Casino Avenue he's back, for which we should all do a little jump for joy:

"Thank you to everybody who e-mailed me about the site's disappearance, it's much appreciated - especially as most of them came from - gasp - non-bloggers! One of the things which can be a little disturbing about blogging - as with so many forms of internet communication - is how incestuous it can get. (Not got a Technorati tag? Not hosting your pictures on Flickr? Be gone from the temple of blogging!) But it's nice to have broken through that barrier. Damn, now I have to get those readers back."

The BBC are running the story of the tongue louse recently found in Lewisham, and they're kind enough to quote me:

"Despite its feeding habits, the louse was described as being a "harmless natural phenomenon" by Councillor Andrew Brown, Lewisham's cabinet member for the environment."

Of course, my biology education ended at O-level, so what I actually said drew its authority from elsewhere (and I also have to admit to a slightly more squeemish initial reaction than the press release lets on).

My quote in full:

Councillor Andrew Brown, Cabinet Member for the Environment added: "The owner of the fish definitely did the right thing in bringing in the fish to Environmental Health.  As it turned out, it was a harmless natural phenomenon.  Having sought expert advise from the Horniman Museum we know that it's an exceptionally rare case and we're extremely unlikely to ever come across it again."

My thanks to Jim Brock at the Horniman who did the detective work on this and who says:

"I have not seen this species in all my 13 years at the museum so it's a remarkable find."

Update: Skuds thinks Tongue Louse would make a great name for a band; and who am I to disagree.

There are a couple of papers going to Mayor and Cabinet this week that come from my area of responsibility.

One details the changes we're about to make to the recycling; introducing a weekly service and adding plastics (types 1 and 2) to the materials we collect from the kerbside green box scheme.

The other details how we're trying to take bins off the street. 

The Guardian report:

"Local authorities could face a cull in the number of councillors under a review launched today by the Electoral Commission. Possible changes to the number of councillors elected to represent each ward are proposed as part of a 12-week public consultation seeking to devise a new set of principles by which the commission reviews local authority boundaries."

In Lewisham the numbers were cut in 2002, so whether this'll affect us remains to be seen. 

The Electoral Commission do provide some interesting comparisons for you to think about if you want to take part in the consultation.  One of which is the number of electors per councillor:

I do have one question, and it may just be my defective maths, but if there are 13,135 adults living in Blackheath doesn't that mean that the ratio of electors to councillors is 1 per 4,378?  Somewhat higher than the figures the Commission are using in their consultation paper.

The Observer Blog has led me to how TfL would like the tube network to look like by 2016.  Here's a screen grab of our bit of the world:

Clearly it's the East London Line extension that is the big (and only) change for us.  More details here.

Just watched some sort of music prize on BBC4, home for all the stuff that BBC2 has given up on, and while I'm sure the critics are right and Anthony has an amazing voice, it wasn't him that I'll be buying tomorrow.

No, my heart now belongs to The Go! Team.

I have to say I'm less than certain about parts of the proposals. In particular I think that the rhetoric around empowering young people doesn't fit easily with the pressure will be on them to take part in 'positive' activities.  I also tend to think that carrot and stick contained in the opportunities card proposals is unlikely to work as well as envisaged and I’ll be arguing that they try and separate the mechanisms they use to pursue reward and punishment.
 
There are positives, a realisation that the fewer cooks there are the less spoilt the broth might be (ie the end to the sub-regional Connexions Partnerships); the recognition that parents are central to young people’s lives; the pressure for us to make young people involved in commissioning services.  These are all things I think we should welcome.
 
So, in my view, a mixed bag.