Eyebrook Reservoir Dam: John Fielding Being a well-prepared visitor, I brought the Harborough District Council leaflet about Great Easton with me yesterday. And here's an interesting snippet from it about a nearby reservoir: For several months in 1943 up to a dozen Lancaster bombers regularly used Eyebrook Reservoir as a training ground prior to setting off on the famous Ruhr "Dam Busters Raid". Initially the low flying night flights caused considerable disturbance to the surrounding villages. However local residents, who recognised their sleep would be interrupted, regularly congregated around the lakeside to witness the spectacular rehearsals. Discover Rutland says: Practice ...
Today when I should have been enjoying the non-monetary benefits of Wimbledon Common I was instead getting depressed by The Economist, which I listen to as I walk. It isn't difficult to be depressed: the world is full of shitty news. But the particular theme that got me this week was the way Europe had regulated itself into "American vassalage". Thanks to a longstanding habit of stifling its companies with rules, red-tape and risk-aversion, the Old Continent is now utterly reliant on the New for its high-end digital services, its energy, even its payment systems. The UK and Europeans are ...
Someone posted a track by String Driven Thing on Bluesky the other day and I wondered why I knew the name. And then I remembered this. It's a Game was covered by the Bay City Rollers in 1977 and provided them with their last top 20 hit. But I already knew the song, so this original version by String Driven Thing must have received airplay in 1973, even though it didn't make the charts. String Driven Thing began as a folk trio, but were encouraged by their record company to adopt the folk rock sound that you hear on It's ...
United States Mid-term election fever is starting to grip America. And it comes at a time when American's trust in their electoral system – the cornerstone of any democratic state – is plummeting. It is still six months before Americans troop to the polls to elect a third of their senators and all the members of the House of Representatives. But the candidates are busy at the hustings. This is mainly because American elections are a two-stage affair. Stage one the parties vote to decide who will be their candidate and in stage two the winners of the "primaries" compete ...
So, here I am, on the 09.41 from Ipswich to Liverpool Street, about to embark on another "epic" train journey. And yet, I nearly fell at the first hurdle... You know how it is. Working out what to pack, making sure that you've got the right cables for your various bits of IT, checking that your passport is valid, all of these elements that, if missed, might cause inconvenience at some unwelcome point in a trip. But, I was somewhat better organised this time, and was packed the day before leaving - Ros's organisational skills might be rubbing off at ...
I'll be honest. When I first started researching hypersonic missiles and the Falkland Islands, it felt like a subject more suited to a defence think-tank than a Lib Dem blog. But the events of the past 48 hours have changed my mind and I think they should change yours too. Argentine President Javier Milei has declared that he is doing "everything humanly possible" to return the Falklands to Argentine hands. That alone would be manageable. What is far more alarming is the backdrop: a leaked Pentagon memo has proposed withdrawing American diplomatic support for British sovereignty over the islands as ...
The Gallup team polling Britons during the Second World War on their views: [IMG: Gallup pollsters in wartime] A pollster next to a destroyed building. Taken from Behind the Gallup Poll by Henry Durant, 1951 (intermittently available from second-hand booksellers).
With Reform still challenging Plaid Cymru for first place in next month's Senedd elections it is only right that there should be greater scrutiny of their policy proposals. Nation Cymru reports that an analysis of party manifestos undertaken by Cardiff University academics has found that tax cuts proposed by Reform UK and the Welsh Conservatives would require deep cuts in public services and would disproportionately benefit better off earners. The news site says that the report by the university's Wales Governance Centre states that the Welsh Conservatives propose lowering the basic rate [of income tax] by 1p in the pound, ...
I ventured out into the Notswolds today. By changing at Corby, you can reach Great Easton by bus (though only on Wednesdays and Saturdays). It's a pretty village, though perhaps without quite as much character as Hallaton or Medbourne, and it still has a pub and a little coffee shop. So it was well worth the visit.
"Orbán built a glittering façade of think tanks, conferences and podcasts on a brittle framework of prefab ideas and exorbitant contractors' fees, only for it all to collapse in the blink of an eye. Not in anything its personalities actually wrote or said, but in the history of its decline and fall, does the Budapest scene express that sentiment most Christian: omnia vanitas, memento mori." Franz Pokorny looks at the impact of the death of Orbánism on the European right. Dan Reed, who directed the explosive documentary Leaving Neverland seven years ago, has come to a sad conclusion: "People don't ...
I remember in the first two and a half months of the year feeling buoyant that perhaps the end of the suffering had come for the people of Iran. After almost 50 years of oppression by a succession of mad Mullahs, it seemed the extremist Moslems were being swept aside as millions of young people went onto the streets of cities across Iran. It was not just young people. There were many other groups who simply could not make a living in the austere economic conditions that the Mullahs had created as they refused to accept conditions of basic human ...
Three of our MPs will be on the carb loading today as they prepare to take part in the London Marathon tomorrow. Tom Gordon, Helen Morgan and Wendy Chamberlain are tackling the 26 mile, 385 yard course starting in Blackheath and finishing on the Mall. Here at LDV Towers we have our app set up to track them, despite our slight reservations about technology that allows you to do this. Helen's number is 62224, Tom's is 59608 and Wendy's is 72506. It would be incredibly motivating for them if they could see their fundraising totals rise, so here's how you ...
How did His Majesty's Government get itself in such an integrity-destroying tangle over Peter Mandelson's appointment as Ambassador to the USA? The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 10 Downing Street, Cabinet Office, Security Services and the senior Civil Service have all faced serious potential reputational damage. What's at the root of this? Flashback to the late 1970s and early 1980s. To an extent the early 1970s was the heyday of Soviet Socialism. There was much admiration of the Soviet system even among the British middle classes, albeit more in theory than in practice. At my university there were several active ...
Energy Security. The Ukraine War made it a hot topic for a Europe dependent on Russian oil and gas. The Iran War – alongside the climate change debate – has revived the issue for the rest of the world. The world's main fossil fuel production centres are unstable. As a result, demand is growing to replace oil and gas with renewable energy. Furthermore, the renewable energy should be produced in areas which the consuming countries control. Many countries are already doing just that. Some better than others. Surprisingly, Trump's "drill, baby, drill" America does well when it comes to renewable ...
Mumbles Pier was opened to the public on the 10th May 1898, the project was carried out by seasoned pier specialists Mayoh and Haley and was overseen and designed by celebrated Victorian engineer W.Sutcliffe Marsh. The pier's website says that the 835ft structure cost £10,000 to complete, and its completion which was relatively late in the history of Piers, takes on many of the architectural successes learnt from other piers all over the country. They add that along with the opening of the Pier came the extension of the Mumbles Railway line from Oystermouth to the newly built Pier Terminus: ...