MAYOR'S DIGEST

For those who sometimes miss Dr Pangloss's 'The Best Of All Possible Worlds' column here is a brief resume of the last few months:

No bed of roses … decades to achieve … crumbling infrastructure … make Victor Meldrew look like a born optimist … prestige business park … yours truly … reinvent this place … situation I inherited in 2005 … business incubator units … TDA … higher spending visitors … same old faces who write to the paper … commissioning model … council’s reshaping exercise …yours truly … turning the tide … the ‘no’brigade … vehicle to deliver regeneration projects … yours truly … met with entrepreneurs … greatly improved GCSE results … yours truly … sense of frustration … same old moaning minnies … consultation now under way … oh dear somebody must have got their wires crossed … lurid headline … same tedious old shits writing to the paper … Dibley Alliance getting their comeuppance … Prunella Scales mixed up in this campaign … probably should be stoned to death … all know the problems that I’ve inherited …same old moaning Victor Meldrew-type bastards who write to the paper … Oh dear! Yours truly definitely back in the doghouse … dull old world (or Cote de Westphalia) if we all thought alike … how best to brand it … ‘Business Phalia’ … ‘Mystery Phalia’ … Yours truly … ‘Complete Phalia'.

BOLD RETHINK ON PEDESTRIANISED SHOPPING AREA

Dr Pangloss has this week spelled out how the 'pedestrianised' heart of Westphalia-on-Sea should evolve in the future. In order to avoid having pedestrians being knocked down by the buses which currently drive up and down he suggested that 'perhaps there should be more obvious carriageways where the buses can be and more obvious ways and spaces where the pedestrians only should be. The two do not mix at the moment.' When it was suggested that this sounded rather like the old system of 'a road with pavements on either side' which had worked well in the past and continues to be employed in many urban areas up and down the country, the mayor was quick to point out that what he was suggesting was a much bigger, bolder and braver plan which would regenerate the town centre beyond everyone's wildest expectations. 'There's absolutely no point looking backwards at roads and pavements when we can look forwards to carriageways and pedestrian spaces,' he added.

Unsavoury Arms - latest negotiations

Dr Pangloss today explained to residents of Westphalia-on-Sea why negotiations over the redevelopment of the Unsavoury Arms had to be carried out 'behind closed doors'. 'It's quite simple, he said. When you are selling off bits of beautiful coastline to be ruined forever the last thing you want is to be constantly interrupted by a bunch of smelly locals trying to exercise their democratic right to express their opinion. The people of Westphalia-on-Sea should be very grateful that this beach is being taken over not by some insignificant small-fry, but by a colourful entrepreneur whose business empire collapsed with debts of more that £700 million. This is exactly the kind of business acumen we want to bring into the area.'

SHOPPING CENTRE CELEBRATIONS - an apology

We would like to point out an ambiguous punctuation error in our last piece. It should have read '... and a clown. The mayor will also be present.'
Clearly the clown and the mayor are two different people. Our apologies to anyone who thought they were one and the same.

SHOPPING CENTRE CELEBRATIONS

To mark the building of the out-of-town shopping centre with its free parking there will be a celebration tomorrow in what's left of Westphalia-on-Sea town centre. There will be wine tasting, a raffle, face painting and a clown the mayor will also be present. Starting at Fiasco Square local dignitaries will walk through the town looking at the rows of phone shops, estate agents, charity shops and empty units and reminisce about how you used to be able to do your shopping there. At the end of the walk a signpost directing tourists to shopping centres in Plymhole and Exhole will be erected at the harbour.

