There are usually a few polite words said when a chief executive leaves office, a handful of gifts are handed over, drinks are supped and everyone gets on with the rest of their lives.

When Glyn Thomson decided to return to Liverpool to pursue a new career as a churchman in the city's second most deprived parish, it was as if half of Gravesham turned out - come to that, half of North Kent.

The quiet spoken, gentle former chief environmental officer of Gravesham needed a theatre for his departure from the council - and Gravesend's massive Sikh gurdwara for his farewell from the coimmunity.

People from all walks of life turned out. They ranged from the Sikh, Muslim, and Buddhist commuities to council staff past and present, politicians, Christian church leaders (Glyn had rescued one church when its priest left by taking on the role of lay reader).

He is taking on a major task at St Luke's in Liverpool.

He know what he is letting himself in for: throughout the years he has been in Gravesend he has commuted back and forth each weekend to be with his wife and family on Merseyside.

Here's hoping his knowledge of the inner workings of government and local government, grants and people will now help to transform life for people up there.

His successopr, David Hughes, chief executive of Tonbridge and Malling, takes over at Gravesham tomorrow: he is being shared with that council in a rare job split. he comes from one of the most successful councils in the country. He should find it an interesting time.

Gravesham has adopted the executive leader format following Labour's win at the local elections. The boss man is Cllr John Burden who is sure to be closely watched by Ed Miliband over the next few years after the Leader of the Opposition turned up in Gravesend three days out of four to ensure at least one Labour victory in Kent. he got his wish - one Labour victory.

The intriguing question is where were the Conservatives as their four year hold on Gravesham was wiped out. Not one notable turned up.

So was lost the chance of a clean sweep. Ooops.

(Alan Watkins apologises but he is on holiday for the next fortnight).

Today we have the last word on last week's local council elections after the fun and games of May 5 (and way beyond in Medway's case). What's really interesting is the unpredictability of the result in this part of Kent, which is encouraging because it seems people do vote on local issues - to a degree. There was one consistency which reflected the national trend - and that was the Lib Dems had a pasting everywhere. Fascinating, though, that while Labour took control with a degree of comfort in Gravesham, this was sandwiched between fairly ringing endorsements of the Tory administrations in Medway and Dartford. Our voting system came under scrutiny with the AV referendum and the nation threw its weight resoundingly behind the status quo. An interesting fact in Medway that might show just why the Conservatives are so enthusiastic about first-past-the-post - they gained less than 49 per cent of the total vote and grabbed 70 per cent of the seat. Yet it didn't quite work for them in Gravesham where they were kicked out of office despite gaining comfortably more votes overall than Labour.

Did you know it's the FA Cup final tomorrow? You wouldn't think so, would you. Some of us old enough to remember, will recall the halycon days of the 70s when the nation stopped for a week in the run-up to the Wembley showdown. Still, millions of us will sit down to watch Stoke take on Man City tomorrow. For the neutrals, of whom there will be many, if you want to pin your support on someone - how about the Pottery side? We have an interesting connection as revealed in today's Medway Messenger. Most football fans will know that Stoke manager Tony Pulis used to be Gills boss. You might not know that one of his main coaches Adrian Pennock was the Gills skipper who led the team when Gills won the play-off final at Wembley in 2000. The year before both men tasted a wretched penalty shoot-out defeat to....Man City when Pennock missed a spot-kick. Not much motivation for tomorrow then? C'mon you Stoke!!

A three-day week might be great for some but it presents challenges for us journalists. News doesn't stop and we are still producing the same number papers and pages, web updates and radio bulletins as any 'normal' week. It's an incredible busy time with politics to the fore, a certain marriage, and the climax of the football season with Gillingham giving us fans the usual palpitations.

Gravesend has become an election battleground with Ed Miliband, Baroness Warsi and Ken Livingstone on the stump, as Labour bid to wrest control of Gravesham from the Tories. We're expecting a heavyweight visit today.

In Medway tonight we're gathering the three party group leaders on the council as well as a Green Party candidate to ask the simple question: Who should run Medway? Also joining them on the panel is Professor Tim Luckhurst of the Centre for Journalism at Kent University, which is hosting the hustings meeting. Chaired by our political editor Paul Francis, it takes place at the Pilkington Building at the University's Medway campus in Chatham.

While we'll be concentrating on local issues, the little matter of AV might come up. There's a view that there is widespread ignorance of the system and how it works. Our reporters are putting this to the test today in a major exercise to establish how Medway is likely to vote and do they understand what AV is about.

It's Olympic deadline day for ticket orders tonight and we're asking people have they applied and if so, what have you bid for. Have you taken a punt on being one of the lucky few to watch Usain Bolt defend his 100m title or have you chosen a less mainstream competition like synchronised swimming? It will be interesting to see if the folk of North Kent really take advantage of being on the doorstep of the 2012 games.

Like I said, there's a lot going on ...

