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In this part of Sussex we face a waste crisis. LibDem controlled Lewes District Council would like to recycle more of its waste than it does. But it's not allowed to. Conservative controlled East Sussex County Council has used its power to limit the amount of recycling that the District Council is allowed to do. Let me repeat that, just in case it is so counter intuitive that you didn't take it in. The County Council is using its legal powers to prevent the District Council from recycling. Why would this be? The answer is massively obvious if you live ...
Whilst it may have seemed fairly minor news when it was announced that John Selwyn-Gummer is to stand down as MP for Suffolk Coastal at the next general election, it does raise some questions about the Tories Green credentials and the future of Cameron's claims that the Tories can be trusted on the Green agenda. Gummer is standing down to be a a campaigner on environmental matters, very noble. But when only 40 of David Cameron's MPs even voted to support the climate change bill, and with many of the possible new intake of Tory hopefuls being even more ardent ...
I know you are just itching to get into the sea ... Spartans Christmas morning annual swim 11am New Year?s Day, January 1, 2010. Boscombe seafront left of the pier. See you all at that! (no actually not me, I might come and watch!) A good start to Bournemouth?s bicentennial year! Daily Eyeball Surf Report from our beach front location at Boscombe and view live cam's of Boscombe Pier,
Simon Schama gives some fairly unconvincing reasons to be miserable at tthe end of 2009.
Nick being great again
Boscombe News! This is my weekly newsletter - to receive it by email, signup at: http://www.boscalicious.co.uk Editor: Lisa Northover Sea Rd Arts trail artist announced! Andy Kirkby beat 28 other hopefuls to design and create public art that will link the newly regenerated Boscombe seafront with the town's precinct. http://bit.ly/7ubWV6 Bournemouth Natural Science Society History of
Vince being GREAT
This makes me well up everytime – `what do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach`
Jack Straw has done an opinion piece today for The Independent where he rails against the current situation where he claims that the Tories are trying to buy the election: Mr Cameron ... has ordered his party to fight the most expensive election campaign in British political history. It is an American-style campaign, costing millions, with wealthy suitors each paying £50,000 to join David Cameron's dining club, and British high streets covered with billboards bankrolled ultimately from Belize. Mr Cameron says the Conservatives have changed, but what we are seeing is an attempt by his party to buy the next ...
The start of the fall of Speaker Martin – the real drama starts at 2:33
It's like the Railway Children all over again!
Duncan announced them last night on Scottish Round Up and then also posted about them on his blog, as have James and everyone's favourite Greek Baby. What I hear you cry? Well keep you suspenders on. As many of us in Scotland are wisely keeping off the roads unless absolutely necessarily we'll all undoubtedly have some free time over the next few days to think, reminisce and think back over the last year. While your at it what have been the best blogs of that period. As Duncan says: "With the end of the year comes mild nostalgia, endless navel ...
At first glance this could be any holiday snap taken anywhere - beach, inclement weather, historical features, art galleries, meals out - but somehow its not just anywhere: it's Israel. The beach is stunning - fine sand, lovely depth, surfers, animal lovers, swimmers and families - all the usual components. But being Israel there's a significant hesitation in people's voices when they ask 'why holiday there?' But as you can see a beach is a beach is a beach. But of course, as we all know it's not quite that simple - Tel Aviv is only 100 years old this ...
One of the things I think is essential for is for us to have is a mail service which delivers to every house in the country for the same cost. Otherwise if you live in the Outer Hebrides, or some remote part of Yorkshire or the Scottish Borders, you might have to cope with a less reliable, less frequent, more expensive service, or no service at all. For all its faults, the Royal Mail is best placed to deliver that service. The Government claims to care about Royal Mail's future, yet Liberal Democrats have learned, through answers to Parliamentary Questions, ...
If you're still not convinced have a look at a Polish film called Krótki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski in 1988, as part of his Dekalog TV series.
I forgot to say, that in 1998 the UK abolished the death penalty for all crimes. That was one of the high-water marks in terms of human rights that this government achieved, for which it should be rightly ...
We need an enquiry about the maintenance of Russian buses!
Hey Mr Churchill, where's your reservation?
A couple of blogs have commented on the recent ICM poll for Brighton Pavillion which shows that the Green Party could be successful at getting Caroline Lucas elected to Westminster next year. Mike Smithson speculates that it might show the possibility of tactical anti-Conservative voting. Meanwhile, Anthony Wells unpicks the poll but feels that it is ...
