Bus cuts serve as a warning

Cuts being made to one of Brighton's busiest bus services from Monday are a warning sign for the town.

Brighton and Hove Buses is making the temporary reduction on services 7 and 7a because it does not have enough drivers.

Despite extensive recruitment extending as far as London, the company still can't get enough people able to afford Brighton house prices on Brighton wages.

Brighton and Hove is also having to put more buses - and drivers - on other busy routes to counter delays caused by traffic congestion.

Not much can be done about soaring house prices by the council, except to provide as much low-cost rented housing as possible.

But it should take notice that if bus staff wages have to rise so that people can afford to live in Brighton, higher fares will be an inevitable result, blowing a hole in the local transport policy.

There's also no reason why the police and traffic wardens should not clear illegally-parked cars from the area outside Brighton station and Western Road in Hove, where buses are most delayed.

The current level of enforcement is a scandal and the council is moving at a snail's pace towards taking over these powers.

Unless the bus company is helped, and helped fast, further problems are certain.

Cost of caring

The Martlets Hospice in Hove has performed wonders since it took over caring for terminally ill people from the Tarner Home and Coppercliff.

But providing what one patient calls a little paradise is an expensive business costing more money than the hospice normally raises.

That's why the Martlets has set aside the next few days as a dedicated fund-raising week with a series of special events.

Do your best to help so that at the end, hospice staff can say: "Thanks a million."

Win over Ali

When the Bishop of Horsham was asked by Channel 4 to talk about the Church of England's work with young children, he readily agreed.

But the Right Rev Lindsay Urwin did not know he would be confronted by spoof interviewer Ali G, who uses rap language to ask politically incorrect questions.

The Bishop realised he'd been had when asked if he could perform a miracle by moving his chair off the ground.

He didn't do that but performed a minor miracle in getting the best of Ali G in other arguments so that it was the funnyman who took the rap.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.