SON OF GRIDKNOCKER

@ Denise. Re your post about later objections - and given that the cabinet seems to have left itself plenty of wriggle room - I would strongly urge you to get any friends, neighbours, acquaintances, even total strangers you meet on the bus, to bang in an objection. Councillor Hubbard has had it officially confirmed to him by no less an authority than Andrew Ashcroft that any planning committee anywhere in the country has an obligation to take account of any letters of objection (or support) received right up to the morning of the meeting. Herefordshire Council planning committe's officer has confirmed that November is the earliest that P142554/F is likely to be considered, so to all those who breathed a sigh of relief on reading English Heritage's uncharistically-trenchant attack, I'd say: get scribbling!

Isn't it funny (no, actually it's not funny at all; it's bloody depressing) how Hereford comes high up in all the wrong polls? The city with the fewest number of public toilets. The city which owns the most number of paintings by Turner that its citizens have never seen. The city with the most dilapidated, under-funded Victorian covered retail market. The city with too many traffic lights. And of course, most famously: The only English city with a Cabinet which has undergone collective charisma by-pass

...and come and enjoy a joyous evening of music at Hereford's Richmond Place Club, Edgar Street, on Saturday 27th September, starting at 7.30pm. Admission is only £5, payable on the door on the night, with all proceeds going to the Rose Tinted Rags textile recycling and arts centre, which recently re-located from the Tann Brook Centre to Union Walk by the Country Bus Station. As well as rubbing shoulders with many of the other mendacious oddities who post on The Voice (they'll be easy to pick out as they'll all be wearing false beards!), you'll be treated to some wonderful live music. On the bill will be star accordionist Richard Adey (he frequently plays outside Marks & Spencers in High Town, drawing big crowds). Richard was priviledged to be chosen by the organisers as one of the official entertainers who performed in London's Green Park this summer, when the 2014 Tour de France swept through central London. But the night's main attraction will be Hereford's very own The Boy And The Flatpack Band, featuring their special blend of electric blues and eco-reggae. This summer they played successful gigs at Staunton-on-Arrow's 'Spring Greens' music festival and Chepstow's 'Green Gateway.'

Thanks Bobby. Truly priceless.

Dippy! You, a secret love child of a Cabinet member. And there's me thinking Roger Phillips is a confirmed batchelor!

@ Flamboyant: You mean even before they've finished refurbishing the Shire Hall for their own use (having also upgraded Plough Lane's Lubyanka), they've now got their eyes focussed on yet another monument to re-gild for their greater glorification? Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Could Glenda shed any light on this murky subject?

'A positive from the Hereford Times. That would be a first (sic).' Apart from your mangled grammar Councillor Johnson, it would also be nice if you told us precisely what you have done in support of the poor Butter Market traders, whose future you announced last September (at the HSC meeting at the Asda Kindle Centre) that you intended to have settled within 'a three-month window.' So what's happening Councillor I'm-Now-A-Minority-Leader Johnson? Telling the Hereford public via the Hereford Times: now that would be a first!

Queuing patiently to buy my weekly Lotto ticket in Morrisons the othe other day, I fell into conversation with the bloke standing behind me. 'You realise you've more chances of sleeeping with Joan Collins than winning this thing, don't you?' It could have been Al Read speaking from the grave. As there were 17 people in front of us, I thanked him for this fascinating statistic and legged it into High Town. Clustered around the bull statue in front of the Old House was a small knot of East Europeans, avidly buying £5 raffle tickets from a man I'd recently seen featured on a 'Police are anxious to interview this man' CCTV freeze-frame on the Hereford Times website. 'Excuse me: what's the first prize?' I impudently enquired from the back of the throng. 'A night with John Major at the Castle Pool Hotel,' came the rapid response, like a Hamas rocket. 'And suppose the winner's a bloke?' 'Send the missus; Edwina never complained!' But it was the fascinating array of runners-up prizes which were the real clinchers for me. Second prize was a week's suuply of bacon butties, cooked in the winner's own kitchen by Councillor John Jarvis (ketchup not included). Then there were half-hour bedtime readings for a whole month from the Highway Code, by Councillor Brian Wilcox - surely guaranteed to get you to sleep. Next was a signed copy of Roger Phillips' little-known gem 'All you could ever want to know about farming' (a slim volume this, just 24 pages long); and then, to cap it all, the piece de resistance: a weekend's weeding of your own garden by Councillor Patricia Morgan, dressed only in khaki short-shorts and a wet T-shirt reading: 'I really, really want Big Tony's job!'.

