A Rembrandt in The Oracle and a pub crawl with licensing!

I recently had a very interesting couple of Saturdays. 
On Saturday the 7 December I was all over Battle Ward (walked over 5 kms in total).   We did a local business Street Surgery on the Oxford Road, our normal surgery,  I judged a mince pie competition at Argyle Community Church then popped into the local Scouts Christmas fair where I had donated a lemon drizzle cake.  I created an album on my Facebook page as a different way of sharing my day which you can see here: Busy Saturday 7 December 2013

Meeting Computer Care (South) Ltd during our business street surgery

Saturday the 14 December was interesting in a different way.  In my capacity of Chair of the Arts Forum I was kindly invited to the Reading Gallery Christmas Event.  There I was faced with the slightly surreal situation of viewing a Picasso and Rembrandt in Crabtree & Evelyn.  It was a lovely evening and I had a lovely chat with Lord Lawrence about his ambitions for the Vivian Frederick art collection.  You can read more about the Reading Gallery here.

I popped home for a couple of hours then I was out again at 11pm with our licensing team, police and Cllrs Ennis, P Jones, Woodward, Vickers and Ballsdon.  The pub crawl I mention in my title was in fact a visit to local bars to see what our licensing team do.  Not a drink was sipped. 

It was very interesting to listen to the police, licensing team and local bar managers.  We saw they steps they all take to ensure Readings revellers are kept safe and we were also shown the custody suite at Loddon Valley. 

We ended the night in the CCTV room at Reading Police Station where we saw the CCTV cover Reading has.  I was very impressed with the quality of the cameras.  I reckon they could read the time from your watch! (possible exaggeration).