LibDem Blogs - Archived!

My friend and co-worker Jack took these astonishing pictures of a fractal brasica not so long ago. He used an old Nikkor F1.8 50mm lens at nearly full appeature with a 1cm focus ring to get that extra closeup zing. All the images from this photoset were taken with my Nikon D70s.

I've just returned from a trip that I have always wanted to do - visiting New England for the Fall. It was wonderful, and I'll post some pictures soon. But I did return to some excellent news. Three schools in the borough have been successful in their bids for capital - to a total of £12.5 million. I've written before about the federation of Coombe Girls and Beverley Boys, and this has now received DfES blessing in the form of £6 million. It was impossible to attract funding for Beverley whilst its numbers were dropping, ...

Ken Clarke has been, for me, the real hero of this Tory election campaign, the only candidate to have said anything worth saying, and memorably so. His final line to the Blackpool conference was one of the most audaciously brilliant punch-lines I've heard in a political speech: "We search for leaders who will be seen by the public as prime ministers in waiting. Oh boy, have you kept me

Last week I said of David Cameron: His complexion is so unblemished that, like Elijah Wood in the Lord of the Rings films, he appears to have had his face covered with a thin layer of plastic film.I have now found a more felicitous description from Kirk Elder, Senior Citizen from Peebles. He describes him as: a young man with the complexion of a well-skelped orphan.Talking of Peebles, let me pay a belated tribute to the late Ronnie Barker. I remember a Two Ronnies news item from the 1970s. "Following boundary changes, David Steel's constituency will now be known as ...

Contrary to popular demand, I have decided to write some more about my “All of MP3” downloader script. You may be wondering why I think this is important enough to write about twice in one week; The same week that the corrupt Bush administration may see a key administrator prosecuted; A week in which my [...]

So when are you retiring Mr Jones? Bet it won't be at 65 eh?

(I’m sure this joke will have been done before.) Tags: george+w+bush © Will on No geek is an island, 2005. ¦ Permalink ¦ No comment Add to del.icio.us Search [...]

How very bizarre - I was thinking about my brother Jimmy and Alan Window sort of at the same time - the Australian connection. Clicked on Alan's blog An Aussie's Nightmare to read his latest posting "........watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen not a bad yarn and very enjoyable". He could have knocked me down with a feather, I was so surprised. The screenwriter is my brother Jimmy who I haven't seen since he was young. Didn't have much contact with him growing up and since ...

The results from the first round of the MPs' ballot for the Tory leadership: David Davis 62David Cameron 56Liam Fox 42Kenneth Clarke 38 I am reminded of the exchange from Bremner, Bird & Fortune: Interviewer: Kenneth Clarke is the most popular Conservative. George Parr [Tory] MP: Yes, but only with the electorate.

The campaign for the elimination of Stephen Byers (Make Byers History) takes a giant step forward as the Commons Speaker announces that MPs will get a chance to debate Mr Byers' misleading of a House of Commons Select Committee in 2001.

I have avoided putting too many of the on-line quizzes available on the internet onto this blog including this "Which West Wing character are you?" one that I found on A Liberal Dose this morning. However, this Fantasy Health Minister game is of a wholly different class. Try it and see if you can make Britain a healthier place to live in, whilst retaining your popularity. Shame there is no Welsh version.

Yesterday's Times reported that a 34-year-old property developer has joined the ranks of Britain’s most unlikely terrorist suspects after being held for hours for trespassing on a cycle path. 'Ms Cameron was being hailed yesterday as Scotland’s answer to Walter Wolfgang, the 82-year-old heckler manhandled out of the Labour Party conference last month. She was arrested under the Terrorism Act for walking along a cycle path in the harbour area of Dundee.' I must admit that I was mildly surprised that Ms Cameron was not served with an ASBO but assumed that as it was Scotland there ...

The operators of the Port of Dundee said today they had no choice but to have a pedestrian using the cycle path through the area “arrested” under anti-terrorism legislation, writes Steven Bell. An incident involving local businesswoman Sally Cameron has led to claims of “ridiculous” heavy-handedness on the part of port security and the police. Ms Cameron (34) was stopped by police, allegedly

I note that there is at least one policy of the Assembly Government that Peter Hain does agree with. He is to institute a ban on smoking in all workplaces in Northern Ireland, including bars and restaurants, from April 2007.Since the Assembly voted to do the same all AMs have been bombarded with letters from both sides of the argument. Many of them contain polls conducted with the specific aim of providing a result sympathetic to the objectives of the funder.Back in September I received the latest of these polls from the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association. It claimed that only 3% ...

Despite having missed the last series I thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes of series 6 on More 4 on Friday. Then I found this: Ahh, the ever-cynical and sarcastic speechwriter. Gutsy and not afraid to speak up or clash with authority, his dry wit is amusing. But under it all he's just a big teddy bear... and the world's biggest Yankees fan. :: Which West Wing character are you? ::

The current political gropings in the Conservative Party leadersip crawl irresistably recalls this: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moralphilosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification forselfishness." An observation by John Kenneth Galbraith, of course, a writer all liberals (even Liberals) should read and re-read for several reasons. First because his writing is superb and witty and even politics should have moments of beauty and pleasure. Second because he casts such clear lights on the political agendas within economics. There is a huge effort by the self-interested to define economics ...

Just popped out for a swift one in the local, the conversation turned to politics, I don't tend to bring such subjects up however am happy to nurture them when they do. So what is the word on the street. Well it seems people are opposed to the central control that the government have over local council planning and the manner in which this means indescriminate building with little regard to low cost housing, a real problem in our area. I suggested that perhaps what we needed was power devolved to the lowest level and that was met ...