Cabe Space are asking councils to sign up to their parkforce pledge:

"We recognise the value of having staff on site during daylight hours in every significant park across our borough. We are committed to finding ways of developing and sustaining our investment in the people who care for these public spaces. We see our Parkforce as an integral part of the wider neighbourhood management team who share responsibility for making our community a safe, popular and beautiful place to live. "

I'm pleased to say that we're signed up to the pledge in Lewisham and that in the accompanying booklet Parks Need Parkforce Lewisham gets a mention:

In Lewisham, park staff numbers were increased in 2000, resulting in a total of 12 dedicated onsite staff. As a result, the number of residents describing parks as ‘good to excellent’ increased from 32 per cent in 1998 to 52 per cent in 2004 – 4 per cent above the London average.

The BBC on the launch of our weekly recycling service and a recycling lottery that goes with it (as you'll see their reporting isn't entirely accurate, but full marks for trying):

A cash prize of £500 is being offered as an incentive to make people in a south-east London borough recycle. Lewisham Council is launching its Green Box Lottery on Friday and anyone who orders a bin and registers can be entered into the six-monthly draw.

I'm sure there will be further coverage in the local press but if you want the LBL press release then its here:

Lewisham Council launched the Love Lewisham: Green Box Lottery on Friday 9 September to promote the borough’s new weekly recycling service. The new service will begin on 17 October and to get if off to a flying start a different lucky winner will be drawn at random once a month for six months to win £500.

A recycling goody bag will be sent out to all Lewisham residents in October telling them everything they need to know about recycling like collection times, what can be recycled, how to order a green box and how to register for the Love Lewisham: Green Box Lottery!

To order a green box or find out more about recycling call 020 8314 7171 or email recycle@lewisham.gov.uk.

I've been quite involved in thinking about the lottery, and hope it'll be a big success.

The BBC also give a little plug for our recycled garden.

I know I'm getting a bit boring about this, but only a couple more days and we can forget we've got a national summer game.

I heard the bloke from the ECB - Giles Clarke - arguing his side of this deal on TMS at lunch yesterday.  He seems to have gone from arguing that this is the deal that will sustain the grassroots of the game to saying its the only way of funding the national team.  Maybe those objectives aren't incompatible, but what he and the ECB keep on avoiding is the inevitible drop in the numbers watching the game. 

Mr Clarke has also given an interview to Cricinfo:

Is there a risk that youngsters will grow up without any mainstream TV exposure to cricket and so it will be an alien game to them?
What's mainstream TV in the digital age with analogue switch off? This argument has no water at all. Take a look at the viewing figures for the terrestrial channels. The decline is particularly marked. More relevantly, youngsters will be receiving screen grabs of wickets and big shots on their mobiles. That's what will interest them. Cricket wasn't an alien game before TV arrived anyway!

So there we go, the future of Test cricket is about screen grabs on your mobile.

My Lewisham reminds me that it's Open House London coming up and there are a range of sites for us to visit in the borough.

I'll be at SELCHP and will be posting photos here if I remember to take the camera.  If thats not your thing then here's the rest of the list:

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I've come across this site that lets you generate a map of all the countries in the world you've lived in or visited.  This is what mine looks like:

I've done an interview with for the one o'clock news today about recycling.  The angle was comparing us with Lichfield who've done rather well at recycling domestic waste.

It gave me the chance to talk about our green box lottery and going to a weekly recycling pick-up.

The vox pops, which may or may not make the final cut, were pretty good; one saying she'd seen the green box lottery on the front of a local paper this morning, and another saying he thought we were doing rather well at making recycling easier.