Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

The shortest blog since records were kept as Christmas is cancelled

Well now, here we are in Brave New 2021, duly hung, drawn and transitioned. And at the same time it seems we are in by some distance the direst straits we have ever been vis a vis COVID 19. I have no idea how this will play out but I’ll be making the best of it. I cannot in all honesty say that the performance of our beloved and esteemed government fill me with confidence, but I think as a people we’re resilient and we’ll find a way through despite their mendacity and incompetence, but it would have been so much better if they weren’t so utterly clueless.

There has been little enough going on in council activities and the focus has obviously been on the pandemic. We have had some very informative updates from public health and enforcement colleagues. The health situation is really frightening and its more urgent than ever that we avoid getting infected by obeying the rules at all times.

Both the police and council enforcement colleagues have been fairly gentle hitherto, advising and cajoling rather than arresting, fining and closing premises. This is likely to change, so don’t risk it. For clarity, the police are the ones with powers to enforce against individuals. The council’s powers are about premises.

Please, please, people – take this seriously. With luck we’ll be past the worst of this by the spring and it would be nice if most of us were here to celebrate it.

So what have I been up to? I consult my diary and find that Christmas was cancelled, as was my planned short break to Lovely Lancashire. So like most people I suppose, Christmas was largely spent at home watching screens, some with real humans on them (Zoom and Teams and Skype) and some with football and box sets (I am gradually going through all 8 seasons of Spiral, interspersed with a bit of light Montalbano) and Sounds of the Seventies and other food for the atrophying brain.

I have also hatched one or two cunning plans, too early to talk about.

My main council activity over the festive period has been around bins. The way the holidays fell this year led us to decide to bring forward some collections by a day or two rather than putting them all back, because that would have meant services being disrupted well into January. However, for whatever reason, the earlier collection message did not get through to everyone and we had a lot of complaints about missed collections. The recycling and waste crews, who have performed quite heroically throughout the pandemic, put on extra shifts to try and deal with the problems and they seem to have succeeded if my mailbox is anything to go by.

So this is going to be the shortest blog since records were kept.

I was intrigued by this object down by the Thames in Dukes Meadows.

So I went round to the other side to see what it was

It seems that it warns river users that rowing boats will apparently be crossing the golf course in the middle of Dukes Meadows. I hope the rowers are wearing helmets as being hit on the head by a golf ball can be painful.

One misty morning I was returning from Richmond via the tow path and came upon this rather spooky image of our town

If I didn’t know better, I might think that the War of The Worlds had started and Megadaleks were descending on our peaceful town. But perhaps I’m going bonkers, as the denizens of OneChiswick aver. Hi OneChiswick. Hope you enjoy reading my ‘drivel’ and ‘moronic musings’.

Cllr Guy Lambert

January 7, 2021