Hi Matt, thanks for that answer. You have to blame that old rascal Jim for the word “fiddle”. I struggled for ages for the right word and couldn’t find it, even adding the inverted commas didn’t help much ;-)But having just read Jim’s “stir the porridge” challenge I thought I’d go for it and apologise later. Let me say immediately that nobody is suggesting you have fiddled anything but a few of us had separately spotted the odd thing that suggested that the forum/moderator was being influenced or manipulated. - - Oh dear, another word that will “stir the porridge” :-)The Farmer’s Market just happens to be a good example of why the site can seem puzzling. I think the first reference I saw to The Market was a post by Seema Malhotra sometime in late 2004. There were the sort of comments you would expect, “good idea” / “not necessary” etc. and I suppose the whole thing was summed up by Paul Fisher’s post…………“Good luck with trying to arrange one Seema but as Chiswick and Twickenham have one already and i believe Richmond also, it may be difficult to find enough suppliers to service three or four venues. Well done on trying though and i hope you succeed.”People were pleasant enough but I seem to remember that there were only about 20 posts from only about half a dozen people. i.e. there didn’t seem to be a great demand, but instead of the subject dropping away like other threads, it was suddenly the top story on the front page – why? A friend pointed out to me who Seema was and that Seema’s posts were really only on the one subject (there were a couple of exceptions).Despite all the hard work from Jim (and a couple of others) posting excellent photographs, you have to admit that it didn’t really take off. It went quiet for a while, Matt asked what people thought about it again and there were only 15 posts, 10 of those from Jim and the others from local businesses who would benefit from the proximity of The Market (not that they wanted to go themselves.)Anyway, that’s the drift; it looks like a put up job somewhere along the line. Compare all the hard work that Sarah put in re. paving stones but nobody had the decency to tell her that LBH had already decided that they couldn’t afford paving stones anymore and would be changing to the cheaper alternative of Tarmac.To make matters worse, I of course feel that Jim added his post of the scanned newspaper article for my benefit to show me who Matt is. I did see the article and of course it just confuses things even more. Are we talking about…………1. Matt Harmer – Brentford Farmers Market.2. Matt Harmer - Website Moderator3. Matt Harmer – Local Council Candidate4. Matt Harmer – The one in the paper holding the T.V. aerial5. Matt Harmer – In The Chiswick / Guardian etc.Matt Harmer - "Even for people who support other teams or don't like football at all, living next to a football ground gives your area a very special identity."Especially in recent years the supporters and residents around the ground have become very good neighbours and we hope it stays that way for years to come."6. Matt Harmer – Football grounds in general7. Matt Harmer – Lucozade Sign GuardianEtc. etc. etc.I suppose a “Management Summary” of what puzzles me are quotes like this one from The Richmond & Twickenham Times of 7th May 2004.“However, a spokesman for Brentford Community Council said: "The BCC is concerned that St George's latest adjusted plans should not be considered as somehow nearing the end of the consultation process with all points duly addressed, as implied by Hounslow Council's Planning Officer, Frank Jenna. These latest plans may be an improvement, but are they truly the best that can be devised for this exceptional location?"Alan Sheerins, of Green Dragon Lane added: "It is still too bulky and too high."There will be considerable overshadowing of the houses and flats along Kew Bridge Road, and I believe there will still be a traffic management problem with the site and it is still not a suitable landmark building."It gives the impression that Alan Sheerins is just any old ordinary resident of Brentford while the Forum always seems to be having a go at him (whoever he is).I suppose things will get back to normal after the elections and we can get back to trying to keep up with the high standard set by Chiswick :-)
David Johnson ● 7025d