Bristol | Steve Woods

Made redundant? No, I was ‘catalyzed’

13/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics, Social Media

For decades, managers have been trying to come up with anodyne terms for dismissing people and making them redundant.

Some of the more common ones are: give someone their notice, get rid of, discharge, terminate; lay off; sack, give someone the sack, fire, boot out, give someone the boot, give someone their marching orders, show someone the door, can, pink-slip; cashier.

Following this trend, bosses at Bristol City Council have now come up with another, ‘to catalyze’, as evidenced by a mole down the Counts Louse (since renamed ‘City Hall’ by Mayor Red Trousers (posts passim). Ed.) who tweeted the following yesterday.

I’m sure all employees of the council are reassured that the management has their best interests at heart by not wanting to hurt their feelings as they’re unceremoniously handed their P45s and shown the door.
Bristol Post Balls – the featured image

13/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

As any journalist knows, an appropriate picture can add interest to what would otherwise be a dull story. However, what a quay full of cars has to do with a report on school expansion in Portishead, only the Bristol Post knows.

Evidently, the above image is so good, the Post decided to use it a second time for a completely unrelated report into Frenchay Hospital.

Both screenshots were taken from the Bristol Post website at about 7.00 a.m. on Friday. However, the ‘featured image’ might have changed by the time you read the articles. 🙂
Felix Road petition collects 3,500 signatures

10/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

I’ve received an email from my local councillor Margaret Hickman informing me that the petition to save Felix Road Adventure Playground from closure (posts passim) collected 3,500 signatures.

This means its future will now have to be debated in full council by Bristol City Council.

Well done to all who signed!

Update 13/09/13: The final total number of signatures for the petition was 3,660, as reported by Bristol 24/7.
Bristol Post Balls – is the paper now written by greengrocer’s?

07/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

The greengrocers’ – or superfluous – apostrophe has a special place if one’s selling bananas (shouldn’t that be banana’s? Ed.), but it looks sadly out of place in Bristol’s newspaper of record, which is what happened yesterday in this heartening story from the St George area of the city.

The offending punctuation even had the temerity to turn up in the item’s opening sentence, as follows:

Crofts End Church in St George has just opened the doors to it’s newly refurbished internet suite.

No doubt the bosses at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth believe the downward spiral in quality is a small price to pay for what they’re saving by not employing sub-editors.
Free commuter coaches with free wifi from N. Somerset

05/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Tech

Today’s Bristol Post reports North Somerset commuters travelling to Bristol during November and December will be able to travel to work for free under a scheme set up by North Somerset Council and coach operator The Kings Ferry Ltd.

The service will link Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon and Portishead with major employment areas around Bristol, including Aztec West, Rolls Royce, Royal Mail and Airbus. Two routes will be operated: one starting in Weston and picking up in Clevedon and the other starting in Portishead.

The coaches to be used will be equipped with luxury seats, air conditioning, power sockets, drinks machines, toilets and free wifi.

This new commuter coach service will be free throughout November and December for everyone who registers at www.bristolcommute.com by the end of October.

Reposted from Bristol Wireless.
Save Felix Road Adventure Playground – the final push

05/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

This blog has featured the campaign to save Felix Road Adventure Playground from closure before (posts passim).

Felix Rd Adventure Playground

The email below has now been received from local councillor Margaret Hickman and requires no further explanation.

Dear All,

The community around Felix Road Adventure Playground would be so grateful if you could complete the on-line petition which is below. What we are trying to do is collect 3.5k signatures to trigger a debate in the council chamber. We want to ensure that a long term sustainable solution is found for all the adventure playgrounds in the city.

Can you please sign the petition now on-line and forward this email to all your Bristol contacts.

Thank you so much.

Best wishes. Marg

Here is the link to the e-petition to save Felix Road: http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk/epetition_core/community/petition/2326

As the adventure playground has been a valuable local facility for decades, I’ve signed the petition already; have you?
Bristol Post Balls – headline news

02/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

This blog has before drawn attention to the difficulty of devising an apposite newspaper headline (posts passim).

No such troubles beset the Bristol Post as shown by the following headlines from today’s News section of the online version.

Read all about it! Click on image for the full-sized version.

One question remains: one’s written in English, but in what language are the other two written?

Just minutes after I’d tweeted the existence of this post, the headlines to the reports were changed, such is the power of blogging (and such is the care and attention the Bristol Post lavishes on its online version. Ed.). 🙂

Update 07/09/13: I’ve since been informed as follows by the Post’s Vicki Mathias regarding what occurred:

I think it might be subeditors’ code for I’ll put a headline in here later- uploaded automatically by mistake due to technical quirk.
Bristol Post Balls – verb conjugation

31/08/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

The Bristol Post website carries an initial report today of a fire last night at Ashton Court, a 17th century mansion house in north Somerset owned by Bristol City Council.

Allegedly penned by someone called DanielEvans1, the third paragraph of the piece reads as follows:

A total of six Avon Fire and Rescue pumps and an aerial appliance were need to extinguish the fire in the early hours.

An inability to conjugate the verb ‘to need’ correctly is evidently no barrier to employment as a journalist at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth. 😉
A message to thieves

30/08/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities

I’ve seen this fruit van a few times on Cumberland Road in recent weeks. At the foot of the offside door is a message to the light-fingered with a penchant for bananas.

Can other primates and other assorted fruit fans read?

Only in Bristol… 🙂
The art of the newspaper headline

27/08/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

When I volunteered many years ago on producing Planet Easton – a community newspaper for my part of Bristol – one of the hardest tasks for the editorial team was devising headlines for articles.

However, one unnamed employee at The Argus in Brighton deserves a special mention for the example below, a fine example of the use of alliteration and homophones.

Beat that, Bristol Post! 🙂

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