With seismic global events taking place (quite literally in the Far East) the local news agenda can sometimes appear, well, a little trivial to some. We, of course, would disagree. It can be an antidote to some of the grim headlines coming out of Far East and North Africa. And despite what some may believe, local newspapers are packed with good news stories, from heroic tales by ordinary people to fun community events. But, also, none of us are disconnected with huge events going on around the world. Such is the nature of our global village that the maxim of 'six degrees of separation' has never been more true. In some cases it's one degree. As in the case of Gravesham councillor Mike Wenban, whose son Michael lives in Tokyo with his Japanese wife and their children. Mike, who is deputy mayor, was quite sanguine about the situation when he popped into our Gravesend office this week. In fact he gave our news team a fascinating insight into Japanese culture and the way of life. It was clear from his impromptu 'workshop' why the word 'looting' has not appeared in any of the dispatches from Japan. Every massive story like this will have a local connection. We saw it in New Zealand recently with a local teacher caught up in the quake. I recall saying to our journalists after the tsumani that every sizeable community in the UK would have a link with that event. The same applied, to a degree, with 9-11 and 7-7.

A ludicrously long time since my last posting for which I apologise to my legions of followers, who have no doubt been logging onto this blog and left deflated to see that it was dormant. I've been, well, a bit busy but now back up and running on the blog front. I should take a leaf out of Channel 4 news legend/icon John Snow who told us on a visit to Medway on Friday that he had to blog first thing in the morning at a quiet time because there was no way he'd be able to fit it in later once the news agenda for the day was in full flow. You got the feeling during his talk at the Bob Friend Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent at Medway, that it was, basically, a chore. His bosses insisted he did it daily because it brings in 'traffic' - a word he used with thinly-disguised disdain. But here was no luddite, no technophobe, no journalistic has-been hankering for the days of typewriters and telex machines. He loves Twitter. A relatively recent recruit to the phenomenon, he confessed he tweeted a lot and found it a valuable tool in sourcing and checking information as well as imparting it (telling his followers what was coming up on the nightly news, for example). An informative and entertaining evening included a question from Medway council chief executive Neil Davies enquiring about his trademark ties to which he replied that it was the only way an older newsreader might fit with a smart new studio set brought in some time ago.

I said I'd been busy and one reason was preparing for an exciting new brief in overseeing our Gravesend and Dartford operations. It is a long way from my first day as a journalist, stepping into the dusty corridors of the Isle of Thanet Gazette some 26 years ago. Well said it is a long way - about as far as you can get without leaving the county (which I haven't in that time). But there's still an excitement and anticipation for any journalist tackling a new area. First impressions, are, well, dangerous so I'll reserve them.But for starters I like the fact that the car park at the St George's Shopping Centre multi-storey charged me a quid for about three hours. The High Street is beautiful, even on a dreary Monday morning in February.  I've been recommended an Italian cafe called Leonardos for exquisite spag bol, apparently so I look forward to trying that out. Next stop Dartford.

There is plenty of talk from government ministers about the need for localism. It is a phrase that is going to become increasingly part of the vocabulary in the next few years.

Kent's leaders are talking about creating a local economic partnership (a Cameron alternative to saying localism) consisting of Kent and Medway.

Elsewhere councils are looking at creating partnerships that equate to courses for horses.

One such involves the Thames Gateway councils.

Another is along the A21 from Hastings to Tonbridge. It includes councils with little or no interest in county boundaries.

Several councils are exploring the idea of being in partnership with other authorities facing sporting challenges, for example, but teaming up with different councils to provide, say, housing support services.

Medway, Swale and Gravesham already provide a combined building control department.

There's a Multi Area Agreement over transport and other services. Dartford is added to the Medway/Swale/Gravesham mix.

Some council leaders are looking elsewhere than to KCC for their futures.

Which might reflect why Medway would look extremely carefully before considering a tie-up with KCC. After all, one of the prime reasons for arguing that there should be a unitary authority free of KCC influence was because of the way that Kent dictated to the other authorities, and cash that should have been spent in the Medway Towns on tackling their many problems was milked away to rural areas.

There is a Big Seven that includes Medway, Kent, and Brighton and Hove.

They've successfully teamed up to control costs - something KCC powered through some years ago when it started Kent Top Temps, then diversified into buses, stationary, furniture and gardening.

But these days Kent County Council is only of interest to districts, boroughs and unitaries for what it can offer - not what it controls.

***

Tough times call for tough measures.

There was a time when a bean feast for councillors included caviar, champagne and chauffeur-driven cars.

Not now.

You'll be lucky to get a slice of cake and a squash these days.

I hear that tomorrow the new play area at Capstone Farm country park will be launched by Cllr Howard Doe with a .... cup of tea.

It's tough being a Cabinet member in a recession.

Having said that, I thought it was down to mayors to open things...

***

Seems one of my contacts was wrong.

Cllr Janice Bamber, the portfolio holder for Customer First, is no longer wanted by her ward members after they voted to oust her (and hubby Ken) from their ward seats on the Hoo Peninsula.

Rumour had it she, at least, had found an alternative seat as a candidate for Rainham Central. This time the source was wrong.

Brigita Amey, the Gillingham and Rainham Conservative Association chairman denied the story, saying they have not yet started the selection process for next year's local council election and have not received an expression of interest or any communication from Mrs. Bamber.

Happy to put the record straight, and apologies to readers for getting it wrong.