Flooded is an emotive word, conjures up images of Boscastle, or maybe New Orleans. Yes a couple of weeks ago there was a fair bit of untreated sewerage going into the harbour, which took about three days to sort. I work on the water in and out of the harbour and it was a rough few days, though only really nasty near the point of discharge.

Sunday and yesterday there were sewer covers on the east side clearly under some pressure after big rainfalls, and there was again some waste being discharged though less than last time. I wasn't working but saw the TV van and several of us were speculating as to what story they might be covering, the discharge wasn't big enough to make it an obvious answer. There is nothing by way of sewerage to be seen in the vast majority of the town centre.

As to Betsy's original thead, yes prices here are in many cases a bit higher than in some other areas, one or two landlords spring particularly to mind. I think, however, that we are probably close to national average prices whereas much of the northeast is lucky enough to enjoy below-average prices. Our F&C shops could also lower their prices if they sold less gargantuan portions, which would also mean that we had fewer half-portions of leftovers to clean off the streets at ratepayers' expense.