Mat Bowles

You don't need to know anything at all about the farce that is the Torbay mayoralty to get this one:

Closure will actually breathe life into Eastphalia.'

The master plan would be for one developer to link the Woolies building, Victoria car park, Crossways and Station Lane sites and merge them into one massive regeneration project, including such things as a multiplex cinema, indoor bowling centre, new shops and homes, and with each financing the other. 'Ahmad Hatter explained: 'It's a brilliant plan, especially the way each thing will finance the other in the middle of the deepest recession in living memory. In fact we will probably end up knocking Woolies down to make way for the new 'porcine runway' - at busy times there will be pigs taking off and landing every five minutes

For the uninitiated, Westphalia=Torquay, Eastphalia=Paignton Brixham Fishhole=Brixham, Ahmad Hatter=some bloke even the local Tory Cllrs thought incompetent and got rid of, and Mayor Nick Bye=a useless waste of space that's achieved nothing except prove what a bad idea the Govts elected executive mayors system really was (and how awful the implementation legislation). The blog's syndicated at thisiswestphali.

Oh, also, they've revamped the news section of the UK Parliament website. Using Wordpress. No idea how much they were overcharged, but the feed is: parliament_uk

ETA: The MP for Torbay points out in the comments that Eastphalia is Paignton, not Brixham. Which makes more sense as Victoria Park and Crossways are both in Paignton. Um, about 5 minutes walk from the hospital where I was born. Oops. Thanks Adrian.