I was walking past Stuart Cuttler’s shop yesterday – ‘The Eye Man’ in Norwich Street. When things are quiet we often have a chinwag for a few minutes and yesterday I dropped into his shop to ‘shoot the breeze’.

Stuart was sorting out his stock for display. He had loads of spectacle frames and was giving them a polish and setting them out on the shelves (PS. if any of you need a pair of ‘goggles’, Stuart’s your man. I got good old fashioned service and very keen prices when I bought my frames there).

Anyway, I was on the ball yesterday. I immediately spotted something that obviously didn’t belong in the shop and asked why it was there. What was it? A lovely big Lowrey MX-1 theatre organ – not something you see every day in a spec frames shop! Apparently, this beauty is worth a fair bit of cash, but Stuart wants to give it away to make space. It sounds nice too – I got a free demo from Stuart, who’s a dab hand on the keyboard it turns out. Loud too – we had to shut the shop door to make sure we didn’t frighten the passers by!

So… I don’t usually place free ads on this blog, but as this is unusual and a bit of a giveaway… Anybody fancy a free Lowrey MX-1 ‘consolette’ organ? It could do with a touch of TLC (Stuart says, ‘It needs playing’) but what an absolute bargain for an enthusiast!

Here’s a current story on the EDP website:
The Garden House in Fakenham could have its licence removed  

The pub has gained a reputation for drug use, violence and high noise levels and is to have its licence reviewed at the request of police. In a report by the Police Licensing Team, it says that  the venue presents “a high risk to its patrons and the wider community that use and live in the area of Bridge Street“.  

The District Council are currently holding a public consultation regarding the pub in Bridge Street. People have until 15th June to make their views known.

The Licensing Team have requested that the management at the pub be removed and the premises closed for three months for staff training. If that happens, I hope the police will support the other pubs in town, as the Garden Room’s clientele will obviously be looking for somewhere else to frequent. It would be pointless if the trouble just moved elsewhere. Other options include the imposition of licence restrictions (eg closing at 11pm instead of opening as a club until the early hours) or removing it completely.

I’d never been in the pub before a week or two ago, when I popped in with my fellow conspiritors in Fakenham Plubfest to see if the venue would be doing anything for the festival. I was surprised to see the appearance of the interior (it’s a vast cavern of a place) and was interested to hear the manager, who seemed a pleasant enough guy, describe the current noise restrictions they’ve had placed on the site. Apparently, when the sound levels reach a certain pre-set level, they trigger a switch which completely cuts out the sound system! However, I think some of the noise problem stems from the fact that you can’t fit those kind of switches to the customers!

Publicise your community events on the town website!

Fakenham has certainly ‘picked up’ recently as far as town events go. The recent ‘Royal Wedding  After Party’ in the town centre is a prime example. As I attend Kick Start Fakenham meetings, I can also see that there are more events being planned for later in the year and I’m sure it does add to the town’s community spirit (as was intended when Kick Start was formed).

There’s the Fakenham Fair in the Millenium Park on 27th August. That’ll be preceded by a carnival procession headed by the town’s ‘Local Hero’ and comprising both vehicles and walkers. Also during the week before the Fair, Fakenham’s pubs and clubs will be participating in ‘Fakenham Plubfest‘, where many of our local hostelries will be organising an event of their own on one or more days.  There’s also a community Tidy-up being mooted, a duck race, a photo competition and more besides.

There’s a lot going on and lots of planning to do, so if you or your organisation want to get involved, whether it’s being in the carnival procession,  voting for our Local Hero, having a stall at Fakenham Fair, or sorting out an event for your pub or club in the Festival, now’s the time to contact the people concerned to let them know.

Kick Start’s not the only entity arranging town events, of course. If you’re doing something for the community, please let me know so that it can be publicised on the town website. It doesn’t cost anything, it’s gratis and what’s more it’s utterly and totally free (plus, did I mention that there are no costs involved?).

Kick Start Fakenham are organizing a Pub & Club Festival this summer. It’s called ‘Fakenham Plubfest’  and will feature a wide range of events in the town’s pubs and clubs, held mainly during the week leading up to Fakenham Fair on 27th August. The idea came about after talking about having a beer frstival. We decided that a pub and club festival would be better for the town’s businesses and could be a lot of fun too!

I had the onerous task of visiting lots of the town’s hostelries last night (although not a drop of alcohol passed my lips) with Sean and Mark, the other two Kick Starters who are arranging the festival with me.  I must say, we had a really great response from the pub & club people we spoke to and it seems like all the ones we’ve contacted so far have been keen to get involved in some way or another. More than one reponse we got was, ‘It’s about time Fakenham did something like this’!

The idea is to get each establishment to arrange an evening event some time during that week. They can do anything they want – ‘do what you do best’  is the phrase we’ve been using. They’ve come up with some brilliant ideas too. So far we’ve heard they’d like to plan a karaoke, a quiz, a barbecue, a Tex-Mex night, a rock band gig, music acts and a Fakenham’s Got Talent evening. If those ideas come off, it sure looks like the town will be a fun place to go for a night out that week!

I’ll be posting more about the festival as plans progress. If you want to see the latest info, have a look at Fakenham Plubfest’s Facebook page.

The Running Horse – Fakenham. 

