Power Struggle

I spotted this graffiti on the side of a furniture shop.

One is dead, one is no longer in power, and one won't be in power for much longer, but is this enough? What do you all think? The rights and wrongs? The what ifs? Or are we all fed up of the ongoing debate? Over to you...

Council House

The Municipal Offices stand on the Promenade, in front of the Long Garden, and are the headquarters of Cheltenham Borough Council. The building is one of Cheltenhams finest examples of a 19th century terrace. The impressive building was designed by George Underwood and was built as private houses between 1823 and 1835, originally called Harward's Building after one of the towns developers. In 1915 the five central houses became the Municipal Offices and by 1958 13 of the 19 houses were occupied by the Council. For some years now the Council has talked about moving to a new purpose built building, that will also house the Courts and other local services, and sell the Municipal Offices to fund this, allowing restaurants, shops, bars and an hotel to move into the building. Only last month this plan was once again reported in the local newspaper. It seems to me more and more likely that this will happen, it's such a shame that the the best Council House in town will be no more.

Cowardly Lion

One of things I love about Daily Photo Blogging is that you take a photo of something you've seen dozens of times, go to post it and realise you know nothing about it. A quick look on the Internet soon fills in the blanks, and you've learnt something new about the place you call home.

This coat of arms is above the porch of John Dower House, in Crescent Place. The building is now the headquarters of the government body The Countryside Commission, but the coat of arms belongs to one of Britain's former Kings. The imposing building was built in 1820 and was opened as Fisher's Boarding House, but it was soon renamed Clarence Hotel. The renaming was due to a stay in 1827 by Adelaide, Duchess of Clarence. She was the wife of the future King William IV. In 1858 the County police force set up its headquarters in the former hotel and stayed until 1970. The Countryside Commission moved into the building in 1974 and has been there since.

One of the websites I looked at refereed to the Lion as being like the one from the Wizard of Oz! I agree!


Something I can't answer is - Who was/is John Dower?.... Something else to discover...

A Rock And A Hard Place

At the moment this is the position the British Government find themselves between. I am by no way an expert on financial matters, and find this all a bit confusing, but basically the Government must decide whether or not to nationalise the Northern Rock bank, who are the UK's fifth largest mortgage provider.

Back in September last year the bank was forced to ask the Bank of England for emergency financial support (£25 billion) due to loaning money beyond its means, because of the global credit crunch. This caused savers with Northern Rock to start drawing out there savings, leading to queues outside branches and the companies website crashing. The words "don't panic" by those in charge brought about the first run on a British bank in more than one hundred years.

At present every tax payer in Britain has provided over £2,000 to help the Government keep the bank from declaring itself bankrupt and causing a serious recession. The money lent is now to be repaid in bonds by the bank and its hoped that a private group will buy the bank, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is in the running. If this didn't happen and the Government nationalise Northern Rock they would be responsible for some of the mortgages in the country, which is not a position any Government wants to find themselves in.

There's something to be said for keeping your money under your mattress!

For a more detailed timeline of the Northern Rock crisis check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7007076.stm