It's the Party of the Year as Trish Haines bows out with a lavish ceremony at the Town Hall. The great and the good of Reading will be there locked in the janitor's cupboard, but everyone else will be in attendance to wish Trish well in her new job. The cakes have been ordered and wild horses wouldn't keep the Mayor away.

Literally tens of staff queued up to sign her leaving card and the £200,000 per year new Chief Executive of Worcestershire will be presented with a leaving present after a collection was made from council staff celebrating their 2.5% increase. Primark have promised to exchange her gift if she remembers to bring the receipt.

Leader of the council David Sutton will be making the keynote speech thanking Trish for all the hard work her council have done supplementing the Reading Labour Party's publicity and communications budget.

Is this really the example "Mr. Katesgrove" should be giving to the kids... standing in the road on the A327 for a cheap publicity shot?

The leader of the council ought to know better

Yes, fresh from trying to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act, the geographically challenged MP for Reading West once again hits out at the press doing their job by adding his name to this Early Day Motion.

Remember this Mr. Pot?

"We have all been breaking the rules. Let us be honest — we have all been at it, and I more than most, probably, because it is common sense to do so."

Reading Borough Council will be holding the next meeting of the planning committee in Isobel Ballsdon's house when she became flushed with embarrassment after admitting installing the wrong kind of glass in her toilet. She denies building a conservatory by the back door, as that is her utility room extension.

The committee will be asked to pass a motion as to whether or not the work will be going down the pan. The Tory group denied trying to sanitise the matter and planning committee member Fred Pugh has already conducted a site visit and told committee members: "I'd leave it five minutes if I were you."

In a surprise move leader of Wokingham Borough Council Frank Browne has announced he is quitting to spend more time with his teeth. Councillor Browne will not only stand down as leader of the Conservatives in May but will also step down from council.

He told the full council that he was leaving to pursue a new set of challenges and if anyone knew of a prime development site that had suddenly become available close to the M4 corridor, please to give him a ring at Green Issues where his detailed knowledge of the political planning process, understanding of local communities and expertise in consultation, will significantly increase your chances of success.

Today is the last day you can apply to be the new Chief Executive. Get your skates on!

Rob Wilson denied being a Gooner after an exchange with Arnold J. Aardvark, editor of the 'Premier Spurs Bashing Fanzine' Up the Arse! when the Reading East MP appeared to lend his support to a team that wasn't Arsenal.

Arnold J. Aardvark: Like me, the hon. Member for Reading East got interested in football after seeing by far the greatest team the world has ever seen. I believe that we are both Arsenal fans.
Mr. Wilson: No, I am not.
Arnold J. Aardvark: Perhaps we were both celebrating the fine doubles of 1998 and 2004 at one point.
Mr. Wilson: No, we were not.
Arnold J. Aardvark: Maybe we were both at the Champions League Final in Paris.
Mr. Wilson: No, I was not.
Arnold J. Aardvark: I stand up corrected, because I hate Tottenham.

Martin Salter complained about his Parliamentary colleague after losing the Evening Post keepy-uppy contest: "He comes into my constituency to watch Reading play... who's the political stalker now? And it's typical opportunism from a Tory, pretending to get behind Reading to curry favour with voters although I guess it could have been worse.... he might have been an AFC Bournemouth fan. Let's see which side of the ground he's in on the 19th April shall we? You wouldn't see me doing a David Mellor and changing allegiance for political purposes. Come on you Bees, I mean, you Royals."

Plans by Ivypark Limited, the owners of the Broad Street Mall to redevelop the Civic Offices on the cheap have been rejected by an all party group of councillors. The company also own the Yell building and the Rennaisance Hotel next to the planned development and submitted alternative proposals to the council.

Christopher Reeve speaking on behalf of the company said: "I don't see why the council has such a problem with paying us rent to use up all our empty office space and I can see absolutely no problem with closing the Hexagon for two years. The annual pantomime can be held in the council chamber, pretty much as it is now anyway and I'm sure we could fit the audience for some of the classical concerts into the Thames Valley Suite in the Rennaisance."