Two screenings of the award-winning Palestinian film 'Omar' are at the Courtyard on Monday 21 July (6.00pm) and Tuesday 22 July (8.00pm). Your chance to show solidarity with the oppressed people of Gaza.

Mrs Grid Knocer nudged me in the middle of the night. I roused myself from my slumbers (a dream about the year Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France, since you ask) and thought to myself: "Hey up, this looks promising!". Quoth she: "Did you hear that thunder just then?" I rolled over, anxious to re-join Sir Wiggo. "That wasn't thunder," I said, "that. my dear, was The Wrath of Johnson." "The what?" "Council Leader Tony Johnson has just been given the result of the Ledbury by-election and realises he now has to rule over a hung paliament adminstration for the next ten months. That's what the noise was about."

Will all Voicers who regularly pass the council-owned Bath Street Offices (aka the former Working Boys Home) please keep their eyes peeled for the obligatory planning application notice, which is likely to appear on a lamp post there any day soon? Local residents will then have only about two weeks to send in objections to the crack pot idea* that these handsome late-Victorian buildings (for which a host of alternative uses could - and should - have been considered) should be demolished, to make way for a fire station. Let's give the complacent Andrew Ashcroft a thoroughly miserable summer, shall we? *copyright: Cllrs Bramer & Johnson

Health warning re above link: not for the squeamish!

An alternative strategy (I hesitate to elaborate on the thoughts of King Bobby, so recently returned from Tapping Purdah) would be to ask them: "And have you ever played the pink piccolo?" I believe this question was first addressed to Benjamin Britten - or was it Leon Brittan - I always get them muddled up. The one who wrote that discordant music and the rather nasty opera about a boy getting drowned? Anyway, I think you get my general drift. And as we've all been transfixed by developments post Hall and Harris and Savile, may I draw Voice followers attention to a fascinating post to be accessed by going to:- http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/the-dirt-book-how-the-sexual-abuse-of-children-is-used-for-political-gain/

The Lord be praised! He is risen from the Tappers' Tomb! The boulder has been miraculously rolled back - possibly by Saint Patricia! Long live the King!

I love Worcester's Hive and I salute them for the achievement. And of course (@ pedants like Ragwert and Aylestone Voice) I wasn't suggesting that Hereford would ever attain what Birmingham's wealth and political muscle has pulled off. And with a numpty like Cllr Johgnson in charge, aided and abetted by Second Lieutenants Bramer and Morgan, we'll be lucky if the poor old Broad Street building is given another lick of paint by the time the Three Choirs Festival returns to Hereford! By the way, Geof Hughes' latest crackpot idea is to close the Franklin Barnes Info Centre (it only cost just over £300,000 to move it down the road from Garrick House), in order to include it in the lovely Patricia's next mouth-watering London Fire Sale. Then shoe-horn all the council's info services into the Broad Street Library building!

