No sign yet of the Evening Cancer publishing anything about the David Bishop Greenbank land sale scandal.
No doubt the fact that their Saturday columnist, Bristol’s most pompous man, George Ferguson is intimately involved in the scandal is entirely coincidental to the story’s non-appearance in what used to be the city’s paper of record before editor Mike Norton turned it into a news-free platform for idiots.
However, the Cancer does find space today for some really urgent issues of major public interest. The whole of Page 3 is turned over to the startling revelation that rain has made the Downs muddy. While over on page 6 we’re breathlessly informed that “an unidentified flying object has been photographed over Filton”.
Holding power to account once again eh lads?
Meanwhile over at, allegedly, one of the country’s finest institutions – the world famous, nothing less than 100% objective Bristol branch of the British Broadcasting Corporation – we find a similar reticence to report the news.
No doubt the fact that one of their presenters, Bristol’s most pompous man, George Ferguson (would you believe?) is intimately involved in the scandal is entirely coincidental to the story’s non-appearance in what’s supposed to be the finest news organisation in the world.
Mind you these publicly funded clots at BBC Bristol ought to be thinking about getting off their lazy arses and doing something about this story before we do something about them.
The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines are very clear about their duties, responsibilities and what we can expect of them:
Serving the public interest
We seek to report stories of significance. We will be vigorous in driving to the heart of the story and well informed when explaining it. Our specialist expertise will bring authority and analysis to the complex world in which we live. We will ask searching questions of those who hold public office and provide a comprehensive forum for public debate.
Editorial integrity & independence
The BBC is independent of both state and partisan interests. Our audiences can be confident that our decisions are influenced neither by political or commercial pressures, nor by any personal interests.
Impartiality & diversity of opinion
We strive to be fair and open minded and reflect all significant strands of opinion by exploring the range and conflict of views. We will be objective and even handed in our approach to a subject. We will provide professional judgments where appropriate, but we will never promote a particular view on controversial matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy.
I also understand, these days, it’s easy to make a complaint about them online too. You never know, if they don’t get their act together by the end of the week they may be getting a few ..
Maybe the post is in the pocket of the ventures? if that is the case I hate to say it but we do live in a “Mini Dictatorship”, it has felt like we have for quite some time.
put me on the list for the online complainers 😀
it’s about time these parasites were outed!!!
what about the national papers? surely one of them would be interested in such a story??
yes you are right archie, we do live in a ‘mini dictatorship’.
it’s about time we started making our views more public, not only to the BCC but the unelected tossers that are forced upon us 😕
News headline we are unlikely to see:
‘Editor of Evening Post publicly Bashes the Bishop’.
Archie ! Roughly 40 years seems about right.
National press picking this up might go someway, it’s looking very unlikely it is going to get out properly across our fair city
And today’s hot story for the limp post?
“Couple take £3m out of bank to buy 11 Bristol flats.”
But (gasp!) many canny readers smell a rat:
“I don’t believe this is genuine, and wouldn’t be surprised if it was a publicity stunt by Crest Nicholson themselves; the idea being to get other people to part with their money using tried and tested “social proof theory”.
They’re probably desperate to get them all sold before the bottom falls out of the market completely. ”
Cynic, Easton
“Then they have been ripped off. A friend of mine has been offered 10 apartments on the same development for £900k. As somebody else has said, this looks like CN are getting desperate. ”
kevin spencer, bristol
“see that the good Old BEP have hidden away the story on First bus’ profits. How come that didn’t make it as the main headline on here but this £3 million property thing did? ”
Shelly, Bristol
“Wow, what a brilliant advert for the Crest Nicholson development, cleverly disguised as ‘news’! ”
Chris, Bristol
It’s weird, the EP story doesn’t appear in the news section of the website for that development.
http://www.harbourside.co.uk/latestnews.asp
Interestingly, the EP story states the couple bought 11 two bedroom apartments, which is exactly the number left as available on the website, perhaps co-incidence though.
http://www.bristol-harbourside.co.uk/availability/availability_crescent.asp
The thing is, if you imagine they’ve updated that website as soon as this couple bought the flats, then you would think that the flats bought must therefore appear in google’s cache of the flats available taken back on 6th august 2008.
(search google for http://www.bristol-harbourside.co.uk/availability/availability_crescent.asp and click ‘cached’).
But the couple apparently bought 11 two bedroom flats, and the only flat there for £399,950 (which the EP states the couple paid for a penthouse one) is indeed a penthouse, but is a three bedroom flat (flat 9093 in Halyard), not two bedroom.
The couple also paid £239,950 for a flat on a lower floor according to the EP, and there is one still available for that price at the moment (9074 on the first floor of Halyard), but that flat doesn’t appear in the cached version of the site from 6th August, which seems odd. Is it a sale that fell through?
Another odd thing is that Vicky Dudbridge of King Sturge says in the EP article “We are almost 70 per cent sold in The Crescent building here” when the EP states that “The Crescent development on Harbourside comprises of 268 apartments, 163 of which have been sold”. That’s 61% sold with rounding up isn’t it? Unless you add in the 11 the couple have just bought, which makes 174 sold, which is still only 65% sold with rounding up.
Not just an obvious press release/free advert (the only linked text in it is to the Crest Nicholson website), the EP article has definite holes in it. The best way to check will be in a few months, with a search of http://www.nethouseprices.com, where these flats should show up with their real sold dates and sold prices.