Former Tory group leader Fred Pugh has told the council that he can't remember promising Mapledurham Pavillion £1m of council money. The chair of the Mapledurham Management Committee explained: "I'm getting on a bit, how can you expect me to remember all the promises I've made over the years? It would be like asking the rest of my party to stop making up policies on the hoof. In any case, Mapledurham is a deprived area and needs this sort of project to regenerate the area. It's been neglected by the council for too long on the specious grounds that the people who live here are rich enough already. It's not true. Some people have to drive around in a Ford Focus because they can't afford a 4x4 and others are forced to change into their whites behind a sight screen. Anyway what is £1m to the council. I'm sure that with a little creative accounting it can be hidden away in the budget somewhere so that no-one will notice or we could close a few care homes."

Local Conservatives have rallied to Councillor Pugh's side and have pledged support to build the F.W. de Klerk Pavillion in their upcoming manifesto.

Ashen faced Reading Conservatives were left panicing yesterday after secret plans they've been working on for the last 9 months went missing in The Sun Inn public house in Castle Street. A frantic half hour search of the pub was brought to an end when a public spirited resident handed back the plans to Mike Townend after finding them outside on a table next to a pouch of pipe tobacco and a petition to hang Nelson Mandela.

Mr Townend, who sits on the Traffic Management Advisory Panel, thanked the finder after being handed back the fag packet, but told him: "Our plans are much bigger that that."

Staff at The Sun Inn are now expected to be ordered in early today to search for the other packet.

To David With Thanks Jeanette

Whatever could it mean?

Reading has been picked to host the South East Street Games Tournament. Street Games offers an opportunity for young people under 16, to get involved in petty crime as well as promoting a variety of urban sports such as after-school fight club, ultimate fire-starting, with a new optional element: shooting up fire stations with ball bearing guns, and tag: where contestents vie with each other to write 'Hawk' on as many cars as possible. The council hopes that the event will reach out to youngsters in more deprived areas who might not otherwise have easy access to such a wide range of victims.

The region's next generation of ASBOs will be descending on the town centre and heading up Southampton Street. The competition will see entrants from seven communities - Reading, Wokingham, Slough, Bournemouth, Hastings, Isle of Wight and Swindon - come together and beat the crap out of each other.

Reading is also hoping to host a half Triathlon competition at Green Park. Organisers are not phased by the lack of a big enough swimming facility for the 1.2 mile swim section in the area. An organiser told us: "That's no problem. We're planning to have the swim event on Prudential's land in Kennet Valley Park. It's bound to be flooded come race day."

Reading's Mayor Chris Maskell has hit back at hurtful suggestions in the Evening Post that he has spent the last 9 months eating his way through civic receptions.

He complained: "I don't know where they got the idea from that I'm always eating cakes, but I don't think it it right that the local media should make fun at the expanse of others. I've got a serious wait problem... I can't wait until lunchtime. And it's doubly unfair as I've given up eating crisps - Walkers sounds like too much hard work. Anyway all these jokes are down to a misunderstanding when I was inaugerated as Mayor. My chauffeur told me he was going to get the Rolls and I asked if there were any paper plates. A simple mistake anyone could make."

The Green Party's National Spring congference is being held this week in Reading at the Town Hall.

The conference is probably the most ambitious Green agenda to date and will discuss such important topics such as: Addressing Issues of Gender in Asylum Claims; Wind Farms are the Future of Renewable Energy; Wind Farms are Destroying Our Green and Pleasant Land and Banning Pulses: Are Lentils Responsible for Global Warming? A few emergency motions have been tabled, but this has been largely put down to the falafel and tofu bake eaten by delgates on the first night.

One party member was upbeat about the Greens' chances at the next election: "Now that Rob White has had his hair cut it's difficult to distinguish Green Party members from normal human beings."

Valentine couples are being urged to do some groundwork before booking their romantic meal out. Steve Waste-of-Space, Reading's Lead Councillor for Environment and Consumer Affairs until May, said: "Don't make your loved one sick on Valentine's Day. A quick click on the 'scoresonthedoors' website will show people exactly how their local eating places score and this should help them make an informed decision about where to go. I'd also heartily recommend that you take two condoms with you on your date and make sure you follow Reading Borough Council policy and double-bag. You just cannot be too careful, Pete Ruhemann still can't work out why there are so many teenage pregnancies in Reading. And whilst you're at it, why not book in an HIV test for you and your loved one before you go out? You might also want to consider getting a chartered accountant to go over each other's tax liabilities and contact the CSA to see if there are any hidden skeletons in the closet. Properly prepared you can look forward to a wonderful unspoiled romantic evening thanks to advice from Reading Borough Council."

