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Life returns to Ipswich town centre after £3.6 million revamp

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Life returns to Ipswich town centre after £3.6 million revamp

Real Ipswich town centre

The multi-million pound revamp of Ipswich town centre is already proving a hit with locals.

No sooner had the £3.6 million project been completed than the Cornhill area became a hub of exciting activity.

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When people were not tripping over steps, they were able to admire the marvellous variety of characters that Ipswich offers.

Shopper Lorraine Fisher, 34, said: “I was worried that the street drinkers, beggars, shitting dogs and criminals would have been consigned to the history books.

“But imagine my surprise at finding they are still there, together with all the lovely pigeons.

“It’s good to see the fabric of the area has not been changed.”

Council executives have even included a stunning water fountain feature, which puts the display outside the Bellagio in Las Vegas to shame.

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Retail expert Steve Walshe said: “This has made a huge difference to Ipswich.

“It is surely now only a matter of time before more charity shops, mobile phone repair shops and fast-food outlets snap up the empty stores.”

Ed Sheeran puts on Halloween disguise, looks better

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Ed Sheeran Halloween

Suffolk singing sensation Ed Sheeran donned a terrifying Halloween disguise and immediately looked much better.

Ed made the huge improvement to his looks for a concert in New Orleans in the US last night.

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This picture, taken by local paper The New Orleans Advocate (photo: Scott Threlkeld), shows our local boy with hideous black eyes, soiled chin and blood running out of his mouth and from his nose.

The effect was brilliant, hiding his normal pasty, weird face.

Sheeran, who lives near Framlingham and based his Castle on the Hill hit on the town’s, er, castle, is considering keeping the makeup on for the foreseeable future.

Fan Lorraine Fisher, 34, said: “When he came on stage covered in that terrifying makeup, he was instantly more attractive.

“I urge him to keep this disguise for as long as possible.”

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According to the New Orleans Advocate, a real newspaper, Sheeran “accentuated his take on Prince Harry’s wedding day uniform with zombie/vampire make-up that grew more distressed as the show progressed. ‘I don’t know if this make-up is sweat-proof’. He wiped the fake blood from his nose. ‘It’s all kinds of awful’.”

This is not the first time Sheeran has made the news pages of the Suffolk Gazette. We revealed how fans ruined a carrot crop after mistaking a ginger-haired scarecrow for their idol.

OPINION: It’s time for fans to unite behind Paul Lambert and Ipswich Town

The Editor
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OPINION: It’s time for fans to unite behind Paul Lambert and Ipswich Town

Ipswich manager Paul Lambert

OPINION

New Ipswich Town manager Paul Lambert pointed out at his refreshing first press conference today that football is nothing without the fans. Players might play with passion and loyalty, but they come and go. Supporters are behind the team for life.

Ipswich needs its fans now more than ever before. After years of mediocrity, in-fighting on the terraces, dwindling attendances, and this season’s abysmal start under the previous manager Paul Hurst, the club is bottom of the table and faces the implosive threat of relegation to the third tier for the first time since 1957.

The bookies are not normally wrong, and they currently have Ipswich priced at 1.36 favourites to be relegated from the Championship (source: My Betting Sites).

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Under Lambert’s experienced guidance, and with a united, loud and passionate support from the stands, we can turn it around.

Starting with Preston at Portman Road this Saturday, anyone who cares about Ipswich should drop everything and get themselves a ticket.

If the ground is rocking, the players will know that they, the new management regime and the fans are in this together.

United, we can get out of this mess under Lambert’s experienced direction. He’s played and managed at the highest levels of the game. Who cares that he managed Norwich City (through their most successful period, at that)? It’s what he does at Ipswich that matters.

We, the fans, can help him do it.

Paul Lambert press conference

Determined: Paul Lambert at his press conference today

At today’s unveiling press conference, never an easy task for a new manager, Lambert came across as shrewd, determined, ambitious and selfless.

Selfless? One quote was telling when asked about confidence in the current squad. “If the players make a mistake it’s my fault,” Lambert asserted, “as I am the one telling them what to do.”

How refreshing is that philosophy compared with the alleged management style of the recently departed Mr Hurst and his deputy Chris Doig?

And to us supporters, he acknowledged: “They pay a lot of money to be in that stadium, and they need to be enjoying it.”