Nick being GREAT
The photos below are from the photocall I attended today at which a P1 pupil from Park Place Primary School received his voucher for a children's party for up to 20 of his friends, following his win in the balloon launch competition that marked the start of West End Christmas Week last month. Every Primary One pupil across the four West End primary schools - Park Place, St Joseph's, Blackness and Ancrum Road - took part in the massive balloon launch and the balloon belonging to Adam Al-Hussein won, travelling all the way to a village near Falkenberg on the ...
There is something intolerable in the suffering of humans... for it is evil and that the person who causes it is a criminal. Romain Rolland Like many people, I was disgusted by the state murder of Akmal Shaikh in China. I am, have been, ...
Yes Miss, anything you say Miss.
Seems like Prospect decided to gatecrash the Tory Future Christmas party earlier this month. I'm tempted to say that this article is a bit mean and I'm more than sure that all of the youth wings of political parties have their fair share of eccentric characters. However this article is hilarious! The reason it's so funny is that it confirms virtually every stereotype ever held about the youth wing of the Tory party from the 80s through to the present day. SOmeone much cleverer than me said that you can't create a story out of spin, all you can do ...
[IMG: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick - book cover] I'm a great fan of Philip K Dick novels - indeed reading one has become part of the Christmas tradition for me - so I look forwarded to reading this novel which is more counter-factual history than science fiction. Although space travel features briefly in the background of the book, it is a novel about a different post-Second World War world - one in which Japan and Germany had won and partitioned the US. This fictional world is well drawn, using enough reference to actual people ...
ASDA and Lothian buses are first to sell and advertise, Easter eggs respectively.I'm actually not sure its something to be proud of Cadburys and ASDA PR people, I think its crap! Technically its still Christmas, tomorrow is Hogmanay and yes it is still 2009. Do you remember when Easter eggs were sold at Easter? ASDA and Cadburys need to learn that the consumer does get sick of these stunts. I for one will be very fed up of seeing easter eggs advertised on Edinburgh buses for the next four months and definitely sick of seeing them piled up at the ...
This could be what I and my colleagues have discovered from our canvassing on doorsteps. It is actually the outcome of the last survey on this website. As previously reported, an assortment of weird and wonderful email addresses took "don't knows" to a massive win on the question of whether we are better off with a unitary council than the old system of county and district councils. If you exclude the "don't knows" the result was a massive 93% in favour of the old system. Honesty compels me, however, to admit that a sample of 14 is not statisically valid ...
I see Mark has bit the bullet and has gone over his predictions for this year to see if any of them came true. He did ok. Before I commit to any soothsaying for next year, I think I'd better check whether my crystal ball is in working order. So, here's what I said 363 days ago. "1 Obama will have a brief honeymoon and then his popularity will drop like a stone as the recession bites in the US and he fails to magic it all away when he takes office. He has already tried to manage expectations about ...
It may be day fourteen of the big freeze here in East Central Scotland but unlike Caron I don't suffer from chionophobia, so I've been out and about; mainly getting to work. But even with all my winter sports experience (skiing, skating and ice climbing) had a bit of a tough time of it today. Firstly to fill you in weather wise while last night Bathgate has a further covering of snow it appears that Edinburgh, being slightly warmer, had either slight or light rain. When either melted some of the compacted snow which then froze, or froze itself forming ...
A very good report from Jacob Mchangama on why health care should NOT be considered a "right": The idea that governments should be legally obliged to provide healthcare for their citizens has become mainstream. The "right to health" forms the basis of policy for the UN, many international NGOs and development agencies, and exists in the constitutions of many countries. 'If the development community is serious about human rights and improving health, they would switch their focus away from the "right" to health and toward the fundamental rights currently denied to hundreds of millions of people in poorer parts of ...
The Government has launched a consultation, which if agreed to & implemented, would mean that millions more people on lower incomes will be able to open a bank account, get a mortgage and qualify for cheaper direct debit fuel tariffs. This is part of Government plans to turn the Post Office into the "People's Bank". They also want it to reintroduce a children's savings account. Leaflets providing details about the plans and offering customers the chance to provide feedback should be available in all branches of the Post Office over the next few weeks. I would urge you to get ...
