Cleveleys News

Blackpool Football Club has been in a right old mess for some years now, and last year owner Owen Oyston appointed his daughter as chairwoman. We managed to get an exclusive telephone interview with her: [telephone interview begins] NC: Hello? CN: Hello this is Cleveleys News. Is that Natalie? NC: Certainly not your honour, I never even met the girl. CN: Sorry, which girl is that? Am I speaking to Natalie? NC: Yes, yes of course. Sorry I got confused there for a moment. CN: Your voice sounds very gruff. NC: Sorry about that, my big floppy hat fell over the mouthpiece and muffled my voice. Is that better now? CN: Not really. Did you say “big floppy hat”? NC: Yes. CN: Is this Owen? NC: [coughs] No. CN: Okay. Well Natalie you’ve been chairwoman of Blackpool FC for a while now. How do you feel about the club’s performance? NC: I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved here. When I bought the club in 1988 for a pound it was on the brink of collapse. Look at it now....

To boldly go where no one has gone before . That was the motto of Star Trek , the enduring sci-fi franchise in which the crew of a starship travel through the universe encountering new places, new species, and new experiences. However, when a £1million Star Trek exhibition opened in Blackpool two years ago we had a strong sense that this was somewhere we HAD been before. Carol Stenburg The original curator of the exhibit was one Carol Stenburg - a New York born entrepreneur who already had a history of failed exhibitions. She was the director of a Lego exhibition called "Art of the Brick Ltd" which was dissolved after 2 years, and a tour company "Exhibitours Ltd" which went into liquidation owing £17,811. That may not sound a lot of money, unless of course it is owed to you. Cleveleys News reported this detail on 12th July 2016 before the doors even opened: Curator of new Blackpool #StarTrek exhibition Carol Stenberg previously ran a Lego exhibit (diss...

Ooooh hello again loves! It's me, Dee Dee, Cleveleys' favourite pensioner back with another blog all about life in Cleveleys from the relatable persepective of an interfering old harridan. Well! This week I was shocked and dismayed to read that ALDI has been threatened with legal action by a British farmer who says the budget supermarket ripped off his trademark chipolatas. I can't believe that some jobsworth yokel who thinks he invented sausages could have the audacity to accuse such a wonderful British institution like ALDI of something like this! Personally I love ALDI, and LIDL and do all of my shopping there. As I have my grown-up daughter and her husband living in our attic I have quite a few mouths to feed so the savings I make there are fantastic. I'm particularly fond of their knock-off products, their version of the Bounty bar is one of my personal favourites. I always keep a multipack next to the loo, as I tend to get a bit peckish when I'm "e...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So says an old proverb. Well, local amateur publication The Gazette have certainly been fooled at least twice by charlatans that we at Cleveleys News immediately recognised and exposed. So shame on them. There was Barry Carr from Rossall Gate, Fleetwood, a member of the BNP dubbed “neighbour from hell” after he repeatedly harangued, harassed and fat-shamed the lady next-door. It made national news when Carr was given a ten week jail term suspended for a year and ordered to pay his victims £200 each in compensation. Gazette were also all over the story, but what they didn’t mention in their coverage was that they had been publishing Carr’s intolerant rants on their letters page for years. Former BNP candidate and @The_Gazette letters page mainstay Barry Carr has appeal bid rejected and his sentence increased. More pages for them to fill... pic.twitter.com/3aPtV9Ge6y — Cleveleys News (@cleveleysnews) February 6, 2018 ...

Let’s face facts - the high street isn’t what it used to be. What was once a wide array of independent shops selling things that you couldn’t buy anywhere else is now a wasteland of bargain stores selling cheap tat that nobody really needs or wants. Blackpool now has so many empty and boarded up shop units it looks like a post-nuclear-apocalyptic landscape (and thanks to the increase in spice users it even has zombies wandering around to complete the look). Decades ago, small businesses like butchers, bakers and candlestick makers were threatened by the arrival of the first supermarkets. A few survived (candlestick makers seem to have fared the worst) and today those that remain serve a dwindling customer base of old people who didn't really want decimalisation, never mind supermarkets. Once that audience has gone, who knows what will happen to those last bastions of local fayre. But even younger generations have witnessed the collapse - record shops, electronics stores, comput...

29th March 2018 Gullible I am both outraged and saddened to read so many negative articles about the seagulls in Cleveleys. So a few seagulls have dive-bombed the odd pensioner, stolen their chip barm, or pecked out their eye? Big deal. They are only obeying their instinct. As well as attracting seagulls, Cleveleys also attracts the elderly in large numbers, and they can be just as troublesome. A seagull has never stopped suddenly in the street whilst walking in front of me, scraped my ankle by driving its mobility scooter too close to me, or driven in front of me at 3mph looking for a disabled parking space when I’m already late for the school run. The council have made it illegal to feed seagulls in Cleveleys, yet they continue to fund meals on wheels and feed the pensioners! Mrs C. Taffy Cleveleys Doddy For more than two weeks now all I seem to hear about is the death of Doddy. It’s in every newspaper and on every radio station, Doddy this, Doddy that. Am I goin...

Ooh, hello loves! It's me, Dee Dee, here with my first blog about life as a trendy old woman in Cleveleys. You know, I really can't believe how lucky I am to live in Cleveleys, sometimes I have to ask complete strangers to pinch me just so I know I'm not dreaming! Only the other day I was in Home Bargains looking at the synthetic loofahs when I asked a nice young man (about 55 I'd say) to give me a pinch. Ooh, the look he gave me! Anyway this week I was just at home, eating the LIDL version of a Bounty bar whilst on the toilet, when I heard a voice outside. I quickly finished the chocolate bar (which was really yummy - you can't tell they aren't real Bounty bars) and wiped up so I could take a look out of the window.  What I saw out the window horrified me. There were three young people walking on the prom, and they looked like they were up to no good. What sort of upbringing must they have had, that's what I'd like to know. Because I don't kn...