Paul Crossley

This year both the Fringe and the International festival opened on the same night. The International with a big Party in the City with lots of free venues showcasing local singers and groups and large number of people strolling round. Lots of new venues this year including the Friends Meeting House with Walcot State Choir and Singing in the Round. As ever the Natural Theatre company were involved with several of their ideas walking around. The picture shows the youth section engaged in a really spooky peice of performance art. All grey and all quiet and walking slowly round in a world of their own. The festival was a real showcase for all the local singing and theatricle talent we have in Bath

The Fringe launched with the best Spiegel tent we have had to date. Starting with a Ska band and ending with DJ Derek from Bristol who is the best local reggae dj round here. The tent was buzzing. Thr Fringe year in year out provides great value with the programme it puts on including a free children's festival. This year we have lost two major grants though so the next few months will be difficult. The new Conservative Council wants us to re-structure before continuing with its grant.

Well done to Gitte Dawson and her team for bringing an exciting explosion of public art to Bath over the summer months. Taking an idea from Germany (I think) of cows, Gitte has got nearly 100 sponsors to buy pigs which are then decorated by artists or schools and the displayed in the streets of Bath and elsewhere over the summer months. Already several have escaped from the studios onto the streets and are being greatly enjoyed. A pig trail will follow shortly. My teams pig will be going public by the end of the month. The reason for choosing the pig is because the legend has it that Bath was founded on the site where King Bladud discovered his pigs bathing in the mud which healed their skin and his leprosy. More detail at this link.

Residents and tourists alike are having fun being photographed on them, by them, around them or indeed under them.

Cllr David Bellotti, Gitte Dawson, King Bladud with Bladud's pig at the main pool in the Roman Baths.

Zimbabwe - check out the Sokwanele link on the right. Apparently the Chinese arms shipment has been unloaded somewhere and has reached Zimbabwe. The people do not need guns and bullets aimed at them by the forces of oppression. They need freedom, fairness and above all justice. Morgan has agreed to go back and contest the elections. Good Luck Morgan - the hopes and prayers of many people round the world are with you and the citizens of Zimbabwe. I hope the world will ensure that the government backed violence and intimidation is controlled and that the election happens. The world has badly let down the people of Zimbabwe over these last weeks after the MDC were clearly robbed of victory.

Burma - the outrage of injustice against people continues. Why has the UN not lead the world against this junta. Even now all this time after the cyclone it is still softly softly with this bunch of remote and uncaring generals.

In contrast China has opened up to the world in its hour of need and the world can help save people and support them in hours of desparate need. 

Portsmouth 1 Cardiff 0

Once a Pompey Fan always a Pompey fan. I stood at Fratton Park during the 60s and 70s and have been back several times since. It was great to see the fans of clubs outside the usual suspects contesting the final. It was great to see a team outside the top four win it for a change. A good day for football in England and a great day for Pompey.

At the Cabinet meeting today the Conservative Cabinet have decided to continue with a massive secondary reorganisation across Bath and Keynsham. They believe thay have a Government assurance for a substantial amount of Building Schools for the Future money earmarked for B&NES and that this will be delivered early. I think this is a risky assumption to make. In Keynsham the issue is providing one secondary for the town and thus closing one down. In Bath it is about changing single-sex schools to co-ed and merging the two North Bath secondary schools. It is this second aspect that is very controversial as the Oldfield Girls school is currently an outstanding school.

The next stage is a full consultation with the community, schools, pupils, parents and staff. At the Cabinet I asked that this consultation should be real and that the cabinet should listen carefully. The main problem is that many people think the Cabinet have already made their mind up and that Oldfield and St Marks will be merged and rebuilt on the Oldfield site despite their assurance that the site or the outcome are not yet decided. Very few residents think that the proposed option for a new site at the top of Lansdown is feasible. Starting a consultation with this level of syniscm is not good.

One of the problems we have to address is the large number of out-of-authority pupils who choose our excellant schools. Whilst the schooling costs follow pupils the capital costs under BSF do not. So in Bristol the BSF programme has built brand new schools which are still failing to attract pupils to them.

Met with the Transport for Greater Bristol Group (tfgb) who are meeting with political groups across the former Avon Area to build support for a Transport Authority for our area. There are many good reasons to go down this route. My main concern centres around the democratic accountability of such an organisation. I am completely against quangos controlling public money. The tfbg assured us that they want a democratically accountable authority as well. Their manifesto can be read at this link.

One of the components of their plans is to use ultra light rail solutions. These look to be really exciting and innovative solutions to public transport and well worth pursuing further. The main benefit is that they can be put easily onto existing road systems. Currently our Conservative Cabinet is investigating using a section of disused rail to put in a bus based Rapid Transit System which is meeting with a lot of unpopularity locally.

I think a large part of the solution is in changing attitudes. We need more people cycling and walking and living closer to their work.

The Conservative Group have taken control of the Cabinet system for a second year supported again by the 3 Independents.

They have also taken the chairs of all regulatory committees and some of the O&S panels. We argued that O&S should be chaired by non-administration parties. Unfortuneately Labour would not suport us on this change.

Have just got back from 8 days in the Netherlands - 4 days in Amsterdam and 4 days in Breda for the Jazz Festival. Whilst in Amsterdam we witnessed the biggest street party in the country - the annual celebration of the Queen's Birthday. It was great fun.  Also visited the Anne Frank Huis  - which clearly showed and brought to life why Facists must never be allowed to seize power again anywhere.

For my holliday reading I took along 'Letters from Burma' by Aung San Suu Kyi. She is surely one of the greatest people of our time. The letters were written in 1995/96 after her release from house arrest and before her re-detention. The book has many fine quotes but I thought this one good in view of events in Zimbabwe as well as Burma.

'Only a government that tolerates opinions and attitudes different from its own will be able to create an environment where peoples of diverse traditions and aspirations can breathe freely in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and trust.'

The supression of the people by the military regime in Burma comes through loud and clear in the dignified writing from Dr Suu Kyi. The military clearly has no connection with its people and then as we arrived back home the government there has finally admitted to the full scale of the horror in Burma following the recent cyclone.

Please check out todays entry on Sokwanele (see link in side panel) as it contains a very informative if distressing video of events inside Zimbabwe at this time. 

One of the great things about the Netherlands is the amount of trips that are made by bicycle by people of all ages. It means the air in the towns is cleaner, people are healthier, the roads are safer and traffic flows more freely. The picture shows a multi story bike park next to Amsterdam central station. It would be great if we could get cycle use in this country anywhere near the Dutch levels.