FAULTY HOTEL MIX-UP

It was a case of real life imitating art on Monday, when local hotel owner Richard Basildon was shut out of a meeting of local hoteliers. Mr Twist, the Director of the Hotels' Association, explained it had all been a farcical mix-up: 'We had just had a partition wall put up by an Irish builder where a doorway had been, so Mr Basildon couldn't get in. He then went round the back while we went to front of the hotel; it was quite comical, like something out of that iconic 70s sitcom Faulty Hotel, which your editor has asked me to point out was based on the Railway Hotel in Westphalia-on-Sea.' When asked if they had now settled their differences Mr Twist said: 'Oh yes, we're all the best of friends now - he has some wonderful opinions, it's just that we don't want to have to sit in the same room as him and listen to them.' Mr Basildon was unavailable for comment as he was interviewing staff, but that's where the coincidence ended - they were not from Barcelona, but from Poland.

TOILET ANNOUNCEMENT ROCKS MONTE CARLO

The announcement by Deputy Mayor Ahmad Hatter that there will be substantial improvements to public toilets in Westphalia-on-Sea has sent a shock wave along the French Riviera which has hit the very foundations of the casino at Monte Carlo. A spokesperson for the casino in Monte Carlo said: 'we were already a leetel worried about losing some of our super-rich visitors to Westphalia-on-Sea, but with a new casino and improved toilets there we simply won't be able to compete; we 'ave zerefore decided to close ze casino.' When asked what they would do with the empty casino building the spokesperson said: 'We 'ave decided to follow ze example of Westphalia-on-Sea; eet iz a very beautiful period building, so we will knock eet down and build a concrete eyesore in eets place. If zat is not popular we will knock zat down and zen leave eet looking like a building site for ten years. Enfin, we will build a ... ow you say ... marine aviary, which will probably not attract anysing like the projected visitor numbers.'

GREEN-PHALIA

Residents will be pleased to know that Dr Pangloss's vision for the New Cote de Westphalia (Mayoral Grand Plan) is available in two formats. It can be download as a pdf file, but is also available on a roll of environmentally-friendly dual-purpose paper. When asked what he thought about the MGP, a spokeman for publishers Andrex said he thought it was 'long and soft.' He also warned that golden labrador puppies had already run off with a number of copies.

WESTPHALIANS FLOCK TO ONLINE POLL

Charlie Windsor's online poll about the EU Treaty on his blog has seen people out in force to cast their vote, despite the bad weather. Interviewed about the surge Charlie said: 'It caught the techy boys on the hop - they had to add another column to the counter when the tenth vote came in. Ten people represents about 0.01% of the population of the Cote de Westphalia, so I think we're going to be able to extrapolate some very accurate information from this. Besides being a searing endictment of Gordon Brown's policy on Europe, my poll demonstrates just how important an issue this is for the people of Westphalia, and just how many people are visiting my blog - it's phenomenal.'

PHOTO LIBRARY SLIP UP

We have hundreds of photos of the mayor in various poses and with various facial expressions, such as: holding a pneumatic drill, next to a parking meter, looking happy, looking sad, etc., and while we can usually create a photo montage to illustrate any story in which he is featured, it appears we do not have any pictures of him handing over large wads of cash to consultants. We were therefore unable to print this story yesterday.

BLOG TAKES BAY BY STORM

by A STAFF REPORTER
A mystery resident has shocked the whole of the Cote De Westphalia by producing a satirical blog that seems to be a thinly veiled criticism of Mayor Pangloss and his sidekicks in the Tory party. When interviewed about events in the fictitious town of Piddlebackside on Radio Heaven this morning Dr Pangloss said he was amused. The interviewer said: 'The twenty-two chapters to date appear to be a savage criticism of every one of your policies and your profligate spending on consultants. In short, they make you look like a bungling fool. Aren't you embarrassed?'
'No, it's absolutely hilarious,' replied the Mayor.

Hotel Story Omission - an apology

It appears that yesterday's Westphalia Express was somehow published without a story which was in some way linked to the famous 70s sitcom Faulty Hotel, which, we should remind everyone, was based on the Railway Hotel and its crazy owner Richard Basildon. This was clearly a mistake, and there will be a four-page colour pull-out celebrating this tenuous link in tomorrow's Express. Be sure to reserve a copy at your newsagent's, as we may not mention this fact again until the day after tomorrow.