It's Weld STREET

Yes, it is nitpicky of me to point out a mistake in Adrian Walker's column today that is of no real importance: The road in West Roxbury named after Bill Weld's ancestors is Weld Street, not Weld Avenue.

But looking for mistakes was all I could do to keep from keeling over, asleep. Walker seems like a good person, a decent reporter, but his columns increasingly read like entries in the World's Dullest Column competition. It was funny/sad back in April when he was gone for three weeks (vacation?) before anybody noticed.

Walker seems to have gotten into a pattern: Recap some news story from the day or week before, then finish up with some inoffensive observation that nobody will remember 30 seconds after finishing the column (if they get that far). Today's gripping conclusion: Bill Weld has become a lobbyist, something he once sort of said he'd never become. It really wasn't anything new to anybody who'd read the news story on Bill Weld the lobbyist the day before. Compare that column to Steve Bailey's knife job on James Kilts, also today.

Earlier in the week, Walker tackled beach erosion in Winthrop. Now, don't get me wrong, I love stories about beach erosion - nature's relentless fury, global warming and all that. Give me a good full-page write-up (with map and color photos) about the breached sandbar at Chatham Harbor and I am so there. But as a metro column? A metro column that basically says: "Isn't it a shame nobody can agree to do something about erosion at Winthrop Beach?" Yawn.

The week before, he did raise questions about how that thug ex-MBTA cop who killed his girlfriend and then himself in Florida managed to stay on the T payroll for so long. But that was preceded by a snoozer on the UMass reorganization mess that really didn't say anything you wouldn't have already known from having read the papers for a few days before.

Somebody please wake me when Walker breaks out of his rut.