After the perceived negative approach of Mick McCarthy and the mystery of Hurst’s tactics, Lambert has a nailed-on philosophy that we can all get behind. “We have to play on the front foot,” he said. “I don’t like slow football.”

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The time for argument amongst the fanbase must end here. No more derision of the “numbskulls” for apparently forcing McCarthy out. No more hounding of owner Marcus Evans and MD Ian Milne for the way the club is run. No more harking back to what we were like nearly 30 years ago. No more debate about whether relegation would actually be that bad.

It’s now that matters. Buy the tickets, attend Portman Road and support the team as one.

Together, with the players and Paul Lambert, we can get out of this mess.

Get your tickets for Saturday now. Let’s make Portman Road a fortress. Let’s unite behind Paul Lambert and our team.

Tipped new Ipswich boss Paul Lambert has big shoes to fill

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Tipped new Ipswich boss Paul Lambert has big shoes to fill

Paul Lambert big shoes

Paul Lambert, the leading contender to take over as new Ipswich Town manager, has been told he has big shoes to fill.

The former Norwich City, Aston Villa, Wolves, Stoke and Colchester boss is tipped to replace Paul Hurst, who was sacked today.

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Hurst had a disastrous reign at Portman Road, last just a few months and sending Ipswich to the bottom of the championship.

His replacement has been warned that taking over from Mr Hurst at Portman Road will not be easy.

A football expert said: “Anyone taking over from Mr Hurst has big shoes to fill.

“Which is surprising because he was only five feet tall.”

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Ipswich fan Lorraine Fisher, 34, said: “If Paul Lambert does come in as manager, as the rumour mill suggests, he will have achieved his dream.

“After Colchester and also Norwich, he will now finally be at the helm of East Anglia’s biggest club.”

Ipswich face the friendly folk of Millwall at the New Den on Saturday, but academy boss Bryan Klug will be in charge for that game.

Lambert is expected to be appointed next week.

Earlier today, the Suffolk Gazette reported how Paul Hurst was finally getting Ipswich out of the Championship at the 17th attempt.

Ipswich Town get out of the Championship at 17th attempt

The Editor
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Ipswich Town get out of the Championship at 17th attempt

Ipswich finally get out of the Championship

Ipswich Town are finally getting out of the Championship at their 17th attempt, it has emerged.

The Suffolk club looks certain to leave England’s second-tier behind, ending years of pain and mediocrity.

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And the news is even more remarkable because manager Paul Hurst has done it at his first attempt.

He took just a couple of months to achieve what Joe Royle, Jim Magilton, Roy Keane, Paul Jewell and Mick McCarthy failed to do in 16 years.

**BREAKING NEWS: PAUL HURST SACKED, NEW BOSS HAS BIG SHOES TO FILL**

Ipswich Town spokeswoman Lorraine Fisher, 34, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Ipswich Town, under Paul Hurst’s leadership, are finally getting out of the Championship.

“Relegation to League One is now nailed on, and we’re only in October.”

The club sits proudly at the bottom of the league after the latest confident and skilful performance at Leeds United last night.

Leeds looked awful and destined for the Premiership.

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Jubilant Ipswich fans are already planning away days for next season at exciting new footballing destinations like Rochdale, Fleetwood and Accrington Stanley.

Steve Walshe, from Woodbridge, said: “Finally we’ve done it. Well done to Paul Hurst and his team, and to Marcus Evans for appointing him.

“We’ll be playing Gillingham next season, which is in Kent, so the closest we’ve been to Europe since George Burley was in charge.”

World’s smallest container ship heading for Suffolk

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World’s smallest container ship heading for Suffolk
World's smallest container ship

The world’s smallest container ship is expected to arrive at Felixstowe Port later this week.

The vessel, MCS Hercules, pictured above, is en route from China and is carrying a container of plastic cutlery for retail giant TK Maxx.

Keen boat watchers will flock to the Suffolk port on Friday to watch the ship, which is just 23 feet long and big enough for only one shipping container.

The owners of the wooden vessel say it is economical to run shipments around the world because it pays its crew of six so little. They do not have any living accommodation on board for the perilous three-month voyage.

Smallest container ship

A spokesman said: “Our clients prefer the personal service that the Hercules offers.

“No longer do they have to load their container up with thousands of others on those gigantic container ships you normally see arriving at Felixstowe.

