First tonight, you are being watched. We all know we live in a CCTV society, but you might not be aware to what extent. Ours is one of the most watched societies in the world with an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK, that's roughly one for every 14 people. It's also estimated each one of us makes up to three hundred appearance on CCTV cameras each day as we go about our daily business. They're on our streets, in our shops, at cashpoints, on buses, on tubes, pretty much everywhere -- and now they're being installed in some homes in an effort to combat anti-social behaviour. Croydon council are trialling the scheme in unidentified houses in an area where they say residents' lives are being made a misery. But privacy campaigners say it's an infringement of human rights. Where do you stand? You might as well tell us, because you're probably being filmed as you stand there, anyway!
Among our other stories tonight: services at private 'out-of-hospital' centres across the whole of north London have been suspended while an inquiry is carried out into whether negligence by a private contractor led to the death of an elderly patient. And a PE teacher at an East London school is annoyed that fifty of her pupils who were taken on a trip to watch a gymnastics competition had to pay for their own travel. Transport for London say the pupils didn't qualify for a free travel scheme because sports events were not deemed to be 'educational'?
One man who won't have to worry about how he pays for his travel for a while is Stuart Tinner. He was plucked out of the crowd at Saracens game against South Africa last night to take part in a half-time competition and ended up £250,000 richer. The 24 year old Job Centre worker had to kick a ball onto the crossbar of the uprights - a virtually impossible task for anyone other than Johnny Wilkinson. But not only did Stuart manage it, he managed it in his socks! He says he's going to blow part of his new fortune on a house and a new car...as well as a Saracens season ticket - the least he can do for relieving the club of a quarter of a million pounds!
And continuing the Rock Gods theme of this week, Status Quo are on the programme as they kick off yet another tour. They're in Croydon tonight so we've sent a camera down there and Lucy will have a chat with the boys for us. They never seem to take themselves too seriously, Status Quo. I mean, their latest album is called 'In Search of the Fourth Chord'. More randomly though, Quo have a triple-cd Christmas album out soon featuring 60 festive classics as well as a new single featuring Rick Parfitt and...er...Rolf Harris!
See you at Six
Matt and Katie
