A table tennis table yesterday.

The above picture was taken in Golden Square, a fenced area of benches and statues just behind Regent Street in That London. The table tennis table is real, not an ornament, and if you look closely you will see that it is equipped with bats and balls for the lunchtime game to kill that time between finishing your alfresco (rhymes with Tesco) sandwich and heading back to work. I was impressed at such an amazing idea, simple yet amazing. Why don't more areas like this provide a fun way to spend your lunch break? I know we haven't really had the weather for it just recently, but come the summer when office workers like to sit outside and eat, they'll be queueing up for a game. As we sat in Golden Square on Tuesday afternoon, Mandi didn't want to play as she had never played table tennis before. The only people to ask happened to be a gang of youths having some kind of fracas at the other end of the square. It turned out that they were having this fracas with a couple of under cover policemen who wanted to search them.

At one point, before I realised what was going on, I had intended on approaching the lads and asking them if instead of fighting, they resolved their differences with a table tennis tournament. Divide yourselves into two teams, mixing the two rival gangs up to encourage a sense of working together to achieve a goal, and play to they are down to two remaining players, declare a winner then all shake hands and go round the corner to the donut place to celebrate.

I have been very critical of my home town of Nottingham, or to be more accurate I have been very critical of Nottingham City Council. First of all there's the way that instead of issuing an apology for the mistakes of the past, (Blackboy Hotel, Maid Marion Way, Victoria Centre, Broadmarsh, Royal Concert Hall), they have carried on making them with an arrogance beyond comprehension, the latest being the demolition of the Odeon cinema to make way for unnecessary student flats. When I first moved back to Nottingham at the beginning of 2007, it was a buzzing city and you got the feeling that they would try anything to entertain. A lot of people were against the redevelopment of Old Market Square, which was actually one of Nottingham Council's rare good ideas. This space was perfect for City Pulse, a live music event lasting three days, markets, Christmas ice-rink, big wheel, and whatever else they fancied. The space was always in use. Nowadays, none of those things happen. Nottingham voters made an error in getting rid of the Labour council and allowing a Tory council in. Not that I support or trust either party, but at least the Labour council knew how to have fun. The money is there, so why not spend it?

The Market Square is the first place I thought of when I saw the table tennis table in That London. In common with most towns and cities, Saturday night is like the Wild West. Nottingham was recently named as one of the safest city centres to enjoy a night out in, however it is just the centre that has a police patrol. Admittedly Nottingham is one of the few places where you can feel safe at night, (I once had to wait for a connection in Leeds after dark and was terrified of the atmosphere, I was on my guard at all times as the anticipation of a mugging was never far away), but maybe this is an approach that the police need to look into? The council supply an outdoor table tennis table, or maybe one of those beer garden games such as giant Jenga or Connect Four, for the purpose of keeping violent behaviour at bay. We already have followed the lead of several cities, (or we might have thought of it first, I don't know) of having street guardians handing out lollipops, flat shoes, and other calming method, so this is where Nottingham can be the innovator once more.

As soon as a slight altercation is reported or spotted by the police, the perpetrators are taken to the table tennis table where any disagreement is sorted out in a sportsmanlike fashion. Fighting over a woman? Winner gets her hand. That sort of thing. There could even be posters up all over towns, to accompany the 'no drinking' signs that already decorate most areas, advising that we are in a 'no fight zone', and all disagreements are to be dealt with at the table.

You voted against the idea of a mayor Nottingham, which was an idiotic move wasn't it? Imagine what would have happened if my aim to run for mayor had been successful!

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