Moving

It seems I've moved again - from now on, you can find me here.

Back

Well I almost managed to go a fortnight without thinking about Croydon before blowing it right at the last minute.

Flicking through a dog-eared copy of the Sunday People in a Spanish airport in the early hours of this morning I came across a spread headlined 'The town where even the police get beaten up' and suddenly I was right back in Advertiser House. You can read it for yourself here.

It was quite interesting coming to this type of story completely fresh, and I have to say it didn't make Croydon sound like the kind of place I'd like to go shopping, and I shudder to think how these continual incidents will impact on the local economy.

(Incidentally, some of you may recognise the name of the report's author. Josh Layton worked at the Advertiser where he was named Press Gazette reporter of the year after a series of gang-related articles.)

That aside, I'm not really back into the swing of things yet, and haven't finished wading through my email backlog which I suspect will take me the rest of the afternoon.

Schools

The news that Edenham High head Jacey Downes has been suspended took me by surprise.

I don't know her personally, but the newsdesk have always been impressed with the way she would come out fighting whenever her school was in the headlines for the wrong reasons rather than hiding behind a 'no comment'.

Ironically, it's a 'lack of communication' that's been cited as one of the reasons for the school governors' move, so make of that what you will.

I guess I should point out that the governing body insists Mrs Downes has not been suspended, but that her absence is the result of an 'arrangement'.

I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean, but what is indisuputable is Mrs Downes' deputy is currently running the show.

As well as the Edenham story, we're continuing to give extensive coverage to the ongoing schools review.

The Advertiser's stance on the overhaul hasn't changed since the start. Some of our schools clearly need a lot of attention, and you can't fix things by tinkering around the edges so brave decisions are needed.

Whether the detail of the proposals is correct isn't for us to say - that's an issue for parents, councillors and education experts to debate. Our role is simply to provide a forum for all points of view.

This week the attention seems to have shifted from the detail of the proposals to the non-appearance of Maria Gatland and Mike Fisher at recent public meetings.

It's a tricky call - if they do turn up, the meetings could easily descend into a slanging match and do more harm than good.

On the other hand, if you are in a position of responsibility you have to be prepared to front these things out sometimes - I have to go to the occasional council and police meetings in the full knowledge I'm just going to be moaned at for an hour. You take it on the chin and carry on.

Elsewhere in this week's paper, I think Aline has done a fantastic job interviewing teenage killer Adam Eastmond.

Eastmond stabbed Gavin Brown to death at the age of just 15, and is back on the streets just 16 months after being jailed for manslaughter.

I finished reading the article with mixed feelings. It will never seem right that you can take somebody's life and then walk free in less than two years.

But if you want to know why teenagers are carrying knives, this is about as clear an insight as you are going to get - even though it doesn't paint a very optimistic picture for the future.

Finally, this may well be my last blog entry for a couple of weeks as I'm going somewhere where the default weather setting isn't grey and drizzly. By the time I come back our website will look completely different and we'll hopefully have recruited a couple of new reporters.

In the meantime, news editor Jo Wadsworth has started her own blog - you can read it here.

Pigeons and poetry

Many thanks to the reader who reminded me that Mr Mappin (see below) is the same man who set up a series of 'good news only' papers a while ago.

I don't think they're still going, but you can read about them here.

Many thanks to the other reader who made an equally valid comment on the same topic, although I hope you understand why I've decided it's probably best not to publish it for now.

Right, back to Croydon and our reporter Aline Nassif poetically claimed that 'stories were falling on her like pigeon droppings' this week.

She's right as well.

One story in particular, which is currently causing a few legal shenanigans, will make a very striking front page, even if some people are trying to block its publication.

It's shaping up to be another strong paper all round, with another two or three stories easily strong enough to be the front page lead in any other week.

Oh, and work continues apace on the new Croydon site - I think I'll post the temporary address later this week so you can have a sneak preview.

Diseases

For some time now I've had the misfortune to be on the mailing list of a gentleman called John Mappin, who owns a hotel and restaurant called Camelot Castle in Cornwall.

I'm not really sure what he's all about, although I think there's a Scientology link somewhere along the line.

His castle isn't just a castle, apparently - it's also a 'luck machine' and he's written a frankly mind-boggling 'Magic Poem' on his website to prove the point. You can see it here if you really have nothing better to do.

Anyhow, I normally delete his unwanted emails with a quick tut and shake of the head, but his latest offering - which he kindly sent me many copies of - caught my eye because it claims newspapers can give you cancer.

