Ross Heritage Centre was busy over the half term week with various activities for children. On Thursday, Tina Walton of the Green Eyed Monster Company showed local children the art of making model fossils. In the photo are Elliot, jack, mum, Jackie Sweeney, Ollie, Tina Walton, Louis, Alicia and Anwen.

On Friday, children made various models ranging from soldiers to brides, via Russian Cossacks and Red Indians. In the photo are Nichola Price, Mary Sinclair-Powell, Debbie Dew-White and Sue may with Lucy, Harriette, Charlotte, Matthew and Abigale.

Police in Herefordshire have issued a warning about the use of ball bearing (BB) guns in public places - you could find yourself face to face with a police firearms unit.

The warning comes after an increasing number of incidents in which individuals - many of them teenagers - have been seen carrying and in some cases firing BB guns in Hereford city centre. In recent weeks two BB guns were confiscated from teenagers after they were reported firing them inside an underpass and were then caught and challenged for their behaviour by police officers.

Even more seriously, a 21-year-old male was arrested after two motorists reported having pellets fired at their vehicles on the city's ring road. One of the pellets struck a female moped rider on her helmet, fortunately without causing injury. The arrested man has been released on bail while enquiries continue.

Police believe that many of these guns are being purchased locally. No licence is required to sell BB guns or imitation firearms and there is also believed to be little or no advice being made available to any potential purchaser on where and how they should be used. A BB gun can cost as little as eight pounds and in the majority of cases is visually indistinguishable from a real firearm.

PC Colin Kerfoot from Hereford Police said, "Any incident in which members of the public are fired at is clearly unacceptable - the fact that we have avoided serious injury in these cases is only by good fortune, especially as pellets have been fired at moving vehicles.

Most youngsters buying these imitation guns are unaware of their dangers - firstly, that they can actually harm others if shot at close range and secondly, if used in a public place they will be treated as a genuine firearm by police officers and this could lead to the deployment of armed response officers.

The reality is that these BB guns look almost identical to genuine firearms. Police officers have a duty to ensure public safety, and therefore, each incident will be dealt with as if the firearm is a real one. If members of the public, or police officers are threatened with the weapons, then the person holding the weapon can expect to be dealt with robustly."

PC Kerfoot added: "We are asking for the co-operation of parents to ensure that any imitation firearm is used properly and safely and kept away from public place and also to consider whether it really is appropriate for their children to be carrying such weapons in the first place. I would also urge shopkeepers not to sell these guns to children under the age of 17 unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian."

The two BB guns seized by officers in Hereford will now be destroyed. Any parents concerned that their children have such imitation firearms can hand them into police stations across the county for their safe destruction.

Over the past seven years in my role of 'Accidental Photographer', I have taken hundreds of thousands of local scenic and general news photographs, many of which have never seen the light of day and others, which have become well known. Over the weekend, I threw just a few of them together to make a test DVD. I think of myself as an 'Accidental Photographer' because, 'Photographer' is a label given to me by the press and I have never even considered photography as a career. I take photos as a means to an end for 'Wyenot News' as a way of covering the news. In reality, photography is not my favourite subject.

Photography is a subject that people expect me to be interested in and I've spent many an hour when photographing an event, cornered by some nerdy type who insists on telling me about his Nikon GTX with integrated knobs plus toast making facility and its advantages over the reel to reel, steam driven version he had before in the old days of film.

Below is a low quality version of the weekend's efforts. If you like it, you can download a higher quality version, which is not full DVD resolution but should still be reasonable if played full screen by right clicking the yellow link below and saving to your computer. If the general consensus is that people like it, I will eventually run off a proper high quality version with many more photos - to sell . . .

[Windows Media, higher quality video and audio downloadable version. Right click and 'save target' 47Mbytes]

The music
In my first attempt at making this short film, I used two tracks by Doctor Strangely Strange's 'Kip of the Serene's - 'Strangely Strange but Oddly Normal' and 'Dark Haired Lady'. I like this music much better but changed at the last minute to one of my own, to keep the film fully in-house.

The music used in this final edit is a recording I made whilst messing around with a synthesizer and a piano at home many years ago now and I have used it here simply because it's a tune for which I own the copyright. Due to some of the sounds produced with the instrument during the recording; and due to my scatological sense of humour, I initially named the track, 'A fart at 3am after beer and a Chinese takeaway'. (I guess that has totally unromanticized the film.) Later though and rather more subtly, I renamed the track 'Nocturnal Movements' for the sake of album it was released on. When I recorded it, I was trying to recreate the kind of track I used to like to listen to in my youth during periods of feeling 'relaxed' (euphemism for stoned). It was somewhat 'Tangerine Dream' influenced.

