Blessed by beautiful sunshine, last week saw a great few days for our area when Stockton-on-Tees Council hosted the annual conference of the Association of Civic Hosts.

This is the regular get-together for the people who run civic catering and hospitality for local authorities all over the UK, and it was a coup in itself for Stockton to win the occasion for its home area. From Monday to Wednesday, delegates were hosted at the magnificent Tall Trees Hotel near Yarm and that proved to be a great shop window for what the area has to offer. The conference opened on the Monday evening with a Wild West theme, and it was a great ice-breaker with a combination of bucking broncos, line dancing, casinos, and excellent American themed food. The guest of honour was Stockton's Mayor, Councillor Jean O'Donnell, and she will have a great photo for the scrapbook, complete with gun and smoking peace pipe in hand!

Yours truly kicked off the Tuesday morning session with a presentation on positive thinking, and it was really enjoyable to speak to such an enthusiastic and lively audience. The theme remained very upbeat with excellent speakers including Mark Bradley on customer service, and a fascinating session from Bill Beswick, assistant manager at Middlesbrough FC.

The Tuesday afternoon session was held at Preston Hall, followed by a short walk in the sunshine to board the Teesside Princess for a pleasant cruise back to Yarm. After a gala awards dinner on the evening, it was all too soon time for the final presentations on Wednesday and an end to a very successful few days. Anita Brown and her amazing team deserve every congratulation for putting together such a successful event, and I'm sure it will be followed by many organisations who want to return.

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I was less enamoured with the Ideal Home Show which I've just seen at Earl's Court in London. It's a while since I've been, and I'm sure it's changed for the worse in style. There was less emphasis on new ideas, and more on the hard sell from stall after stall. It frequently felt more like being in an Egyptian market, without the charm, and visitors who paid £13 for the day would probably have expected more than simply being sales fodder.

Despite the current security worries, the crowds were still there at Earl's Court. Strangely, though, at Harrods, there was definitely a quieter feel than normal and even their usually popular Oyster Bar was deserted.

The place to find a crowd was on London's creaking tube service. The trip from Earl's Court to Picadilly Circus was an experience to forget on an over-heated cattle truck. The time to count the blessings came on the trip home from King's Cross in the peace and style of GNER. If all public transport was that good, the car makers would shut up shop.

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Hartlepool's Town Hall Theatre had two very good attractions last week, both well supported by very good houses. Wednesday night saw Otis Lee Crenshaw & the Black Liars on stage. My elder offspring Martyn, a comedy gourmet, was well pleased. In the current world situation it is nice to find an American who can laugh at himself and his country. Otis Lee Crenshaw (visiting Hartlepool as part of a prison exchange scheme he claimed) and the Black Liars, alias 2000 Perrier Award winning stand up Rich Hall and his cracking band, lifted the mood perfectly. An opening which included comparing Hartlepool and the U.S (because we both voted for a monkey as our elected representative) was a prelude to a hilarious musical set. The colourful band Orson Carson, The 'Reverend' Alvy Ronson, Nick Pynn and Myron T Butram on steel guitar all deserve special mention for a bluegrass set played with a good deal of style. Some side-splitting improvised tunes, inspired by members of the audience, tested the band and Mr. Crenshaw mixed this with some old standards like 'Women Call It Stalking' and 'The Shetland Pony Rodeo Song'.

Otis Lee Crenshaw richly deserved both encores and still left the audience wanting more, catch him if you can!

On Saturday night the stage was filled by the SNAP Theatre Company's take on Anthony Burgess' controversial Clockwork Orange performed by, unusually, an entirely female cast. I'd first seen a (different) version of this disturbing piece about thirty years ago, and asked a (much) younger friend, Greg Hildreth, for his views. In his opinion, other than this (admittedly notable) amendment, the performance drew accurately from the original text, allowing for several omissions which presumably would have proven difficult to reproduce in a live context. The notion behind the all woman players, according to the programme, was to explore the idea of women being as capable of vicious acts as men are. This objective was successful to a certain extent, whilst not particularly adding to the narrative, it did up the sexual tension of the piece in several particularly uncomfortable sequences.

The performance also seemed to avoid drawing from Stanley Kubrick's film interpretation of the book as it included the missing final chapter of the story which was absent from the movie.

The intense performances were complemented by an atmospheric electronic soundtrack, fast projections of dark imagery and a minimalist approach to set and props.

Quite a week, then, of light and shade for Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre!

Published: 02/04/2003