The Morning Advertiser, a pub trade news website, is running this story about the recent spate of ‘new build’ pubs Marstons are opening. The article states that Fakenham’s Running Horse is one of those already open, which I don’t think is actually true, but the pub will be trading soon enough.

The new pub, near the football ground and therefore set to become ‘my local’, will probably be hoping to take custom from Fakenham’s Hungry Horse - a similar kind of pub in that it sells cheapish mass-market food to families (possibly one difference is the Marstons pub will sell cask ale where the Henry IV didn’t the last time I looked). I guess Marstons’ long-term plan takes into account the fact that the town’s population will be increasing due to the number of new houses which will be built over the next few years. However, I’m also guessing that they’ll need to work hard to attract custom at the start – Fakenham’s pubs already struggle to attract people, especially early in the week. One more pub in the town means that punters will be spread even more thinly than they are at the moment.

If you go down to the town centre today, don’t be surprised if you bump into Darth Vader and Sponge Bob Square Pants!  Mark Baldwin and Heidi Pointer, who work at TEG Fisher, will be all dressed up collecting donations for Red Nose Day. If you spot them, please give generously. Nice one, you two!

Staff at the Henry IV (The Hungry Horse) in Greenway Lane are doing a 50 mile sponsored tandem bike ride dressed as Batman and Robin. They’re starting at the Greene King headquarters in Bury St. Edmunds and will hopefully arrive at the pub in plenty of time for tonoght’s karaoke (with a superhero theme) which starts at 9pm. Well done to Bill Vasey and Joseph Bane-Young – have a good trip and a great night tonight!

I am so inspired by the way Visa is running the Olympic ticket sales scheme, I may adopt their sales policy for my own business this month. After all, we all trust Visa – they’re a large ‘household name’ corporation in a financial industry which is well regulated. They have the endorsement of the UK Olympics committee and the UK government in that they have been granted the right to be associated with the games by their sponsorship. Their sales methods must therefore be spotless. I can’t go wrong, can I?

So, this is how all my new clients will go about ordering a new website this month, in line with Visa’s UK Olympic ticket policy…

1. Indicate the kind of website(s) you would like. There will be a choice of single page, medium size or “like Amazon’s”
2. Choose where you want the site to be hosted. Options will be “on a server in a UK datacentre”  or “on a random person’s home PC somewhere in a former Baltic state”
3. State your first, second and third etc. choice of website subject. Examples are, “Plumber’s website”, “Solicitor’s site” or “Genealogy for Beginners”.
4. Provide your Visa card details (NB. other cards not allowed)
5. Wait until May 2011
6. Have an unknown sum of  money deducted from your account according to the final cost of the website you have been allocated.
7. Wait until the end of June 2011
8. Be told what kind of website you’ve been allocated and how much you ended up paying.
9. Wait until summer 2012
10. Get what you paid for a year ago (but not neccesarily what you originally wanted)

Think it’ll work?

Chris Taylor, originally from Kings Lynn came to Fakenham in the Late 1970′s to work for Frost and Matthews. He then set about forming his own company and in September 1982, Colin Hughes, an accountant, joined him and Taylor Print was formed.

The company has always been busy and successful as a small jobbing printers on the industrial estate, forging the old method of printing (letterpress) with the more modern Lithographic method. Work they have done over the years includes letterheads for Norwich City football club and stationary for nearly all the main businesses in the town from the last 20 years.

With the advent of digital printing becoming affordable and access able to the average home owner, Taylor print had to make the decision whether to ’go digital’ or retire while on top of their game and they have gone for the latter.

The town will miss them greatly and we wish them happiness in their retirement.

Fakenham has a great tradition in the print industry and it’s sad to see one of the remaining print businesses close. However, others remain to successfully uphold those traditions and long may they thrive.

Thanks go to Mark Baldwin who interviewed the owners, wrote this piece and provided the photographs.

After many recent multi-million pound apologies for logo designs by high-flying marketing studios, this one’s a real breath of fresh air. It was designed for a competition by 10-year-old Katherine Dewar, from Chester. Brilliant – and well chosen, whoever the judges were.

Next, the gubmint should commission this young lady to give the 2012 Olympic logo a swift makeover before the rest of the world start tuning in to our broadcast coverage and falling off their chairs with laughter.

A while back, I read an article on The Register describing how a derogatory spoof ’2012 logo’ was used in error by a South African news outlet to illustrate a story about ticket availability.

You can see why they got mixed up – the right and wrong versions are below

It’s time, I decided. Remember that new Fakenham website I was telling you about? The new one that’s a central point of info for all things Fakenham. I’ve switched the switch. Pulled the lever that makes it available. Dropped a coin in the virtual meter. You can have a look now!

Let me know what you think. I’m after suggestions for the content and I’m hoping you’ll let  me know if you find any incorrect information or if things go all pear-shaped while you’re surfing it.

There are a few bits that don’t work yet, such as the news items from the Town Council and Kick Start Fakenham websites (they’re not launched yet). There are some sparsely-populated sections too, like the Local Link Directory (do you run a non-commercial Fakenham area website? Get your site linked now!). On the whole though, it’s just about there – albeit a work in progress. Automatic links to Facebook and Twitter, the works!

Have a ‘butcher’s hook’ and tell me how you get on