A glorious, but also fateful day

I celebrated the All Saints Day Eucharist at St John's for a different dozen people this morning, and Emma sat in the congregation, until she had to leave, as she was being picked up and taken to a conduct a funeral service just after. 

Ashley called at the church at the end of the service and we walked and talked together. He said that he'd only received formal official notification in a letter received at the the Motorpoint Arena reception desk yesterday morning, stating that as of today, South Wales Police are no longer going to be responding to calls from RadioNet users but answering calls exclusively from the commercial radio system backed by 'For Cardiff' since the breakdown in relationships between Cardiff BCRP Board and its Chairman and Crime Manager, despite previous Council and Police undertakings to the contrary.

Some of the top people running 'For Cardiff' are ex-cops. They were only willing to hear the account of the breakdown given to them by fellow ex-cops. There's been amazing indifference about this on the part of Council officers, to whom it was reported, when a formal complaint was made. So much political time and energy was expended in launching the Cardiff Business Improvement District scheme that spawned 'For Cardiff', that investigating the conduct of 'For Cardiff' management so soon after its launch would have been highly embarrassing, given that continued use of RadioNet, was endorsed as an existing asset available to the project at an earlier stage. 

The Police claim not to prefer one radio system over another and earlier gave an undertaking to respond to calls from both radio systems,  but reality tells a different story. 'Operational reasons' or 'lack of resources', can always be used and there's no obligation to account publicly for this change of decision. It would be a different matter if Cardiff Business Safe had launched a civil court action against all parties involved, but as a voluntary not for profit organisation, no funds held in reserve were ever set aside for litigation, only for outlay on the radio system in the event of a breakdown. 

There's always the possibility of trial in the court of public opinion via social media of course, but I doubt there's much interest in these issues out there on anybody's part. It would only ever come out if a major catastrophe or breakdown in public security involving secure communications failure occurred in the city. Then it would only be part of the inevitable blame game achieving nothing.

For ten years Cardiff Business Safe did its utmost to provide the best quality of service and equipment  to the city centre through RadioNet. Now this comes to an end. Let's hope all those who promoted this initiative won't live to regret it and have their reputations damaged, their trust and goodwill undermined behind the scenes, in the way that of Cardiff Business Safe was dealt with.

To cheer myself up after this news, later in the day I went out and bought a wide angled lens for my Sony Alpha 68 DSLR camera as I promised myself I'd do once the insurance reimbursement came through.  I also bought a solid state hard drive to install Linux on and fit to one of my laptops. If I'm satisfied with it, I may convert another. The price of SSDs has come right down this past year.

Christmas puddings have been cooking all day today, two of them, one big and one small. And yes, we did get around to making our 'Stir Up' wishes a month ahead of time. Clare has also made a start on Christmas cake too, soaking a second lot of fruit, ready for cooking tomorrow. Kitchen aromas are arouse seasonal anticipation, way ahead of the wreath on the door, and candles on the table.