Blogs - Newsroom and Reader Blogs for Epping Forest, Waltham Forest, Wanstaed & Woodford

Claire is a trainee reporter, who moved to Walthamstow from the Grim North and joined the Waltham Forest Guardian in May 2008. She was a student at UCL and went home to train at the Press Association Training Centre in Newcastle, but felt London Calling and came back. This blog chronicles her trials and triumphs as a "newbie in the newsroom". She likes writing, arguing, politics, religion, weird music and Chinese food. She is uncomfortable writing about herself in the third person.

That Wednesday feeling

It's that time of the week again - that time when any vague semblance of control over one's sanity goes right out the newsroom window.

All change

I have crossed over to the Dark Side.

Heavens to Betsy, it's an early blog!

As I'm going on holiday from tomorrow for the rest of the week and would, of course, never deprive the blogfan(s) of an entry, the usual weekly round-up of WFG frolics has been brought forward to today.

Champagne soirees and fond farewells

If there's one thing I've learned, after attending a private viewing of an art exhibition last night, it's that free champagne is a dangerous thing.

All councilled out...

I think I am officially all councilled out.

Venturing out into the (not so) big, bad world

I've been out a-meeting and a-greeting in the last few days, which is unusual.

Be careful what you say around reporters...

My colleagues have failed to learn that if they say something is "definitely not for the blog", I take that to mean "definitely for the blog".

Goldfish: the surprisingly charismatic aquatic creature

If I listed all the snippets of conversation FCR (that's Fearless Chief Reporter, for those of you who have forgotten) and my other colleagues have told me are "not for the blog", I would probably have a fairly comprehensive indictment of the level of (in)sanity in this office.

There comes a time in every blogger's life when a little hyperbole is called for

It seems the borough's residents are destined to be buried under a mountain of uncollected rubbish, kicking and screaming beneath the cumulative filth - or something equally hyperbolic.

Well, at least the world hasn't ended...

The title, if anyone is unsure, is a reference to the huge experiment going on underground on the Franco-Swiss border at this very moment, using the Large Hadron Collider, which may or may not cause a black hole that will swallow the earth. But on to less apocalyptic things.

Frustration, contemplation and end of probation

The news week begins again and so far I've found myself thwarted at almost every turn.

Knife culture claims another life

Another young man has been stabbed to death in Walthamstow.

Dogs, and fires, and death! Oh my!

A fire, an assault, the closure of the Stow and an inquest - it's been a busy couple of days in Waltham Forest.

Magistrates' court melancholy

This job just keeps getting more and more glamorous.

Ratlike cunning to tell a dog's tail

Well, here's a turn up for the books.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Silly Season

It's been a week of minor triumphs.

Riding the journalistic rollercoaster...

This week has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

A little hacked off...

Oh yes, I can make puns on my surname too.

Community Councils - why so angry?

It's that time of the week again. It's Wednesday afternoon. The paper is ready to go out on Thursday morning, everything's been topped and tailed and stories for next week haven't quite started to come together yet. It's a strange twilight time when the office goes quiet and people start drifting off towards home. There's a lull in the usual banter and those of us left resort to talking about supermarkets. It's blogging time.

Beautiful Budapest and brain scrambling NHS stats

I've only been back from holiday for three days and already my brain is on the point of disintegrating into a quivering pool of mush inside my skull. It might or might not have something to do with the fact that my week actually started on Tuesday after Monday's "welcome" day in Watford. I've been in a bit of a time warp since then, especially as I was so tired on Monday that I barely noticed what was going on.