Tanni

Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson has today announced that she is retiring.
Tanni is a true Welsh sporting legend who has raised the profile of disabled sports sky high.
She has been a true inspiration to all young athletes and the Welsh sporting scene will be much poorer without her.
However I doubt that she is about to disappear from public life and I am sure she will be using her new-found freedom to progress many of the causes she is so passionate about.

Do we really need a speed bump out side Cardiff Castle, we ask on our pages today.

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Another day, another ambulance crisis

How many more ambulance crisis stories do we have to run?
In today's Echo we tell how every single ambulance in Cardiff was parked up outside the Heath hospital because there was no beds for the patients.
And up in Llantrisant the control room admit that lives were at risk last night as they didn't have a spare ambulance.
Can you imagine this happening in London or indeed any of the big English cities.
It would be plastered over the tea-time news and all over the front pages of the national newspapers.

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carling cup

What a shame that our troublesome rail network should have put such a dampener on the last Carling Cup final to be played in Cardiff.
The Echo regularly reports on rail delays and road problems and I suppose there is a sense that we all just get used to complaining about it.
But when it hits 80,000 people on their way to a cup final then it really hits the fan.
We had to print some pretty unpleasant quotes in today's paper from families who were not impressed with their visit to South Wales.
This, of course, is very different to what most fans who have attended other cup finals have said. They love the stadium, the city centre, the bay and the people.

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bomb alert in penarth

Bomb scares are always difficult subjects for newspapers.
Splash them all over the front page and you risk giving credibility to a hoaxer and feed the possibility of copycats. Ignore them and you fail to tell readers why their town centre was sealed off and what exactly all those police officers were doing.
This morning we had an early phone call about an incident at Penarth's Royal Mail delivery depot.
Within minutes we knew that nearby streets had been closed off to the public and that the Bomb Squad were on their way from Hereford.

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more ambulances and charlotte

You'd never believe the trouble we go to to ensure some people are treated fairly in the paper.

Take our Health Minister Brian Gibbons, for instance.

The Echo gave him a fair pummelling yesterday for the shambles that is our ambulance service. We take no pleasure in that but we have a role to play in representing our readers - and at this time our readers are being let down by a very poor service.

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brian gibbons and the nhs

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Today's Echo delivers a hard-hitting message to Welsh Health Minister Brian Gibbons about the state of our ambulance service.

Week after week we have been featuring ambulance horror stories - from police having to take patients to hospitals, taxis being used as makeshift 999 vehicles, and yesterday, fire crews having to take a man to hospital in their fire engine.

Today we draw the comparison with a third world country - and we take no delight in doing that.

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ambulances

A man is stabbed in a pub. Help is needed and someone calls the ambulance.
But the ambulance doesn't come.... and they instead ask a crew of firefighters to save the bloodsoaked man's life and take him to hospital.
This was the terrible scenario in Maesteg in the early hours of Sunday morning.
I genuinely believe that we are sitting on a national scandal in Wales which is about to blow up in the most horrific way.
We have had close call after close call as police, St John's ambulance and now fire crews step in to save lives and take patients to hospital.
Yes our ambulance service is creaking and obviously not fit for the job.

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st athan roads

Yesterday I sat and heard Rhodri Morgan signal that the Assembly is seemingly backing away from any plans to upgrade the road links to Cardiff International Airport.

This should have been one of the key benefits to South Wales from the creation of the new Military Academy.

As we know this will create 5,500 jobs in St Athan and be the equivalent of setting up a new town in the area.

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rugby

The back page had some strong words today for Wales coach Gareth Jenkins after Saturday's abysmal show in Edinburgh.

Journalists don't take any pleasure in criticising sports teams for their performances - particularly so when it's your national team.

Today Delme Parfitt delivered a hard-hitting analysis of where Wales are going wrong. We would like to feature as many views as possible on this subject in tomorrow's Echo so if you've got a view e-mail us.

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crossword

We've managed to upset a good section of our readership by changes to our puzzles page over the last few weeks.
We've introduced more puzzles, giving readers better value for their money.
Unfortunately that also meant that the size of our regular crossword grid has been downsized to make room for this new content.
It is fair to say that our readers have made their views quite clear that the current grid is not big enough.
So from Monday our crossword grid will be increased - making it bigger than any national newspaper crossword grid.

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crossword

We've managed to upset a good section of our readership by changes to our puzzles page over the last few weeks.
We've introduced more puzzles, giving readers better value for their money.
Unfortunately that also meant that the size of our regular crossword grid has been downsized to make room for this new content.
It is fair to say that our readers have made their views quite clear that the current grid is not big enough.
So from Monday our crossword grid will be increased - making it bigger than any national newspaper crossword grid.

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snow

That flutter of excitement as you open the curtains to see a blanket of white soon disappears as the reality hits home.

The car skidded all over the road on my way to work, stories begin to emerge of how the weather is causing chaos and then the calls start flooding in to confirm that normal life is shutting down for the day.

Yes, South Wales is snowbound. Schools are shut, the roads are all down to one lane and everyone has one topic of conversation.

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sainsbury, pierhead and snow

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IT is years since I visited the National Museum.
On Monday night I was one of dozens there to hear Sainsbury's boss Justin King talk about how he turned round the struggling chain to the point where today they are at the centre of takeover rumours.
I had forgotten that the museum is such a wonderful attraction - and free too!
I, for one, will be returning there in the coming days and would encourage others to enjoy this great facility.
Today we report on historical news about our Pierhead building.

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rugby, janet street porter

Some people just can't help it.
Take Janet Street-Porter, the journalist and sometimes TV broadcaster.
Now the Echo doesn't normally waste too much time on minor celebrities like Ms Street-Porter.
This is a woman who has an unfortunate habit of putting her foot in it when it comes to this side of Offa's Dyke.
She is very much in the mould of Jeremy Clarkson, outspoken and loud - only without the talent.
Her latest outburst is against the Burberry workers in South Wales.
Street-Porter, who is very much part of the London society, wrote in a national newspaper that she is not happy that these workers from South Wales (who let's not forget are about to lose their jobs) have managed to spoil her plans for a glamorous night out at the Bafta party.

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drugs, rugby

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Matthew White was the head boy of his school, a Grade A pupil with the world at his feet.

Until he sank into the filthy drug world which ended up robbing him of his life.

Today his parents have taken the courageous step of using the Echo to warn other youngsters to keep away from drugs.

Matthew's story hits home hard as it is a real reminder that this can happen to any family, from whatever strand of life, at any time.

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