The "Cone" Tree
It’s not often that my hometown makes it into the heady heights of The Guardian. We did make it into the not-so giddy heights of the Daily Mail a few weeks back but that was only because er, a 13 year-old boy is about to become a father. Actually, we’re already streets ahead of the UK in this respect. Poole already had one of the youngest mums in the country back in 1997 – a 12 year old named Jenny.
They grow-up so quickly nowadays.
Anyway, the reason good old Poole is in The Guardian today is not because of it’s über-randy 12 and 13 year-olds (some elderly locals say it’s due to Poole’s proximity to “the French” who are just 45 minutes across the English Channel on the Hovercat) – it’s because of this year’s Christmas Tree.
Now normally, a big Christmas Tree for the Town Centre costs around 500 quid. But Poole council have seen fit to splash out on a 15 grand tree instead this year. And it’s fake. And shaped liked a cone. The reason?
Because if it blows over and kills someone then somebody is liable for it.
according to the bright spark behind it, Richard Randall-Jones.
The result is what one local shop worker has called something that looks like:
A big wizard’s hat or a lump of AstroTurf or something that belongs in roadworks.
Now I might be a bit ignorant when it comes to conservation but I’ve heard of protecting the rainforest and tree conservation – but protecting humans from trees is a new one to me.
It seems to me what the council have done here is spend 15,000 pounds on what at night looks effectively like a huge illuminous traffic cone. By day it looks like something out of an Astroturf remake of the Wicker Man. It would have been cheaper, and probably less ridiculous, to have issued the whole town with hard hats in case of falling branches from a real Christmas tree.
Rest assured that when I go back home this Christmas, I’m going to make sure this thing electrocutes the hell out me.
Update: Oh dear, we have made it into the Daily Mail again. At least the cone trees are keeping the pre-pubescent parents off the front pages.
Yeah, something like this happened in Modbury too. We didn’t get a cone, though. We got a pine pole with some pine branches tied to it. In a sort of flat Christmas tree shape.
It actually looks fine at night (it’s by the side of the main street). But during the day it looks a little crap. That said, I guess it would be awful if someone was killed by the town Christmas tree.
All sparked off by classic skewed Daily Mail reporting again – it’s the local traders who decided to do this, not the Council. And it is reusable, unlike the £4k a year spent on a traditional tree, which the public complained about taking up too much space. See it with the lights on, as I have have, and its actually rather nice.
@Tom, It sounds almost as weird as the “Cone Tree” although at least yours was made of real pine – not Astroturf.
@Jessie, Do you work for Poole council? I don’t understand why new decorations had to bought every year for the traditional tree. My mum has a tatty old box of Christmas decorations she’s been using since about 1973. Why can’t the council stick the decorations in a box until next Christmas like she does?
Or even better, why not encourage local schools to get the kids to decorate it every year?
I’m sure at night it looks nice but everything looks nice at night with lights on. Even a pig walking around town with Christmas lights tied to it would look rather fetching. The point is that during the day, it looks an outdoor-5-side football pitch on a cornetto or some kind of 21st century tribute to the Wicker Man.
And I simply don’t believe a huge number of people complained that the tree was “taking up too much space”. For God’s sake, don’t let these people near Poole Park. It will look like a car park by the time they’ve stopped complaining about the number of trees “taking up too much space”.
What’s the matter, Nick? Cone you take a joke? Are you off to watch a film later? Cone-an the Barbarian, perhaps?
On a serious note, at least that tree would be quite difficult for someone to rob.
Erm, read the small print in your “Cone-tract”.
Dave Clifton: This is “T-Pau”
Alan: Fanny
Haha, well I wouldn’t know anything about nicking Christmas trees from Southampton football club reception, leaving a “ransom” note saying “drop Benali or the tree gets it”, then dragging it up Hill Lane leaving an incriminating trail of Christmas decorations behind before plonking it down in a lounge that it was too small for and which had a bath virtually hanging through the ceiling.
And then watching Francis Benali score his first ever goal in over 500 games for the club in the very next fixture that Southampton played. And then reading about the whole incident in The Pink newspaper.
I wouldn’t know anything about that officer.
King Road…King Road…
Ah, Franny Benali. They were the days. Him together with Ken Monkou and Jason Dodd always meant a tough day at the office for any opposition forwards. Today a new generation stands in their place (not literally – the Dell’s been turned into flats, now) and the likes of James, Schneiderlin, Harding, Murty Jaidi and Trotman must be begging for someone to kick-start their goal-scoring careers. Morgan Schneiderlin especially – unlike James he’s been starting in midfield all season and is still yet to score. Missed an absolute sitter at Boundary Park, he did. You should go and nick his car or something.
Let it go Mick – The Saints aren’t marching on anymore.
They’ve never really recovered from losing Benali and Monkou.
The Saints are WELL marching on. They’re the 4th richest team in the country, they’ll go up in the play offs this year and go up to the Premier League the year after. They’ll be European champions two years after that. You mark my words. Barcelona might be doing alright now, but have they got Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana? Your silence speaks volumes…
I was horrified to notice from the photographs that the people of Poole are allowed into public areas without any type of protection on their knees and elbows and without any type of safety helmet, disgraceful. I imagine that in the 25 years that Poole rather irresponsibly did have a real Christmas tree that the local hospital was overrun with victims of festive municipal tree injuries.
I must finish now before all this typing causes repetitive strain inj……. AAAAARRRRGGHH!
how the hell do christmas trees kill people???????????
like reeeaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllly?
They don’t. It’s just the local council said they “could” do in order to save money. However, I’d love to show them how a Christmas tree could kill someone.