A Happy New Year to you all! We are delighted that the number of courteous businesses recognised in our Ilfracombe courteous town initiative has risen to 93. You can see those who have already received their certificates and stickers here. There’s still time to nominate courteous businesses in Ilfracombe.

A journey up to London was a good experience today. Staff of Cross Country Trains and Great Western Trains were polite on both journeys, out and back. It was good to see a helpful attendant in the Gents at Paddington assisting a customer having difficulty with the change machine (it now costs 30 pence to [...]

All too often, we are ready to complain without thinking. While, as a nation, we may have been too ready to put up with mistakes or poor service in the past, now we are just as likely to err too much in the opposite direction.

Why is it that, in the business world, our major complaints are about poor communications, a lack of communications and sheer anger when we can’t get an answer from someone when it’s easier than at any time in history to reach people by car, letter, phone, fax, mobile, text and email?

. . . the world seems a better place. Yesterday evening, a solitary evening primrose plant, which I had transported 200 miles during my recent house move, opened up its first, flagrant flower.