Council bosses have appointed Costain as the SECE Major Framework Contractor for the construction of the new Civic Offices Headquarters after the officer's decision was nodded through at the last cabinet meeting.

Civic Services told us: "Reading Borough Council has conducted a vigourous competition to provide best value for council tax payers and Costain beat off the other contenders, Bob The Builder and Bogdan Budowniczy (Krakow) to land the contract. Although we accept that it is traditional to design a building first and then ask how much it will cost to build, we couldn't let tradition get in the way of such an exciting project. And whilst we don't know quite what we want, we do know that whatever it is will cost £50m... we think."

Scottish and Newcastle has announced plans to close its Reading brewery after their recent take over by Heineken. The brewery was the first green brewery operation when it opened in 1978 to recycle lager from the town's urinals into Fosters and Kronenberg 1664.

A spokeman for Scottish and Newcastle told us: "Really it's not about cost cutting, it's about security of supply for our raw materials. We've heard about the council's plans to clamp down on street drinking across the town and we think that they are taking the piss. Demand for hiring out the place has also slumped. We did ask the council if they'd like to hold Tricia Haines' leaving party here but the council told us that they didn't know how to organise a piss-up in a brewery and would not be taking up our offer."

It can be revealed that foreign nationals have cost Royal Berkshire Hospital tens of millions of pounds of tax payers' money on the national "Connecting for Health" project based on software from the US company iSoft. The national project, run by American consultancy Computer Services Corporation and Japanese company Fujitsu, is now two years behind schedule and more than three times over its initial £6.2 billion budget. Plans to outsource car parking to NCP owned by the Australian based Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund II will see yet more money disappear from the health service to foreign nationals.

Meanwhile dirty rotten scrounging pregnant Jamaican women have been fleecing tax payers of £13,000 a time caesarean operations at the Royal Berks Hospital instead of being forced screaming onto a plane and sent back home. Former health secretary Patricia Hewitt told us: "It's about time we exposed these health tourists and made a huge fuss about them. They are costing the NHS a massive 0.1% of their budget and help distract press attention from ex-Ministers trousering thousands of pounds working for private health care firms as a reward for diverting billions of pounds their way in the first place."

Despite using every trick in the book to get maximum publicity for the new Tesco Extra in Oxford Road, opening day fell a little flat as offers of free champagne failed to garner the new store front page coverage in the local press.

Tesco had high expectations after seeing that donating a dizzying £1,000 of the £42m cost of the development to a local charity and a pledge from local MP Martin Salter that he was going to dump Waitrose in favour of the global behemoth had provided a month long supply of free publicity. However, despite such a masterful campaign, a single column item on page three was all that the marketing budget had to show for itself on opening day.

Store manager Jez Butwell hid his disappointment, but promised to pull the situation out of the fire in time for the Tuesday editions. Minutes later the store was evacuated when alarm bells rang as frenzied hacks fought amongst themselves to cover the story and smoked bacon was reduced by 20% for one day only.

More on the new store opening tomorrow on page one, two, three, five, seven, sixteen and seventeen. And don't forget the free pullout on Wednesday.

A teenage joyrider who raced through the streets of Tilehurst at more than three times the speed limit in a stolen sports car has been jailed. Thomas Birks, 18, raced the £65,000 Jaguar XK Coupé at speeds of up to 92mph in a 30mph zone after taking the car whilst committing a burglary. However, the single count of burglary against him was ordered to lie on file by Judge Christopher Critchlow.

Mark Fraser, defending, told the court that this was yet another example of the police picking on motorists as an easy target and why didn't they go out and catch some real criminals... like his client.

Are these pieces in anyway related?