Due to even more snow fall collections had to be suspended on Christmas Eve. Most of King's Hedges has Thursday collections so we were hit by this. Having checked the Service Updates page at 3:30pm on Wednesday 30th the plan is... Black bin collection: it was planned to clear back bins on Wednesday 30th December. If your bin was out and not collected call the City Council on 01223 457000 or 01223 458282Green and blue bin collections: will be "collected on their next scheduled collection date, in the week commencing 4 or 13 January", which means if you were due ...
A year ago, Lib Dem Voice posed 10 questions, the answers to which we believed might shape the Lib Dem year - time to revisit them, wethinks. To read Part I dealing with Qs 1-5, click here. 6. Will Nick Clegg more fully establish himself as party leader, recognised both by the public and media as someone to be listened to? Even Nick's fiercest critics, inside and outside the party, would have to admit that the Lib Dem leader enjoyed a pretty good 2009. First, Nick found an issue that he was able to make his own – justice for ...
I think this is a valid question; over at Liberal Conspiracy I posted an edited version of my earlier post on here regarding Nurses for Reform. A barrage of comments ensued arguing in favour of market-led reform. Meanwhile, Conservative Home carries a piece arguing that the 'NHS must change'. It's telling that leading these calls for ...
It's the time of year for reflection on what the year has brought and what we can learn for the future. For journalists and bloggers alike, this usually involves lists. Lots of them. I'm going to add to your list overload by outlining what I think are the ten best Liberal Democrat moments and achievements of the last year. [UPDATE, several hours later. How in the name of goodness did I not notice that this was my 900th post? I guess it was appropriate that it should be a review one.] It's been a year of turmoil in the economy ...
Well, I suppose if you're going to get the sack you may as well do it in style. I particularly like this bit: I then went into an old riff about how people say the royal family are good for tourism, but the French beheaded theirs and people still visit France. Yay! Power to the people! Tom Binns – hero of the revolution
The BNP is always whinging about how they are not treated as a normal political party and how they are always victimised by the 'establishment'. There were cries of outrage from the BNP faithful (ie. the really racsist ones) after question time saying the BBC victimised their Fuhrer. But here we see yet another example of why the BNP aren't treated like a normal party. They can't even get their accounts in on time. In fact they were six months late and they have been fined five times in the last few years for other accounting errors. And these are ...
It was time to escape the glitz and glamour of the Cote d'Azur, and so we headed out of Nice on the train, bound for Grasse. Grasse is renown for perfume, after Catherine de Medici encouraged the locals to take advantage of the surrounding rose gardens to found the industry that draws visitors to its steep slopes. And boy, are those slopes steep... The indicated 200 steps to the town are strictly accurate, if you factor in the long sloping bits between them. The bus, on the other hand, winds its way up the slope for a very reasonable 1€. ...
The electoral register is the definitive record of who can or can't vote in a particular election. Missing people means people aren't able to exercise their democratic rights. Erroneous entries open up possibilities for fraud and for people who shouldn't vote getting to cast a ballot. Statistics derived from the register are widely used to inform and shape other decisions. So having accurate registers is important. Knowing how accurate our registers is a tough question to answer. Estimates as to the theoretical electorate if everyone entitled to vote registered – and no-one else – can be derived from population statistics. ...
I'm a bit late with this poem, written by a British serviceman stationed overseas, but that's because I have had difficulty moving around just lately. I think it is expresses well the way we do not give our sevice personnel their due, whilst they themselves are keeping faith with their country. The capitalised words that follow are the words of the poem and of the email that I got with it: CHRISTMAS DAY ALL IS SECURE T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED ALL ALONE IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE I HAD COME DOWN THE ...
I had gotten over the irritation of the summer, kind of, and was at least willing to explain what I thought risked being lost by the approach of some in the blogosphere. However, a much better Autumn Conference than I had feared followed, before I headed off to India, to be the very junior member of a Liberal Democrat Friends of India delegation. In an attempt to get thrown out of the country, I challenged the National Human Rights Commission about the status of homosexuals, but failed to get an answer, drank wine and reported back to the High Commission. ...
Ok it must be Alex's time of the month. Yeah you guessed it once again he his making headlines regarding the Prime Ministerial debates. The BBC are in a sit down chat with the man who not only has no aspirations to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but who also at some point next year will no longer want to serve it from its Parliament. I've mentioned before the different claims of other parties, UKIP the Green, the DUP and even the BNP on various factors over the man who leads the ...
I had intended to reach Ipoh today, but as the minivan I got from Hat Yai terminated in Penang, I decided to terminate there as well and so I will be ending the year in George Town. It's 40 years since I was last on the island, though as I recall I didn't linger even ...
