Much geeky excitement in Brinkster Central as Google Earth have now cast their net wider and dear old Worcester Park can now be seen in high resolution. It had been somewhat galling that originally the hi-res images stopped on a line between Wimbledon and Coombe Lane, then strayed as far down to The Plough, but at lastall the delights of Worcester Park can now be seen in their hi-res, satellite glory.

Having said that the images are about two to three years out of date as the trees at the bottom of my garden still show up, M&S looks like it's under construction and The Hamptons are little more than lines in the mud......... can't complain too much though

If you don't have a full copy of Google Earth it's well worth it if you've got broadband, although you can get the images through the link towards the top of this post.

Despite my report of the 5th Jan the Betty Boop shop is still lingering on Central Road. They must have drummed up enough "Closing Down" business to keep them open a while longer but if you want to be the owner of a 5 foot tall, full colour Betty Boop statue then they were a snip at £299.00 when I last looked.

No more news on the ex-camping shop at the top of the hill but a different piece of info in that Choices Video was rumoured to be closing a while ago but nothing seemed to come of it. There is now a sign above it offering two units 'to let' so maybe the end is more imminent.

Nothing else of import to report from Worcester Park as worcesterpark has covered last weekend's Central Road drama in his post here. It hasn't turned up on the websites of any of the local rags so I assume it doesn't rate as news.

The headline at the top of the Sutton Guardian website was the theft of Lionel Blair's dog. I wouldn't have passed comment other than I've seen him walking it there before when I've been out with the Brinkster Clan and he seemed like a perfectly nice bloke doing a perfectly ordinary thing.

I also found out about an armed robbery that took place on our very own Central Road last week. I hadn't heard mention of it on the grapevine, which is somewhat unusual, but I won't be scouring eBay for bulletproof vest to go down to Waitrose just yet (Maybe if I went to the Hunstman's........) Is nothing in our dear WP sacred!?!?!

Worcester Park isn't a pretty place. It seems that a long time ago they built a station where the railway crossed the main road and the few houses around it multiplied into the current suburban sprawl with little thought to 'planning' and such like.

I see that the spirit of town planning lives on in the Coalition attempts to crush resistance in Iraq. And how are they going to crush it? Send in squadrons of B52s? Cover the ground with the western world's finest soldiery?

Nope.

They're going to send in the town planners responsible for Milton Keynes to rejuvinate the war-torn town of Najaf. Hats off to whoever thought that one up because if that doesn't sap the life out of them then I can't think what will. Maybe Worcester Park's own supplier to the coalition, Ariba Steel, will get in on the act!?

Some local Worcester Park "yoof" decided to make off with an AA van, unaware or unperturbed by the fact that it was towing a car behind it, causing carnage as the car swung around uncontrollaby behind the stolen van on its towrope. The full article is here but the thing that made me chuckle most was one witnesses description of Worcester Park.

"There is not usually much life in Worcester Park. This is the most exciting thing that has happened in my 18 years of living here!"

Can anybody fault him for that?

Interesting snippet from the Surrey Comet website:

"Entrepreneur Ben Dunne listed as Ireland's 45th richest man in the Sunday Times rich list has plans to open a series of low-cost fitness centres in Worcester Park."

Fulla article here, if you can cope with their punctuation.