For many years the Christmas lights in Wycombe's town centre have been appalling. Regular readers will know of my critical opinions towards them and rightly so.

Year by year the lights in our High Street have got worse as fitments disappeared, presumably because they no longer worked, until last year only the furthest end of the street was illuminated.

You can imagine how pleased yours truly was when this year some new lights appeared. Now our entire High Street is filled with luminaries.

When I first saw the new lights my immediate reaction was that they looked like ping-pong balls cut in half.

Knowing the sort of thing the powers that be give Wycombe I feared that when they were lit up the emphasis would most likely be on the 'pong' rather than the 'ping'.

However I thought it best to reserve my judgement until I had seem them switched on. After all it would be unfair and even unprofessional to criticise without giving the new lights full consideration.

Last Thursday saw the annual Christmas light switching on ceremony so the other day my good self nipped into the town centre after dark to view the new lights.

No doubt everyone is wanting to know my verdict on the new lights. So here it is.

Unlike traditional lights these new fitments actually show up in the daytime so there is a double bonus from them.

I think the new lights are very good. Naturally it would be nice to see further investment in Wycombe's municipal Christmas decorations next year to give us an even better display.

Yesterday your humble servant happened to be in Central London on business.

I was being driven home down the Marylebone Road when I asked Watkins, my driver, to divert down Regent Street so yours truly could view the Oxford Street lights.

“By George” I exclaimed upon seeing the lights in Oxford Street. “Do you know I think this year the lights in Wycombe are actually BETTER than those in Oxford Street!”

Directing my driver to pull over I whipped out my portable telephone and fumbling around managed to turn on the camera function to take a quick picture of the Oxford Street lights (see photo at the top of the blog) so you can see what they are like too.

I'm completely flabbergasted that for once Wycombe has done something better than the metropolis.

Things are looking up here and it looks like being a very merry Christmas in Wycombe town centre this year.

What do you think?

*Don't forget to read my regular column in this Friday's edition of the printed version of the Bucks Free Press!