was talking about how I was pleasantly surprised by the contributions we were receiving, but this week it's all gone a bit school playground.

Much as we like to keep the messageboard unmoderated, I fear we'll have to start banning people if they can't play nicely.

My second favourite message came from somebody who advocated putting our teenage yobs in stocks outside East Croydon station and throwing vegetables at them, but since crime in the borough is apparently all a figment of my imagination there's clearly no need for such drastic measures.

On that note, I've just spotted a letter in this week's paper from council leader Mike Fisher having a joint pop at the Advertiser and Labour leader Tony Newman over last week's story about Allders.

It's a cheap shot to be honest - it's a bit rich to blame the media for fear of crime in Croydon whilst using the same topic to score political points at the same time.

Moving on, it's been a busy week and should be a very strong paper.

We had a Carry On-style misunderstanding between reporter Aline Nassif and the picture desk about a court case involving a prominent pianist, but apart from that it's looking good.