“Also we do not need to pay Felixstowe Port any money for sending out a pilot ship to meet us and guide us safely to dock. We can just glide in without any fuss at all.”

He added that the Hercules was the seventh one-container ship they had owned because the previous six had overturned and sunk in the Indian Ocean or Pacific.

Shipping enthusiast Lorraine Fisher, 34, said: “It’s so weeny and cute. It’s amazing it got here in one piece.”

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Richard Osman discovers China’s take on Brexit

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Richard Osman discovers China’s take on Brexit

Brexit flags

Without exception, Brexit continues to be planet Earth’s number one favourite topic. We can’t get enough of it: We’re bringing it up to strangers in the streets, watching hours of television about it and we here at Suffolk Gazette are demanding that Belvita or Kellogg’s make a breakfast biscuit named after this wondrous, historical event. Just imagine how well that advertising campaign would do, with slogans like “never wake up without remembering Brexit ever again!” or “a Brexit breakfast is a completely rational and intelligent choice that you have made, well done!”

Really, it’s incredible that something that happened forty-six years ago in NMCT (News Media Coverage Time) continues to be on the tip of the nation’s, no, the globe’s tongue. Every day there are new people chiming in on the debate on every social media platform, unable to stop thinking about it. Heck, you can even dabble in Brexit betting now and place wagers on whether there will be a successful deal by March 2019 or if Theresa May will still be Prime Minister by April. By the way, the latter is 1/4, while the UK applying to rejoin by 2027 is 5/6 on Paddy Power. It was only a matter of time before we discovered what those on the other side of the planet, in countries with laws that are somehow not made up by the European Union, had to say.

China, October 17 2018. It was a Wednesday. Or a WhensMaygonnamakeadealday, as it will soon be known. Comedian, producer and presenter Richard Osman of Pointless fame exists. Of course, everyone knows Richard Osman was created in a laboratory to restore balance to the universe after researchers found out Ricky Gervais would one day be famous. He is also the father of a child, and one that lives in China at that.

Every so often, Osman will tweet photos that his daughter has sent him of hilarious mistranslations found all across China. Take this one, for example, in which the Chinese government or a neighbourhood watch member in charge of a really weird street tells citizens what they expect.

For a long time, female child Osman’s pictures seemed light-hearted – it’s all fun and games on the path to discovery. However, this all changed when Daddy Osman tweeted a snippet of Chinese language that made us all reconsider the Engrish we’d been reading. Perhaps, it seemed, the people of China knew more about Brexit, the English language and how humanity should function as a society than we ever considered.

That’s right: the Chinese have a word that means both “leave” and “remain”. Sure, Osman says that he doesn’t “want to plunge us into a constitutional crisis”, but we’re not sure how this can go ignored. Some people couldn’t ignore it and swiftly responded:

We are truly flabbergasted, as should you all be as well. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see if this changes anything. There is one thing we definitely know for sure: We want those Brexit breakfast biscuits.

Photo: “Rights of Irish citizens in North a thor” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by Tiocfaidh ár lá 1916

Police force woman to remove rude Halloween pumpkin

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Police force woman to remove rude Halloween pumpkin

rude pumpkin

By Hugh Dunnett, Crime Correspondent

A grumpy homeowner who left a rude Halloween pumpkin in her window has been forced to remove it by police.

Lorraine Fisher, 34, said she was fed up with trick or treat kids knocking on her door asking for sweets.

So she carefully carved the words “F*ck Off” into her pumpkin, popped a candle inside and left it in the front window for all to see.

But while many people in Framlingham saw the funny side, some parents complained and one rang the police in disgust.

“Officers came round and had a word,” farm bean picker, Ms Fisher said.

“They actually thought it was very funny and one even took a photo of it on his phone.

“But at the end of the day they said I was potentially in breach of the peace, so they asked me to remove it. I have made it into a tasty soup instead.”

Rude pumpkin

A Suffolk Police sergeant said: “We had an unusual call about a rude pumpkin, so we sent two officers around to the address.

“We spoke to the homeowner who claimed it was a joke to keep children from knocking on her door trick or treating.

“She has now removed the offending fruit and we will not be taking the matter any further.”

Ms Fisher, who is divorced and has two grown-up children, added: “I expect when I become a grandmother I will need to be better behaved.”

A neighbour who asked not to be named said: “I thought it was brilliant. It made my day when I saw it in her front window.”

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