....it would be altogether too gloomy. First we have the recession, terrorism and climate change (not sure which one is immediately worst and of course they all have an impact on each other), and more locally we have a council that is among the worst in the South East - and our analysis shows it is nothing to do with the funding, because other poorly funded councils are doing pretty well, especially compared to Wokingham. And instead of either a Labour government or a Tory council administration that holds its hands up and admits its failures we have refusals to ...
Throughout the festive season, LDV is offering our readers a load of repeats another chance to read the 12 most popular opinion articles which have appeared on the blog since 1st January, 2009. The third most-read LDV op-ed of 2009 was by former LDV contributing editor Alix Mortimer, and originally appeared on 29th March ... Porn on expenses - nothing to hide, Jacqui Smith? There's something oddly, uh, gratifying about today's revelation that the nation has been paying for Jacqui Smith's husband to watch porn. In case you've been busy with F1, the boat race, large amounts of roast food ...
Yesterday, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Liberal statesman William Ewart Gladstone a group of hardy Liberal Democrats gathered in the snow and ice to remember him. I was not among them. To my eternal shame, a septuagenarian from deep in the borders managed it, but I didn't manage to get past the snow and ice on my street. Mind you, my neighbour fell over the other day and broke her wrist, which did nothing to make me like the wintry conditions any better. She can't get an appointment at the fracture clinic until next Thursday, either, ...
Alex Foster on Liberal Democrat Voice provides an interesting deconstruction of the latest exploits of a national daily newspaper to which I will refer only as 'The Usual Suspect'. It's worth reading, if only for a sort of classic (presumably unintended) self-parody of journo-rubbish by Liz Jones. One for Private Eye, I think. Not quite Glenda Slag; but something akin to it. For me, it's taken a while for news of Akmal Shaikh's execution to sink in. It's deeply sickening and all so pointless. The real criminals, who duped Shaikh into carrying a suitcase, are now laughing their socks off, ...
A series of crime and detection league tables comparing Greater Manchester with five similar police force areas paints a bleak picture of law and order across the region. Greater Manchester Police has come under fire from members of the region's police authority after the area ranked either bottom or next to bottom in four national tables produced from the results of the annual British Crime Survey. The tables showed that the area suffered from a higher rate of so-called 'acquisitive crime' - which includes robbery, burglary and car crime - than the five other English forces judged to be most ...
A series of crime and detection league tables comparing Greater Manchester with five similar police force areas paints a bleak picture of law and order across the region. Greater Manchester Police has come under fire from members of the region's police authority after the area ranked either bottom or next to bottom in four national tables produced from the results of the annual British Crime Survey. The tables showed that the area suffered from a higher rate of so-called 'acquisitive crime' - which includes robbery, burglary and car crime - than the five other English forces judged to be most ...
I've done a guest post over on Daily Blog Tips: The least popular posts on my blog are the most important. Sounds like I've made a mistake in typing that sentence, doesn't it? But when it comes to reaching an audience, the top 10 posts in any month on my blog typically only account for between a quarter and third of the total traffic. In other words, it's not the most popular posts that make or break reaching a good sized audience - it's the collective effort of the least popular. In my experience, many blogs have a similar pattern. ...
This is a foray into combining Drum'n'Bass with my guitar play. Its about Emmy Bocaege's epic journey by boat down the Thames to Aragorn Tower in Canada Water. Hope you like it! Rate, comment, share, subscribe etc.
Hope you all had a great Christmas! One application this week a two storey side extension to 41 Bayford Place, application number 09/1157/FUL. Details on how to comment in my last planning posting!
An opinion poll taken at the end of the Liberal Democrat Conference earlier this autumn put the Liberal Democrats ahead of the Labour Party, it was accompanied by a raft of other polls which also showed significant increases in our support. The reason for this sudden upswing in our poll rating was relatively simple: for one short period in the political calendar, the broadcast media had provided us with a fair volume of coverage and the public had liked what they saw. Regrettably, conference season and General Election campaigns apart, the broadcasters rarely comply with their duty to give us ...
Over at LibDem Voice today, Alex Foster's post on some of the scarier articles from yesterday's Daily Mail sent me to today's web edition of the paper. Following on from my post yesterday on Leo McKinstry's bid for Jan Moir's crown of hate, I thought that the headlines couldn't be any more frightening today. Boy, ...
