A retail business in Corfe Mullen (pictured on Friday) closed for good on Saturday 26th June 2010 through lack of custom.

You would think that a shop selling such a wide range of useful items which we all need from time to time, from a prominent central village location, with a potential customer base of 10,000 people right on the doorstep would do well, but sadly not. [...more...]

The winning team for the Carnival Quiz 2010 - "Don't Know Nuffink",
pictured on Thursday 10th June with the silver trophy and their individual engraved glass tumblers as mementoes of their win.

An unusual sight in the village, this traction engine was spotted going up Henbury View road towards Wareham Road by Chris Kemp who tipped me off. I went to see it in the early evening sun but only caught this slightly blurry picture as it steamed past the library, whistling cheerfully.

A tree surgeon working at an address in Highfield Road fell from the tree he was working in on Wednesday morning, 26th May. Dorset Air Ambulance was called out but he was pronounced dead at the scene. The man was in his 40s and came from Ringwood.

A motorcycle and a car collided at the junction of Towers Way and Wareham Road at about 11am today, Monday 24th May. The motorcyclist came off and was looked after by ambulance medics on the pavement nearby before being taken to hospital. Police were also in attendance.

Traffic was held up in both directions as the damaged red Yamaha motorbike and the white Honda Civic, with significant damage to the front blocked Wareham road.

Julia's House children's hospice in Springdale Road Corfe Mullen opened a new wing on Wednesday 19th May, attended the charity's patrons.

The picture shows 11 year old Ebony Robinson cutting the ribbon, watched by (L – R) Martin Clunes, Dr Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherborne, Chris Jarvis, Martin Edwards, Julia’s House CEO, holding 4-year-old Honey Arnold-Jones, Liz Yelling and Harry Redknapp.

The event was marked by cutting a red ribbon and .....

Annette Brooke held the Mid Dorset and North Poole constituency with a much reduced margin, down to just 269 from a more comfortable 5,487 in 2005. The swing from LibDem to Conservative was 6.3% but it's impossible to tell how many were voting tactically to help the Conservatives oust Labour nationally, and how much of the drop is down to constituency boundary changes or other factors.

Turnout was 46,788 (64%).

Result for Mid Dorset and North Poole 6th May 2010

Annette Brooke (LibDem)	21,100	45.1%
Nick King (Conservative)	20,831	44.5%
Darren Brown (Labour)	2748	5.9%
Dave Evans (UKIP)	2109	4.5%

I rather like quizzes - as long as they ask questions on the kind of topics I might know something about! Some questions are too trivial to be any sort of challenge at all ('what is the capital of France?') while others ('which planet has moons called Triton and Nereid?') may require making an informed, intelligent guess, so your brain actually gets a bit of exercise and you feel a small 'high' if you get the answer right. Many are of the sort where you either know the answer or you don't, such as: 'which Blue Peter presenter recently kayaked 2000 miles along the Amazon?'.

We all have patchy knowledge, riddled with gaping holes. The subjects where I struggle to come up with a sensible answer are mostly sport, entertainment or celebrity news but [...more...]