Welcome to Leominster

Well, I guess that after 1400 years, it's not surprising that the sign is a little out of alignment.

A view of Corn Square in Leominster

Here's a view of the 3D models of Leominster as they appear in Google Earth.

Big Competition Revisited

Last December I wrote about the Google Model Your Town 2012 contest for 3D models in Google Earth and my intention to enter. Well, that project has taken up most of my time since then. A lot of new models of Leominster buildings had to be built and most of the older ones needed some repair or revision. I ended up with 135 models in the Leominster collection.

The other exciting development was the choice of the Westfield School for kids with learning difficulties as the nominated recipient of the $25,000 prize if I win. I’ve gotten to know the school, its staff and the members of the PTFA. They’re an enthusiastic bunch and are ready help promote the Leominster entry in the contest.

The school is running the Bubble Appeal, which aims to raise £250,000 to build a hydrotherapy pool for the young people at the school. You can see more about the project here. If we win, the prize will go to the Bubble Appeal.

On 16 March 2012 I was informed by Google that I was one of the finalists in the competition. Frustratingly, I was instructed to keep the news out of the media, blogs, social media, etc. until Google made a big announcement on April first. I didn’t even know who the other finalists were until last night. That deadline has now passed and we can tell the whole world.

The on-line voting will be open for the whole month of April. So, if you’re not committed to another finalist, please go to Google’s Model Your Town 2012 and follow the instructions to vote for Leominster and the Westfield Bubble Appeal. I did it his morning and it takes only a few seconds.

The final winner will be announced by Google on 15 May 2012.

TV Licence

Everybody who owns a television in Britain has to pay an annual tax, called the TV Licence Fee, for the privilege. Right now we pay £145.50 annually. This tax is supposed to fund the services of the BBC, but like so many things here it’s not quite that simple. The current government negotiated with the BBC last about how much they would reduce their budget and take on new obligations such as the World Service, which is a bit like Radio Free Europe. Further, some of the Licence Fee goes to subsidise other broadcasters.

There are frequent adverts on TV to encourage us to pay up and reminding that if we don’t they’ll fine us. The way they keep track of who owes the Licence Fee is pretty straight forward: when retailers sell a TV set, they report the customer’s name and address to the TV Licencing Authority who then collect the tax. They’ve actually used this method for a long time, but they used to think that we needed an extra incentive to pay in case the fine wasn’t enough.

And what they cooked up provides a fascinating insight into the British bureaucratic mind. Remember those old World War II movies where the Gestapo used radio detectors mounted on little vans or cars to triangulate radio signals and locate the clandestine radios of the French underground or British spies. Well, the men in grey suits came up with the idea that these Nazi radio detectors must be so fresh in the minds of Brits that it would be a spiffy idea to use the same image to scare everyone into paying the Licence Fee.

So we used to see these little vans driving around with strangely huge antennae mounted on the roof. We were told that these vans could detect TVs inside houses by diving past in the street and picking some mysterious radiation supposedly emitted by TV sets. Yes, really! And here are a couple of examples.

I have no idea if the detector vans were effective in improving the compliance with the tax, but they were a lot of fun. I suspect that there must have been a lot of people left over after the war who used to work in espionage but after the war needed new jobs. Fortunately, the TV Licence Authority was there to recruit them.

Here’s another one about English drivers…

We just heard, on the four o'clock news on BBC Radio 4, that an English retired couple had just returned home from a 16 month around-the-world trip in their cherished 1957 Bristol Coupé. The car survived the trip without a scratch. When they got home, they stopped at the local supermarket to stock up the fridge and parked their much-loved car in the supermarket car park.

While they were shopping, somebody drove into their car.

Isn’t It Exciting?

As members of the local Neighbourhood Watch, Susan and I receive a monthly newsletter from the Leominster Town Local Policing Team. The newsletter lists all of the contact names and phone numbers of the team and regional contacts. It also usually warns us about scams happening in the area and gives a summary of local criminals arrested. I enjoy reading the newsletter, not only because it’s so badly written, but also because I like the warm, neighbourly feeling.

But the newsletter isn’t often exciting. This month it was! On the back page under the heading A look at some of the good work done recently, there was a paragraph titled The Flasher. Here’s the item in full:

“Over the last 14 months there have been incidents of male “flashing” in and around the Leominster area. I am pleased to say that with some excellent work by your Local Policing team and a member of the public who managed to take a photograph, the offender has now been caught. He has admitted nine offences and is currently awaiting a court hearing.”

And finally, the newsletter ends with:

“And last but not least………

Your Local policing team at Leominster would like to wish you all a Happy and safe Christmas.”

Well, I’m happy in spite of all the holiday traffic and crowded shops.

Big Competition

If you have Google Earth on our computer, you have probably seen some of the 3D model buildings set in their real location in the world. One of my hobbies is making these models. Most of mine are fairly close to where I live in Herefordshire. I've done models of Stonehenge and 22 old churches in the county, but my biggest project has been modelling the buildings in the commercial centre of Leominster. Right now there are about 70 finished model buildings done. Between now and the end of January, I plan to add about ten to 20 more to the collection. Some of the new ones are already done but not yet uploaded and others have to be done from scratch. (To have a look at progress so far, Open Google Earth and make sure that the 3D Buildings Layer is checked in the list on the lower left of the screen. Leominster is located 15 miles North of Hereford and about 30 miles West of Worcester in the north central part of Herefordshire. Once there, zoom in on the town and explore.)

For the second year, Google is sponsoring a competition called Model Your Town. It’s open to modellers all over the world; the guy who won last year modelled a neighbourhood in Lima, Peru. This year I’m planning to enter my Leominster models in the contest. The winner gets a lot of publicity for their town, but the big deal is a $25,000 prize for a local school chosen by the winner.

The competition closes on 1 March 2012 and Google will announce five finalists shortly after. The final winner will be chosen from the five finalists by a public vote. I’ll naturally try to generate a lot of local interest and I’ll also shamelessly solicit votes through this blog if I get into the finalists.

Wish me luck!