Today’s Fakenham Fair was well attended and the event was great fun. Lots of stalls, bouncy castles, local organisations and demonstrations – and the weather was very kind too!

Fantastic work by Kick Start and the Fakenham Area Partnership – well done, guys. Here’s to a successful full-blown Fakenham Carnival in 2011!!!

My little office in the centre of town is looking a lot more upmarket these days. It’s all thanks to Debbie Osborn, a talented local artist and designer (and blogger) who has provided me with some of her original artwork to hang on my walls. They’re really eyecatching pieces - I’ll bet lots of visitors will be asking where they came from when they drop in to ‘talk websites’.

Keith, her other half, is a pretty fine local photographer. One of his prints – a cracking seascape in the sunset –  is also adorning my office. How bad is that?

So you see, it’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know Thanks very much indeed guys.

What are you doing tomorrow? Did you know that it’s the Fakenham Fair? Well, it is. From 2pm – 6pm in Millennium Park.

“Rides, inflatables, stalls with toys, crafts, games, food, classic cars, bows & arrows, you can even come and build a wall! “

The running order looks like this…

• 2.00 Football
• 3.00 Punch & Judy
• 3.30 Tae Kwon Do Display
• 3.50 Basketball Display 
• 4.00 1st Acadamy of Dance Performance
• 4.20 Magic Show
• 4.45 Fakenham Bowmen Display

… but may be subject to change.  Then in the evening, there’s the disco…

8-11pm Family Disco, Community Centre, tickets £2.50 on the door, under 12′s FREE

The Advertising Standards Agency have upheld complaints about the BT ad that says it’s, “rolling out up to 20 meg speeds” to give “consistently faster broadband“. The ASA stated that “it had not seen sufficient evidence to support the claim and concluded that the advert was likely to mislead“.

The problem I had with that advert – the one where Adam and Jane are talking over the phone about viewing houses and the estate agent’s connection is slower than Jane’s –  is slightly more obvious…

The estate agent showing Adam the houses online is using his laptop inside a property being viewed. Surely it wouldn’t be using the property owner’s broadband connection, would it? So it’s not comparing like-for-like, is it?

Schoolboy error!

..

There’s a car I see when I’m walking to work – somebody’s having great fun with the paintwork.  A few weeks ago it was covered in text. Now it looks like a cave painting on speed! Brilliant stuff.

A couple of signs I’ve spotted over the last few days. Who makes this stuff?

That’s the first phantom comma I’ve ever seen, plus a probable record for the number of phantom apostrophes on one sign. Impressive!

Have you seen one of these in the wild yet?

How cool is this? It’s a funky purple eco-friendly jute bag bearing the message…

“Fakenham. Bloomin’ Lovely.”

It was designed by year 10 pupils at Fakenham High School for the Fakenham Area Partnership, who obtained some funding for the project via a bid to  ‘Awards For All’.

The bag is 100% recyclable and will be sold through local markets and retailers, plus schools, community groups and the Tourist Information Point. A Farmers’ Market postcard/calendar will be placed into each bag to underline the “shop locally, eat healthier, live sustainably” message.

Want one?  They’re £3.50 each. Find them at…

Corders Budgens
Lawnwise & Leisure
Fakenham Heelbar
Fuglis
Get Smart
Sweets-n-things
Secrets
NewsKlip
Fakenham Garden Centre

And they’ll also be available at…

Chemstop
Whichcraft/Witchcraft?
Amie’s – Hairstylist
Fakenham Racecourse
Tourist Information Point/Library
Connect Office

Ofcom enlists 4-year-olds to boost dodgy DAB stats • The Register

Do you listen to the radio? Do you use a DAB digital radio? Are you concerned about a digital switchover for radio which will mean that FM radio will be phased out?

Ofcom have produced the latest in a series of reports on which the future of radio broadcasting in the UK will be based. It seems to skew the data it uses on purpose to indicate that the use of analog radio is waning and that DAB uptake is a success.

For example, Ofcom claims five digital-only stations are reaching over one million listeners a week. However, the ‘listeners’ it cites are aged 4+ instead of the industry-standard benchmark of 15+.  Other ‘statistical shenanigans’ are also pointed out in this article at The Register.

It’s designed to convince us that DAB is a good idea and a complete success which we should all rush out to support by buying DAB radios and junking our perfectly-serviceable (and superior quality) FM sets.

There’s also a more in-depth blog about it by a chap called Grant Goddard, an independent media analyst, here – http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/lies-damned-lies-and-ofcoms-first.html

We’re being fed false information again. Somebody have a word before we’re sold a digital pup.

Fakenham: Warnings for moped riders – Local – Lynn News

Good to se the SNT focusing on this. The behaviour of these riders who seem to hang out in the car park next to Tesco has been extremely annoying at best and at worst, an accident waiting to happen.

If you haven’t been to Fakenham Surgery recently, you may not have seen their leaflet explaining what their proposed new building in Clipbush Lane will look like. Here’s an artist’s impression…

Looks impressive. If you’d like more details, the leaflet says that their newsletters (from which this is taken) can be obtained at the Surgery Website