Over to Mr Mappin to explain further:

"It is not provable yet, but there is considerable evidence that there is a direct link between over exposure to the negative news in the media and the precipitation of illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis and many more common psychosomatic illnesses that today cause a considerable burden on individuals lives and society."

Well that's just great. It's one thing when I get the usual old comments about how we increase fear of crime, but it's quite another to be accused of spreading terminal diseases.

Truth be told I'm not sure why I'm giving him the publicity apart from the need to take a break for building our new website, which is certainly responsible for giving me a banging headache.

Admin

I'm spending way too much time this week doing some of the donkey work involved in setting up our new website.

There's no two ways about it - it's really, really boring. However, the alternatve would be to launch without any content on the site which isn't ideal.

I've been reassured by the news one of our reporters has already pulled in a sensational-sounding story for this week's paper, so I'll be keeping my head down for now.

I should write something about the teenage murder in Thornton Heath, but what can I really say?

It's a thoroughly depressing sign of the times. It's not just a problem for Croydon, it's a problem across the whole of London and it only seems to be getting worse.

The stabbing missed our print deadline, meaning we've had a very busy morning online instead.

I'm going to take a break from that now though to start wading through the CVs as we look for Lizzie Smith's replacement.

A couple of them are going straight in the bin. One is addressed 'to whom it may concern', which is just lazy, whilst another one manages to spell Croydon two different ways - both wrong - in two paragraphs. Aside from that though, it's a good field to choose from.

Bill bother

Hot on the heels of the complaint about my baseball posting, I've had an email from another unhappy reader.

The lady in question isn't complaining about the Advertiser itself, but about the news bills we put out every week - in particular the one last week that stated 'Mum gang raped.'

She feels this was overly-lurid and the Advertiser is now 'as bad as the South London Press'. (I'll take most criticism on the chin, but that's a particularly low blow!)

For once, I'm not really sure how to respond to this one.

Yes, it was quite a hard-hitting bill but they are designed to grab people's attention, and it's pretty difficult to describe a gang rape as anything but that.

This week's Croydon front page is also pretty hard-hitting. The Sian Simpson murder trial was looking like the obvious splash this time yesterday, but something even more attention-grabbing came in. (Oh, and advance warning to the council's press office that they seem to be getting a particularly hard time this week.)

Finally, and still on the subject of front pages, I've just been flicking through the splashes on other titles in our group and one of them has the marvellous headline 'Pet fish in fight for life.' I'm off to read that now.

Baseball pt 2

I've been taken to task by a reader for daring to suggest yesterday that baseball is something of a minority interest in the UK.

In an email to our sports editor, he succinctly states: "I think your editor ought to realise there are a few hundred players and families of players of Croydon who are also readers. Positive copy sells local papers not negative."

Fair comment, although in my defence I'd say that I still think I'm right.

I'm not completely ignorant when it comes to baseball having once sat through an Oakland A's game, even if most of the spectators seemed more interested in how many giant pretzels they could fit into their mouths than anything happening on the pitch/field/grid.

Anyway, I think I'll leave that well alone from now on.

Something else I'm leaving well alone is the newsdesk, which appears to be nearing boiling point right now.

A series of big stories are breaking at precisely that point in the week when the subs begin bombarding them with queries about dates of flower shows and the like. It's looking like a strong paper this week though - more tomorrow.

Freaky

Here's a picture of sports editor Hassan playing baseball.

I'm not particularly interested in the sport itself - nor are most other people on this side of the pond as far as I can tell - but I am interested in what on earth's happened to his right arm in this picture. Yuck.

Church

Our story about the church leaders being taken to court to force them to stop using their headquarters as a place of worship has sparked a big response.

Like any journalist, I spent the early part of my career sitting through boring council meeting after boring council meeting, and as a result I'm well aware planning law can be a complex issue.

Some perfectly innocuous-looking applications can be turned down not because of the impact the plans themselves would have, but because of the dangers of setting a precedent if you approve a building's change of use.

That said, seeing the Emmanuel Inspiration Church of God dragged through the courts leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, and you have to think this is a case where a little more common sense could have been applied.

Croydon clearly has a growing problem with gang culture and knife crime and, regardless of religious beliefs, this church can only be having a positive impact in the community.

To be fair, the council holds its hands up when it gets things wrong.

The recent story about the pensioners being warned they face prosecution over their plastic flowers is a case in point, and I believe the decision to pursue this latest legal action is another.