Did you know that last year, 59 million Christmas cards were recycled in the United Kingdom? It sounds a massive amount, however when you take into account that well over a billion cards get sent each Christmas in the UK alone, it becomes less impressive. Woodland Trust run this annual scheme to raise money for the Trust to enable them to plant trees throughout the UK. The target is to plan 12,000 trees this year From January 2nd you can take your Christmas cards to high street WH Smith stores, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer stores throughout the UK. ...
With Lib Dem Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Simon Hughes, in his dashing Roger Moore circa 1970 ski salopettes: With Transition Belsize: And with my alter ego from Transition Brixton, Duncan Law: Happy New Year all!
Each day this week I'm giving a tip related to computers and campaigning. The exact details of how you follow each tip will vary depending on your own situation, so if you're not quite sure what to do by all means pop up a question in the comments. Today's tip: use NutshellMail. I've eulogised about it before. I'll eulogise about it again. But it's simple: with NutsellMail you can easily keep on top of what's happening on different social networks, all through one daily summary email. You can also respond then and there via links in the email. It's another ...
Councillor Kabeer Hussain who was the Lib Dem councillor for Hyde Park and Woodhouse ward on Leeds City Council passed away yesterday morning. It's so tragic for someone this young to be taken away. Thoughts are with his family.
Has to be Paris Hilton, who is reported in great detail in yesterday's Daily Mirror on how she spends Christmas in her Beverly Hills mansion: On her best Christmas celebrations ever, Paris says "I've had a lot of great Christmases, but last year's one was pretty amazing. I had a huge party at my house, and the front and back yards were covered with real snow I had shipped in. We built a mini-mountain in the garden so we could go sledding; it was really festive and so much fun." I suppose we could now have a debate as to ...
The Daily Mail published a disgusting comment piece yesterday by Leo McKinstry accusing people who thought that Akmal Shaikh (the man executed by China yesterday morning for alleged heroin smuggling) should not have been executed of being "wailing liberals" and suggesting it was correct that he should have been executed, despite the many claims that he was mentally ill. (As is becoming standard policy on this blog I have not linked to the Mail piece - I am not giving them any more traffic directly from here). I was going to try and find some time to have a crack ...
At this time of year, most of us enjoy a festive tipple or two. Judging by David Cameron's New Year message' I can only assume that he's spent rather too long tasting the contents of his wine cellar. Taking up the LibDem lovebombing baton from Eric Pickles (what a thought!), he said: "Let's be honest that whether ...
David Cameron has long been part of the Conservative Party that has wanted to privatise the NHS, or at least parts of it, bit by bit, even masterminding the last Conservative manifesto. David Cameron has tried to distance himself from such comments including distancing himself from one of his MEPs, Daniel Hannan who launched a scathing attack on the NHS while he was in America. Although he did not discipline the MEP, David Cameron said: "I don't agree with Daniel Hannan. The Conservative party stands full square behind the NHS." However, thanks to The Daily Telegraph for uncovering that David ...
Events of the past few days have showed just how much China is enjoying its new status as world economic powerhouse. I was watching an interview the other day with a guy known as the BBC's China Editor. I'm not sure what that job involves, but either way, he seemed to know what he was talking ...
As a paid up member of the liberal élite that's ruining our country, I do like to pop over to Daily Mail Island every now and again to see what's exercising the minds of Britain's tablerati. This week had two eye-poppingly awful pieces that I just had to pick up on. Firstly, Leo McKinstry's sensitive, and thought provoking piece deftly picking at the complex moral issues surrounding the execution in China of Akmal Shaikh: HEROIN TRAFFICKERS DESERVE TO DIE. No, wait, sensitive and thought provoking it is not. For a line-by-line demolition of the mountains of crud streaming forth from ...
The British Medical Association's New Year message reflects the views of most people in this country when they call on the Government not to penalise the NHS in its bid to bail the country out of the current financial crisis. I think that it is taken as read in all parties that health spending is a priority and needs to be protected as much as possible from inevitable public sector cuts. However, that does not prevent us from scrutinising how the billions of pounds that goes into the NHS is being spent. In Wales, the NHS Directors of Finance have ...
In a bid to save money the Tory-run County Council decided several years ago to reduce the number of buildings it operated out of down from 54 to 4 in a programme called 'The Way We Work' (TW3). At a meeting in December Liberal Democrats questioned the very unclear one line sentence in the agenda papers referring to this and discovered that this programme had over spent by £2m this year, and is expected to over spend by £2m next year. Every £1m is the equivalent of 1% on council tax. Lib Dem spokesperson Paul Goggins said: 'This bombshell had ...
