Home Again from the North

I've just got back from a week in Manchester where the weather was fine except for the day I chose to take a drive up into the Peak District. That day it was thick fog, down to 15 mph at times. But a good time all the same.

So lunch time to day I went down to the Harbour for a walk round and a couple of pints and maybe take the odd photo or two. These are a couple of the ones I took. Three men were arrested for driving a car, possibly not theirs, onto the pavement to get some cash out of the ATM at the HSBC. I know parking can be difficult here in Torquay but this is an extreme way to avoid car parking fees.

There is a item in the paper about a call centre that was coming to Torquay and hopefully providing 500 out of work people with a job. Seems the place they wanted isn't big enough but they can't have their call centre in a bigger building because there isn't planning permission in place. With 500 hundred jobs at stake you would think the Mayor would drive round to all the homes of the councillors on the planning permission committee, take them to the Town Hall and say," You aren't leaving here until planning permission is granted for the call centre. You've got 20 mins before the shotgun comes out and blood will be shed."

But this is Torbay so there might actually be a meeting some time next summer to set up a working party to discover if Torbay does in fact have a planning permission committee. Usually people who apply for planning permission give up and go somewhere else or die of extreme old age or boredom.

And in Complete Contrast and an example to our beloved but apparently inapt council. An other item in the same paper is about Elliot Massey a

Torbay Boys' Grammar pupil. Elliot, helped by a group of friends, run a website TorbayBusRoutes which has around 35,000 visitors a month. It has timetables and information on all six local bus companies.

He has also been concentrating on developing MyStop, his revolutionary new computer/phone app to help local bus users. The simple mobile-friendly MyStop service allows users to check on the next bus from their mobile phone and all departures by logging on and selecting where they are. All this from a young man who collapsed on the Strand a few months ago and spent over a week in intensive care where he was diagnosed with heart-stopping ventricular fibrillation. That's something most people don't know they've got until it kills them. He now has a defibrillator implant to stop another cardiac arrest and takes beta blockers. None of this stops him though and I for one am waiting to see what turns up next.

Click here for the MyStop web site.

　

and here for Torbay Bus Routes

sorry I got the link wrong last time round and thanks to Simon for mentioning it.