The album, 'I am the cat who walks by himself', which I released under the pseudo name 'Palaeolithic Man' sold quite a few copies in United States and Europe at the time. As it turned out, 'Nocturnal Movements, from that album, fitted the film quite well. If you listen carefully (through headphones recommended for the stereo effects,) when the piano comes in about 2/3 way through, you can hear the note I fluffed. The piano part was quite difficult to play as I added it last and, as the rest was played 'off the cuff' - recorded 'live' and I had not used a metronome 'click track'. Getting the timing right was very difficult. The final sound on the track was also recorded live, using a piece of equipment in my own bathroom and, as well as putting a nice a 'full stop' on the film, hinting at its most probable future, it adequately describes the way I feel at the moment having been on antibiotics all week.

Congratulations go to St.John Millinczuk and Nella Boyd on the birth of their beautiful son. This little boy, whose name is yet to be decided, arrived on Wednesday 23rd May weighing 8lbs 9oz. He was sleeping peacefully when I turned up to take the photograph below so after a quick chat I left Nella to make the most of it but hope to catch him awake some time soon.

Best wishes to both of you and your proud families.

A new exhibition of paintings and prints opened in the Dennis Potter Room at Ross Library on Tuesday, 5th June. The exhibition is of works created by four women who live in Herefordshire. Three of the ladies, Caroline Redford, Anne Young and Donna Helme are studying for their BA honours degree at Hereford College of Art and Design whilst the fourth, Ali Rose Clifford is studying at Studio 10 under the guidance of Rob McCarthy.

Wyenot News was invited to the opening of the exhibition which will run until 19th June.

STROUD HOUSE . 30 GLOUCESTER ROAD
ROSS-ON-WYE . HEREFORDSHIRE HR9 5LE

Tel: 01989 768320

Herefordshire youngsters who dig dinosaurs visited their local libraries this half term. Children aged between 4 and 12 years old had the chance to make their own dinosaur fossil and find out more about these amazing creatures at a series of Dino Dig events which were staged across the county.

Anne-Marie Dossett, reader development librarian, said: "All children are fascinated by dinosaurs and these sessions offer a fun way for them to find out more."

At Ross Library, Katie, Eleanor, Harry, Sophie and Ryan made a giant pterodactyl in a 'Decorate a Dino' session on Friday. Brave customers will have the opportunity to view the flying monster when it takes up residence, hanging from the ceiling in the children's library.

If you use Tiscali as your Internet Provider and have sent any important email over the past few weeks, to anybody, it is worth checking that it was received, and resending it if not. Preferably via a much more reliable email provider. (I recommend Google Mail)

There has been a major issue, country wide over the past week or so with users of Tiscali, where mail which has been sent and appears to have gone out correctly has just disappeared into a black hole.

The problem, as most email problems are, is reputed to have been caused by people sending spam mail, which resulted in the Tiscali domain being blocked as a sender of junk mail.

My own received email count has been very low this week, so I suspect the problem does not stop with Tiscali - other providers may have suffered a similar problem but just not said anything about it to their customers. Tiscali had to eventually admit their problem following a report in the Daily Telegraph. I suspect other providers are staying quiet though.

It is not often that I recommend a service but in the case of email, I thoroughly recommend Google Mail. I have completely dumped Tiscali as an email provider and switched entirely to Google Mail. So far, the service has proved to be excellent!

I still do not seem to receive all mail sent but this is generally due to either user error on the part of the sender or to the sender's Service Provider.

In the case of sending news items to Wyenot News, I recommend either sending by snail mail or, if emailing, telephoning as well, to make sure they have been received.

As a free additional benefit to those local businesses supporting Wyenot.com, every week Wyenot News chooses one local business at random to feature in the current issue of the weekly on-line news magazine.

Thatch Close is a beautiful Georgian farmhouse, set in extensive, colourful gardens in the midst of unspoilt countryside, making it the ideal place to stay for those interested in nature or those who simply enjoy peace and quiet.

Proprietors Marian and Edward Drzymalski have thirteen secluded acres set within farm land, where guests are welcome to roam through organically maintained fields and spot the wide variety of wildlife which inhabits the immediate area, including rabbits, squirrels and foxes or buzzards and owls. There is even a badger sett within the grounds. . . .

For further information, click here to go to the Thatch Close page on Wyenot.com.

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Wyenot News, 1, Hillview Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. HR9 7EY

If you would like to order prints from Wyenot News photographs, please click here.

Prints are only available for photographs taken by Wyenot News (Not of those which have been sent in by readers).

Prints of 'people' photographs are only available to those directly involved in the news event covered. i.e. I do not sell prints of people to the general public.