Gordon Brown's New Year message is apparently going to set an optimisic tone. According to The Times, the Prime Minister will declare that the recession is over, that unemployment will start falling within a year and promise that a "decade of shared prosperity" lies ahead. If all it took was his say-so then why didn't he do it earlier?
Woods is in the Old Town of Swindon. It wins because:it does not allow pushchairs;this music was playing when I went there.It's almost enough to make you move to Swindon. Almost.
This morning's Guardian reveals that the Taxpayers' Alliance is under investigation by the Charity Commission after allegations that it may have used its charitable status to gain tax relief, normally reserved for good causes, on donations for political research: The Charity Commission has stepped up its scrutiny of the campaign group's funding by opening a regulatory compliance case into the Politics and Economics Research Trust. Earlier this month it emerged that, in order to benefit from gift aid, the alliance asked private Midlands businessmen to channel funds through the trust for research into policies which may damage their commercial interests. ...
Nick Perry, the Lib Dem parliamentary campaigner for Hastings & Rye, is pressing the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband MP, to prioritise our area for new renewable energy projects. This follows the Government's decision to take Dungeness off the list for new nuclear power stations. Nick has written to the Minister again, ...
Overall, not very well! Here they are along with the verdict: Gordon Brown will not call a general election this year. I do not think he has the courage and he will run down the clock. Spot on with this one!Labour's poll ratings will nosedive again in the first half of the year as the recession really starts to bite. They will not recover. Also spot on with this.Peter Mandelson will be out of the cabinet again within the next 12 months. Wrong! If anything he has gone in the opposite direction and after saving Brown's skin in June is ...
At Amused Cynicism (which is now billed as "The personal blog of the Campaigns Officer of Pirate Party UK").
The County Council tells me that Stewards Green Road in Epping will be resurfaced in January. As a result it will be closed for up to seven days between Monday 4 January and Friday 29 January while the works take place.
The countdown to the New Year festivities begins, and with that in mind let me remind you of Lib Dem Voice's search for the Liberal Voice of 2009 – get your nominations in now, before it's too late. 2 Interesting Stories Scrapping Gatsos saves lives That's the claim in the Daily Express, and whilst the evidence is far from strong (OK, despite what the Express might want it's readers to think, the evidence is currently pathetically weak), Swindon's experiment in getting rid of all their speed cameras is worth keeping an eye on. Nine out of ten adults won't pay ...
Yeah the man who told us that boom and bust was over, before the bust came, is now to tell us the recession is over despite economic indicators pointing otherwise. Yes Gordon Brown is bringing us his new years message this year from cloud cuckooland. In the same speech that he tells us that the recession is over he also tells us that the recovery is still fragile. He says he wants to help those who are worse off. He especially says he wants to help those who want a bit of help to own their own home, set up ...
So, like all good geeks, I have the Bad Science book and read the sainted Dr Ben's blog regularly. I also have a slightly rusty A-level in Statistics, and a penchant for picking holes in things. So when I see bobbins like this trumpeted as proof that men are better than women, I start wondering if David Tennant's little misogynist organisation from the new St Trinian's film* is real. I'm not even linking to the Daily Fail's version, which proudly trumpets that because the study was done by a woman it must be totally gospel. Here are the things that ...
I've blogged previously on the insane nature of the UK's drugs laws; laws that can criminalise people who have done no harm to anyone but themselves and which serve to exacerbate the problem they allegedly seek to prevent. The problems caused by 'illegal' drugs are almost entirely caused by their very illegality, rather than their pharmacological ...
Herts County Council is now consulting on new parking restrictions in Raymer Close. These will be double yellow lines. Please let me know if there are problems with this. The order is being advertised at the same time as restrictions on the corner of Jennings and Churchill Roads (previously mentioned on this website). [IMG: raymer-close.jpg]
As we approach the end I have been thinking back over the two visits that I made to the doctor this year and I will share the December visit with you. I didn't see the doctor. I saw the nurse who syringed my ears. I have had this done three or four times in my life so I knew the ropes. I also knew that one moment I could hear nothing and the next I could hear the slightest noise. Wax is there for a useful purpose. It helps keep the ear dry and prevent infection. So there is a ...
