Enterprising

"Fast Response Car Wash" is two lads with a bucket and a mobile phone. They've been putting their leaflets through doors... and I reckon they'll do very well this summer.

One way. The wrong way.

The police have closed most of Tarrant Street because a delivery truck has got stuck... trying to drive the wrong way down a one-way street. It's a sight to unite tourists and locals, each one offering their own expert solution to the problem.

It's quiet in Arundel

I think it's been a slow week for news...

The world's tallest beach hut

Littlehampton's old coastguard tower isn't mine. In fact, I didn't even go to the auction. The guide price of £20,000 (which isn't the kind of money I have sitting around at the moment - although I had a master plan involving various credit cards!) ended up being exceeded by over 100%. It evenually sold for £42,000 to a Brighton-based chap who did have that sort of money sitting around. (The full story is in Brighton's The Argus). Good luck to him - it'll be interesting to see what it becomes. I rather fancied using the building as a tall, impractical office...

Country folk are a dying breed

People who live in the country are getting older and poorer. That seems to be the conclusion of the Commission for Rural Communities in its State of the Countryside 2007 report. There are nearly 400,000 fewer young people in rural areas than there were 20 years ago - which is hardly surprising when you discover it costs £60 a week more for a household to live in rural areas when compared with urban living. The CRC press release can be downloaded as a PDF document; the full 4.5MB report is also available as a PDF download. On a positive note, there are now almost 400 vineyards in England and Wales...