Saturday 6 June 2009

The Accused

This is a true event when I was wrongly accused, I have fictionalised it and changed the names of the ‘prosecution’.





I crept cautiously up to the head teacher’s office. My knuckles trembling as I knocked on the door.

“Come in!” boomed a vehement voice. I knew who it was, I couldn’t be mistaken; it was the head teacher.

“I have had a complaint about you being nasty to Jane, is this true?”
She always asks you this to make you feel guilty. At this point there were butterflies in my stomach. My palms grew sweaty and my heart beating rapidly.

“I haven’t done anything,” I managed to croak, chicken-heartedly.
Jane smirked at me and I tried not to react but really inside I was overwhelmed by anger and despair.

“You haven’t done anything?” cried the head teacher rhetorically. “If you do anything else I’ll have to speak to your parents.”

And with that she ordered us out of her office.

Swimming Proposals

As part of Bradford’s regeneration programme the council are planning to build a super-sized, mega pool in Bradford’s city centre. But residents think it isn’t a very good idea.

They don’t like the idea because Andy Burnham announced that free admissions will be made available to everybody by 2012, it will be packed and crowded. However, people have been quoted on the regeneration programme and are disgusted by the idea: “ill considered, short-sighted, and damaging” remarked Gerry Sutcliffe after hearing about four other pools being closed down just to make one big one. Another big problem is how will people reach the city centre pool? Apparently the Telegraph and Argos have launched a campaign to “sink” these proposals entitled “save our swimming.”

But consultants argue “there has to be competition standards in order for swimmers to compete in the Olympics.” They point out that Bradford’s regeneration must include an improvement in Cultural and leisure facilities. It will also attract more people to come and live in Bradford, visit and shop in the city centre as well as increasing participation in competitive sports.

I emailed Duncan Thorne a media relation officer regarding this. However, it has been a few days and I haven’t yet received a reply.