Lest we forget

The purpose of the original Reasons To Be Cheerful series was to celebrate and promote the best that Birmingham had to offer in terms of places, events and people. Since then, I've done Achosion I Laweni about Cardiff and begun Reasons To Be Cheerful Part II about Oxford and Abingdon. It seems, though, as if the features might be taking on a second less happy function: preserving the memory of certain local institutions for posterity.

Last month I discovered that the QI Building here in Oxford is soon to undergo a major renovation - the bar will be altered, the marvellously eccentric bookshop lost altogether.

And now news has reached me that the unique Cardiff institution that is the Glamorgan Staff Club will soon be closing its doors following a decision by the various councils which run it. Not just a blow for toothless whiskered afficionados of real ale, but also for local community groups like Cardiff Friends Of The Earth who regularly use the rooms upstairs as venues for meetings.

I just hope Spillers isn't the next to go.