Do you recognize this derelict Fakenham building? Bit of a disgrace, isn’t it? It has apparently looked like that for around 20 years and it’s one of two in Oak Street and nearby Star Yard, under the same ownership, which are in a similar state of disrepair.

A local resident has set up a petition on the NNDC website to determine whether the full council should be obliged to discuss these buildings. In order for them to do that, it will require 1500 signatures within three months (I wonder if any previous petitions have actually met these seemingly high criteria?). If you think that this matter should be dealt with by the District Council, you should add your signature to the petition.

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?

Fakenham has started to address some of its issues now, I think. People are beginning to focus on improving our town and the first signs of coordination between the local organisations involved is becoming apparent.

Kick Start Fakenham have made their presence felt with an impressive Fakenham Fair, with the aid of the Fakenham Area Partnership. They’ve proven that they mean business and can organise an event on that scale - which bodes well for an even bigger community event or maybe even a full-scale carnival next year.

But what next? The town needs to progress further and we need to consider what direction to take.  Comments on an earlier post by a visitor to our town highlighted some of the negative aspects he’d seen. The many replies to his comments seemed to culminate in the opinion that although it was easy to spot and point out problems it was difficult to find a way to address them.

So do you have any ideas? What would you like to see the various organisations in Fakenham concentrate their efforts on? Are they doing anything wrong or completely missing a trick somewhere?  There’s the Town Council, The Area Partnership, The Parish Church, the Kick Start group and the Chamber of Trade – all trying to do stuff for the town we love. Give them some feedback!

Do any of my older readers see a similarity between erstwhile climate change secretary and Labour MP Ed Milliband and the late comedian Bernie Winters?

Here’s a 1960′s snap of Ed and his brother Mike, who were a comedy double act at the time. That’s an uncanny parallel with Bernie, whose brother David Milliband makes up a comedy double act which will soon be running in the Labour leadership battle.