Birmingham locals have access to an amazing cultural cornucopia. It includes: the pick of one million reference and loan collections; a huge periodicals section; the city's archives and records office; a children and music centre; a business and learning centre; a studio theatre and cinema; an art gallery; the Shakespeare Memorial Room; and a roof garden which would win a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show any year. And it's all free. So where did we go wrong? Principally, because Herefordshire Council is - and has been for decades - bereft of any 'cultural vision'. Name a current Cabinet member who could explain to you the difference between the works of Pinter and Stoppard. And don't even bother to ask Councillor Terry James who Joe Orton was. Within a seven-year time frame, Britain's second city identified a site (actually it was a municipal car park, not much bigger than the car park behind The Courtyard Arts Centre), held an international competition - won by the Dutch designers Mecanoo, raised the £180-million funding, built and opened this hugely impressive multi-storied cultural behemoth. It dominates Centenary Square, looking like a stack of gigantic glitzy hat boxes. All this, achieved in about the same time that Herefordshire Council has talked about constructing an unnecessary 800-metre long east-west cross-city route, which is destined to go into the record books as Britain's most expensive-ever urban motorway. 'One book, one pen, one teacher can change the world.' These were the words of Malala Yousafzai (the Pakistani schoolgirl who the Taliban attempted to assassinate in 2012, who now lives in Birmingham), when she officially opened the new Library last September. Please can we have one?

One of the most impressive statistics about Birmingham's new City Library is its weekly opening hours: 73. Open seven days a week. By contrast, Hereford's forlorn, down-at-heel 1897 City Library & Art Gallery in Broad Street, now only opens its doors to visitors for 37 hours each week. In its first four months, Birmingham's gleaming new cultural centre had more than one million visitors!

To my mind, the most depressing aspect of this business is that Steve Dixon, Chair of the traders' association, comes up with a perfectly workable solution for the Butter Market's future, which the council should have the good grace to back and give it a speedy passage to fruition. But instead, we have The High Priestess of Fire Sales up on her hind legs, virtually inviting any property dealer in the UK to come and take the building off the council's hands. And if King Bobby was still posting, I'm sure that the text of his response would be worded more strongly than the above!

I think that The King has timed his abdication perfectly. Slipping his resigantion in just behind Spain's King Carlos (that bloated plutocrat, who went off shooting elephants with his mistress and finished up with a broken hip. Long may it cause him pain) Our King's recreational activities are more modest: rolling in dense, Wye-side nettles with Councillor ('call me Patsy') Morgan.

What is especially worrying - in the 11-month run-up to the local government elections - is that Ffffffiona's paper now has exclusive countywide coverage. So expect wall-to-wall charm offensives from the joined-at-the-hip duo of Bill 'n Jessie!

@ Biomech: No, he's been approached by Council Leader Tony Johnson to mastermind Hereford's bid to become the UK's City of Culture (though knowing Hereford Council's inept Media Unit, they'll probably spell it Kulchure on the application form!). Methinks barbel fishing and the use of Shimano fishing rods for unnatural Wye-side practices in brambles will feature strongly in the city's bidding process.

I think the home addresses of all the council's cabinet members should be included on these poster, since they were the numpties who thought up this crackpot idea.

@ Cambo: BH Monday will be a wash-out. Always is. Stay at home and watch a vid. I'll lend you my pirated copy of Harry B in the re-make of 'Buggsy Malone.'

Has Odeon paid for all this free advertising?

It is almost four years ago that the popular local fishmonger Dave Benjamin died suddenly. He was widely admired throughout Hereford as a doughty city and county councillor (he represented St Nicholas Ward); he was a vocal Chairman of the Butter Market Traders Association; and at his memorial service at Hereford Cathedral it was 'standing room only'. Something even the Blessed Diana didn't achieve. So the Butter Market traders clubbed together and commissioned a modest commemorative plaque, which was duly affixed to the market building's back wall, at the closest possible point to Dave's fish stall - which mercifully (thanks to the stolid Jason) is managing to surive against all that Messrs Morrison and Waitrose are throwing at it. But try to find the Benjamin plaque today. In its wisdom, Herefordshire Council has approved the installation of an ugly Tardis-like cash dispenser, alongside the back door to the Butter Market, placed just 8" away from the modest Benjamin Memorial!