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This is what I pay my licence fee for. I'm kicking my self now for not going but I'm off to London tommorrow and wanted to save a bit of cash and have a early night. However I did watch the BBC 3 live performance tonight and "luved" it. The BBC's left/liberal bias was out in force and I particularly enjoyed Jesus being charged with "glorifying terrorism" and "promoting religious hatred" and of course the orange jump suit for the judgement scene. However I was sceptical about the token Muslim in the Cross procession who seemed bolted on for ...

Off to Moray tomorrow with a few friends to help Linda Gorn at the Scottish parliamentary by-election. It has been a dreadfully busy week, lots of day job activity including a very early start and late return to/from Belfast yesterday. Going back over the past few days ... Monday - Finally got an assurance that the handrail promised for Ford's Lane will be installed soon (long story ...) For

Village ward is a pretty place for a stroll on a sunny afternoon, especially now with so many trees blossoming, and, after a rather miserable morning, the sun came out to shine on the Liberal Democrat campaign team in Village. I admit that leafleting in Village is rather more than a gentle stroll, especially given the lengthy drives and garden paths on any walk you care to pick. A walk that would

The last episode of Hustle’s just half an hour away, and it’s now only 22 hours and 50 minutes until Doctor Who begins. Woo hoo! However, I won’t be blogging about either until well into next week, as things are busy, not least because I’ve taken time out to blog in the last couple of days when there’s rather a lot of housework to be done (and tomorrow I’m out at Tenth Planet to get a DVD signed). Ironically, much of that involves finding a way to manage the humungous piles of books that have taken over the spare room. ...

Mr Neil Fawcett has shared with me that he learned to read on Doctor Who books. So did I. I may have grown up the child of two librarians, in a house with seventeen bookshelves, but it was of course Doctor Who that did it. I still read a lot now, though I’m not sure either this blog or various Lib Dem policy papers count as writing books (though if any reader happens to have a spare / saleable copy of It’s About Freedom, could you drop me a line? It’s out of print, but there are a couple of ...

Having bought a new DVD player for the kids, for some reason it didn't display anything even though we bought a new SCART cable. Hence we returned it to the shop who also could not get it to work. We replaced it and I watched the kids install it. The first question it asks is whether or not to use Progressive Scan. Had it said Progressive or Interlaced then I would have had some idea what that

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier posts is that I’ve taken the photographs down from the site because they used a pretty large chunk of bandwidth and disk space that I could find a much better use for (like not spending the money on in the first place, for instance). Some of them will [...]

South Park's broadcaster, Comedy Central, last night refused to show a scene depicting Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, in an episode which satirised the controversy created by a Danish newspaper's publishing of caricatures of Muhammad. In other news, here's a picture of Muhammad on display at the United States Supreme Court building:

One of the most sensible pieces of legislation I've seen for a long time Clarke expected to introduce order to control dangerous ex-prisoners. Probably going to get a knock on the knuckles from somebody but I don't really care. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Some of the so and so's should have been locked up and the key thrown away in the first place. It's a proven fact that most

Developments in the story about offering honours for sale will be making a lot of people in the political world very nervous right now. I have no doubt that at least nods and winks about honours have been used in requests for support from political parties in the UK for many years. And I am not [...]

I would be happy about this if it were not for two things 1. He probably won't go. 2. If he does he will probably be replaced by someone just as bad

Last week it was delinquent badgers. After I had written a lighthearted column about the depredations of badgers in Southend West it became clear that they were interering with the democratic process by breaking into cars and stealing council candidates' nomination papers. I tried to withdraw my House Points column from Liberal Democrat News, but it had already gone to press. This week the government was at it. Just after I had written this week's column about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill reports began to appear saying that ministers were going to revise it to meet some of their ...

A glimpse of the glory days of British heavyweight boxing from Harry Pearson in today's Guardian: The Swadlincote southpaw was British heavyweight champion in the 70s. The US fighter Jerry Quarry once knocked Bodell out in 64 seconds. Asked if the Englishman had been an awkward opponent, Quarry famously responded: "Well, he sure fell awkwardly."

epolitix.com has an interview with Ming Campbell. It's not a particularly long interview and many of the points in it have been covered before, but I did appreciate this answer, on the question of "tension" between left and right: We all know that the lessons of the 1970s are that you can't print money and that inflation undermines everything, including your ability to provide the funds that are necessary for public services. That being so, you need an economy that is stable, sound and expanding because people's expectations increase all the time. That is why there is no tension ...

A few years ago the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston just beside Edinburgh Airport was cancelled due to the foot and mouth epidemic. However, as a result the garden section of the show grew and became an annual event on its own. This year with fears of avian flu it has already been announced that ther will be no poultry or life birds at this years event in June. So far there is still only the one

Two new articles out today: one on London's workforce and one on the big local issue which is blowing up - the future of Blanche Nevile school. It's a great school for deaf children, but is now threatened with closure. The Ham and High has also now picked up on the story.

Picking up the theme on Labour's travailles initiated by Simon and Rob, I thought I'd bring people's attention to this piece in The Guardian by John Harris. "Something's rotten in the heart of the Labour Party", to paraphrase Hamlet, and there are moves afoot by Old Labour types to reclaim it from the Blairities. The most fascinating thing about this is the quasi-religous nature of support for Labour. One just can't imagine the same fervour for either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, and comes, perhaps, from Labour's roots which lie as much in Methodism as they do ...

found in Sweden. Good grief, I'm posting about worm dump. Can we please stop worrying about whether or not the Red Arrows will turn up and just get a bloody Focus out? Tags: baffled, coprolite, aerobatics

John Harris reports in the Guardian on today's Manchester Passion: a re-enactment of the life of Christ that will apparently climax with "a crowd of people carrying a 25 foot cross" to a location close to the town hall: By way of rebranding The Greatest Story Ever Told in shiny new colours, the cast - which includes both Keith Allen and Tim Booth, the former singer with one-time indie-rock monarchs James - will break up the dialogue by singing a selection of tunes by Manchester musicians. No matter that most of the material was conceived in rock'n'roll's traditionally irreligious ...