It’s every reviewer’s dilemma: you decide to assess what you hope might be a favourite, and it also happens to be the work of someone you know, like and respect.

You want to enjoy the product, but try as you might you find it wanting and are sorely tempted to ignore your findings, scrap the sketch and try another week.

But what kind of Dyson at Large blog would you have if such temptations were ever succumbed to?

And so straight away I need to say that I was disappointed at the front page of The Bath Chronicle I bought on Thursday 25 August.

Yes, it was the week before August Bank Holiday Monday, and we all know how slow the silly season can get as those summer weeks drag on.

But I thought the ‘Fury over taxi rank crackdown’ was a real jack-up, referring to quite a petty row over eight tickets issued to cab drivers overfilling a small rank in town.

How relevant is that story to the average reader of the Chronicle? Worthy of an inside page lead, methinks, but surely never a full-blown splash.

I also think the robot picture was weak, and that its width could have been cut by a third to create space for a strong second lead or a column of nibs to busy the front up.

Whenever I feel let down by a front page, I try to see if there are stories inside that could have done better, and I’m pleased to say there were several.

Buried away on page six was a potential splash – the prosecution of the Hole in the Wall, one of Bath’s oldest and once Michelin-rated restaurants, after inspectors found mould, out-of-date food and dirty chopping boards.

A possible front page second lead was ‘Doctor vows to continue research in face of threat’ on page seven, reporting a leading local paediatrician’s investigation into whether Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is just a state-of-mind, triggering a series of abusive emails.

Then a kicker on page eight caught my eye as a report that could have graced any paper’s front page – ‘Woman admits randomly stabbing men in town centres’, a disturbing but fascinating tale that I think deserved more prominence.

And if none of the above offered a good picture, what about using one of the shots related to the 12-page A-level results pull-out?

This was a densely-packed section containing every A-level achieved by named pupils at 15 local schools, a real reason to purchase that I thought warranted more than the postage stamp-sized boost it was given on page one.

A good idea might have been to picture one of the city’s cleverest pupils as a page one shot – like the lad who picked up five A* grades and is off to study medicine at Cambridge, one of more than a dozen examples reported in the news story on page 12.

Front page contenders aside, there were plenty of solid local news and community stories inside the Chronicle, including:  parking controversies on page two; academy progress on page three; speed camera rows on page four; a funding boost for night marshals on page eight; and a local petition on page nine.

In news and features, there were more than 160 reports on 48 pages, with another eight packed listings pages. Not the highest count, but they were largely fully-detailed reports, and a healthy ad count meant many were only on half or quarter pages.

In sport, there were nearly 100 stories and a double-page spread of results, tables and fixtures on 15 pages.

These formed part of a 116-page main book, with the above-mentioned A-level special and an 80-page property pull-out all adding up to a weighty 208-page edition, with a cover price of 75p.

At a time when more small dailies are going weekly, I had wanted to test how The Bath Chronicle was faring four years after its conversion.

And despite my early disappointment on 25 August, I felt that several elements showed that Chronicle editor Sam Holliday has done a fine job of pioneering in this new sector.

As well as the splashable copy found inside the paper, and on top of the thorough local reports, I also liked:

• the decision to go for several picture spreads, giving multi-people shots the size they deserved;

• the four-page opinion and letters section was strong, with an editorial, four columnists and a run of 22 letters; and

• a double-page spread of family announcements containing 32 individual notices shows the community value of the Chronicle. (By the way, did someone follow up the death of 100-year-old ‘Babs’ Webster on page 20?)

Back in 2007, the Northcliffe-owned Chronicle was selling just over 12,000 as a daily; the latest ABCs released on 31 August reveal its now selling a healthy 17,316 as a weekly.

More of Holliday’s thoughts on what switching from a daily to a weekly means can be found here in my interview with him earlier this summer.

But whatever the benefits, the edition I reviewed is a reminder that there must also be constant pressure for teams to run the best news content in order, making sure the right splash creates the biggest impact every week.

Stop press: I started this blog with ‘every reviewer’s dilemma'; well, it’s ‘every reviewer’s nightmare’ next after reading the report about the EDF awards on HTFP just now.

It appears I’ll be finding out what Holliday thinks of the merits of my opinions face-to-face when I spend the best part of a day with him on a judging panel in Bristol tomorrow.