Political Correspondent Sally Biddulph blogs from Parliament

Vote Blue, Go Green went the slogan and David Cameron hopped on his bike, encouraging us all to ditch the diesel and switch to pedal power. In these times of rising fuel prices, we could all do with getting on our bikes. But what do you do when your wheels are stolen? Well a few weeks ago, the Conservative Leader’s bike was snatched from outside a supermarket near his London home. He’d hopped off the saddle for only a few minutes to pick up a few bits for tea. When he came back his bike was gone.

Well a Sunday newspaper soon got on the case and about 48 hours later the bike was returned to a delighted Mr Cameron. Journalists from the paper had helped to track it down and return it to its rightful owner. Top detective work. But unbeknown to Mr Cameron, while it was stolen the bike’s front wheel had been removed and then re-attached. “I was pleased to have my bike back,” he told me, “but I had no idea that the brakes hadn’t been re-connected after the wheel was put back on. When I tried to stop at traffic lights, there was nothing there and I raced on through. Luckily there were no cars coming the other way.” Lucky too perhaps that no photographers were following his bike’s maiden voyage or else he’d have been papped jumping a red light and that would have made headlines in the following week’s Sunday papers.

Its official: going green is going global.

More and more of us are thinking twice about the products we buy, the places we go and the food we eat. But, do eco-friendly products really work as an alternative to mainstream supermarket goods? In a series of special Meridian reports consumer correspondent Elisa Mitchell has been investigating whether organic cleaning and beauty products are worthy alternatives.

We’ve asked a family of four to test popular green products and to keep a video diary to let us know how they get on. So, did they decide to go green or are the regular brands still number 1? Find out here.

What do you think? Do you swear by eco-friendly products or are they just the latest must have trends destined to fade at the glimpse of something new?

Discuss it all here!   

Everybody wants to live the dream – but very few of us actually achieve it, and so often spend weeks/months/years grumbling about how things should change – without actually doing anything about it. Not so Tim Kevan, who at the relatively tender age of 36 retired from his barrister job, moved to North Devon to surf, and got a book deal with Bloomsbury.

Nice work!

His first literary outing, ‘Why Lawyer’s should Surf: Inspiration for Lawyers at work’, is a collection of inspirational writings that examine a variety of areas of the mind and body. Receiving a number of positive reviews from the press, you can read a whole heap of extracts from the book over on Tim’s blog. Of which the snippet below is one of my favourites.

“Billy Hamilton, one of the great surfers of the 1960s and step-father of big wave surfer Laird Hamilton said, “To become the energy of the waves, that’s the main idea. You take when the water gives, and you give when the water takes.”

Now he is working on his second book, a novel, and despite much probing from our good selves, he has convinced us that Bloomsbury are keeping everything under wraps, and can’t send even a snippet - even though it’s now in the final stages of tidying up. A shame indeed, but fear not literary fans, as we shall certainly keep you up to date with Tim’s progress.

Meanwhile – he’ll be spending his days at the beach, riding the waves and generally having a great time… Sickening isn’t it!

Tim Kevan, we nevertheless salute you as Meridian Blog’s Pillar of the Community!

It’s been a long time in coming for eager 15/16 year olds across the country all summer long – and with provisional results for GCSEs showing an improvement of 3.5%, including Mathematics and English, compared to the last academic year, it should be a day of happiness for many youngsters around the region! A little like Michael Brown from Brighton, who has done exceptionally well with four A’s in all.

And while they’re busy leaping for joy, with 65.7% of the exams taken awarded A* to C grades, this is your chance to prove just how happy you are for them with the help of ITV Local! Simply pop over to our online form, fill in the details of the GCSE star, and we’ll publish your congratulations. Or, if you’ve got a video of the happy moment that envelope was opened, or the outpouring of delight that accompanied an unexpected A* or two – why not send it to ITV Local Yournews, and share it with the rest of Meridian.

Come on, let’s congratulate Meridian’s youth… Fill in the form, send in the video – or simply leave your message of success below!

And that is precisely the problem that is blighting Rachel Gibson. After purchasing a property with a picture window that looked across beautiful tree top views, she was forced to replace the clear glass with frosted.

The problem is that her new apartment overlooks other houses, and the permission to build was conditional on the window being opaque. This meant Rachel was left no choice but to let builders go ahead and put in place obscured glazing, leave her in a flat almost entirely reliant on sky-lights for natural illumination.

Having successfully sued the developers, Eddie Mitchell’s company Gee Development were ordered to buy back the apartment, but are now claiming that they are not in a position to be able to do so. The dispute remains unresolved.

In a world first ITV Local will be bringing you all the action from the FA Cup early rounds LIVE!

In the first game of the world renowned competition Oxfordshire’s Wantage Town will be battling it out with Isle of Wight’s Brading Town. Kick off is at 6.20pm tonight and you can catch the full match live right here on ITV Local’s dedicated FA Cup channel. The cup itself will be there so make sure you visit www.itvlocal.com/meridian/facup to catch a glimpse of sporting history!

Well, as players and fans gear up for tonight’s big match the team’s leaders couldn’t be more elated to have their teams play apart in the FA Cup. 

Here’s what Phil Morre, Director of Football at Brading Town F.C. had to say about tonight’s game:

‘Everybody at Brading Town Football Club is tremendously excited about our first ever venture into The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON. Not only were we delighted to be accepted into the competition, but to be chosen by E.ON and ITV Local as the team to kick off the 2008/09 FA Cup competition is amazing ! Brading Town’s FA Cup match against Wantage is the most exciting day in the club’s 150-year history.

Yesterday saw students up and down the country braving the nerve-racking situation of opening up those A-level result letters and finding out how they’d done.

In the South East it is likely that most were happy as results soared above the national average. It is estimated around 30% achieved A grades. However, despite the increased pass rates and the increase in A grades in the region, nationally only 3% achieved 3 A’s or more.

Discussion on A-level results inevitably focuses on the debate as to whether or not they are getting easier. For those taking them this is, for the most part, largely irrelevant with plenty riding on the outcomes of two year’s hard work.