Radlett Wire

Daniel Renak from the Joely Bear Appeal at Fair Field school

Fair Field Junior School on Watford Road was buzzing today. Daniel Renak, one of the organisers of the Joely Bear Appeal‘s regular blood donor sessions, was expecting 150 people to come through the school to give blood during the session. There was a bouncy castle for donors’ children and the kitchen was turned over to catering for donors while they wait (and for the vital post-donation biscuit). I spoke to Daniel about the history of the appeal and plans for the fiftieth donor session, to be held in Borehamwood in the Summer.

The Joely Bear Appeal is on the web and on Facebook. There are more pictures from the session on Flickr.

This, by the way, is the first entry in the new Radlett Wire podcast. While we wait for the podcast to show up in the iTunes directory, you can subscribe directly using this feed or just play the audio here:

Download the MP3.

A new convenience store on Watling Street

We’ve been dropping into the new shop in the Oakway parade on Watling Street since before Christmas so this is a belated welcome to owner Ali Sumbul (pictured) and his family who run the shop. Staff are terrifically friendly and have the entirely charming habit of noting down the things you’re after that they don’t have in stock so that they can get them in for your next visit.

Retail is pretty brutal at the best of times but whenever a new shop opens in this grim climate I find myself crossing my fingers. Ali’s chosen an unpromising stretch of Watling Street which has seen more than its fair share of closures but his shop is open all hours and serves the Northern end of the village that’s a good walk from Tesco and Budgen so he stands a chance of making a success of it. I do hope so!

More of my Radlett pictures on Flickr.

Radlett’s number one illustrator

I ran into Paul Ellis, Radlett resident and genius illustrator, outside Tesco yesterday. He told me he’s got a new web site. Paul’s a modest man but clearly immensely accomplished in practically any medium – from the most delicate pen and ink drawing up to a thirty foot wall-filling mural (nip out onto the smokers’ terrace at the back of The Railway on Watling Street for a quite mind-blowing example of the latter). His portfolio confirms this. He helped me with some beautiful comic book-style illustrations for a booklet we produced at Fair Field Junior School a year or so back and I’ve seen his work sell as quickly as he can hang it at the annual Radlett Art Society exhibition.

From his web site, I also learn that he’s illustrated a number of album covers, including one for the legendary Nick Drake.

The picture shows Paul at a fireworks display ages ago.

World-beating shelter up at the Rec

It wasn’t long ago that Radlett’s policy on kids hanging around up at the Phillimore Rec was to hire a security firm to move them on (a parish council leaflet boasted of the success of this policy) but that all changed last Summer when Hertsmere erected a clever shelter at the edge of the playing field. It’s a warm-toned wooden affair that acknowledges the need for teens (and pensioners, for that matter) to just hang out.

It’s not meant to provide real shelter from the elements but it’s got some seating and it’d probably protect you from a shower. It’s an intriguing enhancement to the park. Annick Collins is a partner in the small firm of architects that designed the shelter, Superblue. She emailed me to tell me that the Radlett shelter has been included in a ‘top ten’ list by architecture blog Architizer – alongside some quite awesome structures from all over the world. Since it’s reasonable to assume Hertsmere won’t be building anything like it for the foreseeable future, I think we should make the best of our one world-beating structure.

A guarded welcome for the Radlett crime map

Pity the poor residents of Craig Mount – a not-particularly-long cul-de-sac in the South East corner of Radlett – victims (or at least witnesses), according to the new government crime map of the area, of 5 crimes in December alone. In that period, the data suggests, Craig Mount was the scene of one robbery, one vehicle crime, one violent crime and two ‘other’ crimes. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Craig Mount is Radlett’s crime hotspot, although it does seem unlikely (and there isn’t even a pub there). The doubts expressed in the 36 hours since the data went public suggest we might be seeing some ‘bunching’ of crimes for the sake of convenience or that some of these crimes may not have been crimes at all. Certainly it’s impossible to tell if any of them resulted in convictions – that data’s not here.

We are, of course, big fans of linked data from public sources but this particular release looks like it may have been bodged. Will Perrin – localism champion – on his King’s Cross blog highlights weaknesses with the data, including mapping inaccuracies that misplace crimes (he wonders why this government project isn’t using the excellent Ordnance Survey maps, recently opened up for purposes like this). More damning perhaps is the verdict of the database hackers and developers consulted in The Guardian. These are the people who’ve been pressing for the release of public data like this in usable forms and building applications on top of it. One of them points out that historic comparisons won’t be possible with the new release because only one month’s data will be available at any one time.

Adrian Short, one of the developers quoted, goes further and calls the exercise “pseudo-transparency”, and says that the site is “worse than useless”. Most of the big releases of public data we’ve seen from the data.gov.uk initiative have been received with at least qualified enthusiasm so it’s unsettling that this important block of data has been rubbished by the data jockeys.

So we’ll welcome the crime map but reserve judgement on its value at least until we’ve been convinced that it’s more than a political exercise – a settling of scores with intransigent police forces and the previous regime.

Type your postcode into the search field at police.uk for your own data. The results page provides some other useful information – the names of your beat coppers, for instance, and the dates of crime prevention events near you.

The Fair Field Christmas Fair

Fairy Cakes — Siobhan Byrne made a generous donation of fairy cakes

The human fruit machine — Children staffed the human fruit machine enthusiastically

China snowman — Not the most popular item on sale at the Christmas Fair

Blimey. Christmas is here. I know that because Fair Field Juniors has had its Christmas Fair. I’ve been going for a few years and I’m a parent and a governor at the school so you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit sentimental about it but it is always a warm and lively treat. The hall was – as usual – a happy riot and attractions filled many of the surrounding classrooms. Santa was in the building. The marvellous Borehamwood Brass entertained us, there were mince pies and mulled wine… Need I say more?

Habeas Corpus at The Radlett Centre

I ran into Paula Welham (left), secretary of the Radlett Players, and Georgia Dove, who plays Felicity Rumpers in the company’s latest production, outside Tesco in Radlett. They were handing out flyers for a version of one of Alan Bennett’s earlier plays called Habeas Corpus. By all accounts it’s a laugh riot. Wikipedia says:

It concerns the aging Dr. Arthur Wicksteed and his pursuit of a nubile patient, Felicity Rumpers. Wicksteed’s wife, Muriel, is, in turn, lusting after the charming head of the BMA, Sir Percy Shorter, who, as well as being Wicksteed’s old rival, turns out to be Felicity’s father – the result of an under-the-table liaison during an air-raid with Lady Rumpers, her mother.

Paula and Georgia were careful to point out that the production is not suitable for children and the flyer resembles a saucy seaside postcard from an earlier era.

Habeas Corpus runs from 10-13 November. Tickets cost £11 from the revamped Radlett Centre web site. And tell your friends you’re attending on the event’s Facebook page.

The Radlett Players’ web site and Facebook group.

Here we go

Radlett Wire started life as a Twitter feed. But there’s a lot going on in Radlett so the 140-character limit is chafing a bit and we’d like to publish more pics and longer stories so here we are with a blog. Do us a favour: tell us what you think we ought to do – what kind of services and content should we provide? Comment below and we’ll see what we can do…