Evening Post The Diary 6th Feb
	It's all a big yolk to you journalists. Where's the investigative reporting into the Oracle team battering the opposition to win the "Oracle trophy". They should be getting panned in the press for that. I suspect fowl play from that bunch of crepes.
Mick Spreader Comment on Get Reading 8th Feb
	But even if our bunch of crepes had remained on their feet, it seems that only one team was destined to take home the glory. The Diary smelled more than a whiff of ‘fowl’ play as a team of flippers from The Oracle battered the opposition and then held aloft the winning trophy – supplied courtesy of The Oracle.

NB: Comments may be published in any format produced by the Guardian Media Group.

The Reading West MP has been caught up in a dodgy donor scandal after telling reporters that he was planning to switch his domestic shopping arrangements from Waitrose to Tesco after the firm agreed to donate £1,000 to ABC to Read, a charity he helped set up.

Mr Salter said: “I am so happy they have won, they are my favourite charity, but I deny any impropriety or bribery. This is purely a commercial arrangement between Tesco's marketing department and a local press short of stories."

Reading Borough Council has issued a press release revealing that the press release revealing that the council had received 3 stars in the annual Comprehensive Performance Assessment was the fastest press release issued so far this year. Council spokesman Oscar Mortali told the press: "We are really pleased to say that at 3 minutes 30 seconds from the report hitting the PR department's inbox to the issuing of the media communication is a new record." The good news was welcomed all around the council as Trish Haines sent a priority communication to employees telling them: "I bet you won't read about this on muckspReading." David Sutton, Leader of the council added: "This is really good news for the people of Katesgrove and I'm really pleased to be able to add my name to this council press release for no reason whatsoever. Please try to remember who I am come next May."

The council's press department has however denied burying the previous report that awarded only one star to the council for their safer communities programme. "It's not true to say that we don't have a date for publishing our response to that report. If you look on the web site you will see that that particular press release is scheduled for when hell freezes over."

The Archbishop of Canterbury has angered many people by his suggestion that Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty" and commented that the UK had to "face up to the fact" some citizens did not relate to the British legal system.

In response to the furore, the local Pakistani Community leaders have denied that the assault case between Wazir Hussein and Saeed Iqbal was decided under the system of Shari'a Law after witnesses refused to testify in the local magistrates court. A spokesman told reporters: "That is an absurd accusation. It was good old fashioned bullying and peer pressure."

Local MP, former Student Union president and purveyor of intoxicating beverages to the illiterati Rob Wilson has cancelled his visit to the Reading University Politics Society scheduled for the 7th February.

Mr. Wilson's press office told us: "Rob sincerely apologises for having to cancel the meeting at such short notice. However, postponing the meeting was unavoidable due to Paliamentary business. This was the only date that could be scheduled for Rob to request clarification of David Cameron's insistance that all relatives employed by an MP must be declared. Rob needed to check whether this dictat extended to pets and thus whether he has to declare employing his white toy poodle as his Chief of Staff."

Johnny Foreigner: Know Your Limits

Local Reading West MP Mr. Martin Cholmondley-Salter asks guest workers in our town to follow these simple rules from the Home Office for a more harmonious stay in old Albion.

• Don't drink and drive unless you are a Tory election agent
• Don't drop litter
• Put bins out for collection on the correct day
• Make sure children attend school
• Get a licence before you go fishing
• Don't touch people without their permission
• Respect the law
• Avoid spitting in the street
• Don't play music loudly
• Teach Babushka to suck eggs
• Vote Labour

Read All About It!

Reading Chronicle exclusive on court case.

Gromit Gets Life [Cont. p 94]

Curses, Wendolene has edited the page! But you can still see the snapshot.

Reading Borough Council has announced ambitious plans to upgrade street lighting in the town. The plans to replace Reading's 12,650 street lamps with new energy efficient lighting were given the go ahead by the Cabinet after being told that they would help reduce fear of crime because people would no longer be able to read critical Audit Commission reports whilst out in the evenings.

Steve Waste-of-Space, Lead Councillor for Environment until May, said: "We have allocated a budget that will allow us to change a massive 1½% of RBC's street lighting to new energy efficient bulbs per year. At that rate it will be over 60 years before the whole of Reading has been converted. We don't think that's a problem because by then we expect humans to be fitted with LEDs in their eyeballs by Professor Warwick so they will be able to see in the dark anyway."