And another thing...

Other random things I meant to comment on last week during my enforced blogging absence:

First, I'm finding it interesting that people now seem to be backtracking a bit on Croydon's arena plans.

Labour leader Tony Newman, who has previously been firmly in favour, said in last week's Advertiser that he now had 'some concerns' about its viability.

I'm not quite clear what has changed to put doubts in his mind (apart from Ken Livingstone coming out so strongly against the plans, of course).

I've said from the outset that a 12,500 seat venue is approximately 9,000 seats too many for Croydon and I stand by that.

It's unfortunate for developer Arrowcroft that their push for a Croydon arena has coincided with a spate of articles in the national press singing the praises of the
o2 venue in Greenwich, which seems to be growing in popularity all the time. (Not with me though, it's like watching a gig in a giant teacup.)

Moving on, and we're having all kinds of fun and games on the subs desk at the moment.

Sub-editors, who design the pages and write the headlines, are the backbone of any newspaper and at the moment a) We haven't got quite enough of them and b) They are still learning a completely new computer system.

All told, it's made for some fairly horrific deadline days - and it's to their great credit the Advertiser has been coming out at all.

That said, I was a bit taken about when, four hours into Thursday's deadline day, one sub (who shall remain nameless) suddenly announced he'd picked up the wrong glasses that morning and couldn't see a thing he was doing.

I hadn't noticed any difference in the pages he had produced, and have since been wondering whether that was a good or bad thing.