More mad goings on in the world of Scott Pilgrim, where not only does he face another of Ramona's evil ex-boyfriends, but she does battle with his ex-girlfriend in the middle of the Toronto Reference Library. I can see why people got hooked on this.
This amused me this evening. I stopped at Donington Park services on the M1 on my way back to Yorkshire, and picked up a red grape and raspberry juice in M&S. It was reasonably priced and 100% fruit. On the way out of the shop I spotted, amongst the usual blurb, the following which made ...
Your browser does not support iframes. Another newsreel from British Pathe, showing the Liberal Party leader's marriage to Caroline Allpass in May 1968. Caroline Allpass was to die in a car crash two years later. Jeremy Thorpe later married Marion Stein, the former Countess of Harewood.
The 100 hundred days mark of the coalition government has been and gone and I realise that so far I haven't written about the new government and my reaction to it. So this post is a brief summary of my thoughts so far. The first thing to note is that, in governing terms, a hundred days isn't all that long. It certainly isn't long enough to make anything but a sketchy and very preliminary judgement on the coalition's success. This is important because in this situation rushing to judgement is the last thing we should do. I said back at ...
I received a letter today from Broadland District Council encouraging me to register as a voter as part of their annual canvass of electors. The form, which is actual rather confusing, seems to be encouraging me to register online if I have no changes to make to my details. The website itself is oneI have never heard of before called http://www.register-online.co.uk/. The problem is, this website has no security certificate and Internet Explorer is encouraging me not to access this website, as can be seen by the screen shot below. The issue of companies phoning local residents in an internet ...
It's not everyday that you can say you took part in a little bit of history but setting off from Bangor on the 9:57 train this morning heading to my father's home city I did just that. Meeting up with members of Belfast Pride at Great Victoria Street Station (a task I had to do in my own gregarious way as we weren't meeting Mícheál Carchrie Campbell until Yorkgate) it was off to Northern Ireland's second city for their inaugural Pride Parade. Starting from Duke Street railway station it followed the route of the 1968 Civil Rights March. As a ...
Part of the Lib Dem / Conservative national coalition agreement has the following statement aimed at saving local shopping areas from big out of town shops: "We will seek to ensure a level playing field between small and large retailers by enabling councils to take competition issues into account when drawing up their local plans to shape the direction and type of new retail development" It's amazing that this was required but the previous government hadn't helped being these safeguards. I've checked with council officers and they do plan to add this into the current Southwark documents - probably the ...
17 million people are already affected... Floodwater's are still rising in Pakistan. The area covered to date is larger than the UK. These are the worst floods in living memory, they began a month ago with the rain hammering the country's northwest region, over 1,600 people have died and the floods are affecting over 17 million people with 1.2 million houses being destroyed, leaving an estimated 8 million people homeless. The waters are now spreading through the rice-growing belt in Sindh province, 4.25 million acres of land and crops have been destroyed or extensively damaged. The scale of the disaster ...
Here are the full facts that the BBC and the papers didn't tell you about the events in Bradford today; 800 EDL turned up, less than there were for the Leeds demo. 5 arrests, 1 injured, and about 25 escaped from the police cordon, only to get a good shoeing from assorted non-UAF anti-racists from Liverpool. Most of the missiles thrown by the EDL appeared to be aimed at the police and their own stewards. They couldn't get back on the coaches fast enough. About 400 people, a mix of anti-racists and local Asians had an (unlicensed) counter-demo on Cheapside; ...
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers that we have. I'd expected during August that the growth in readers would stop, so I've been delighted to see that we are still getting new people signing up. 1. Kimberley By Election Congratulations to Shane Easton, the Conservative candidate, who won the Kimberley by election. In a real three way marginal, where all three candidates were within 200 votes of each other, Shane came out on top. This means that ...
As reported in today's Courier, the Liberal Democrats on Dundee City Council have decided that, as presently constituted, the so-called Changing for the Future Board, is not something we will be prepared to support and, as Group Leader, I will not attend the Board's meetings. At last Monday's Policy & Resources Committee, the Labour Group Leader proposed and I seconded an amendment that would have made the Board open and transparent and would have also ensured the trades unions had representation on it. The SNP administration rejected this reasonable request in the usual "our way or no way" approach we ...
I begin this blog with a picture of Hogarth's The Polling, depicting a 1754 election to the British parliament, which includes a blue flag representing the Tories and an orange flag representing the Whigs. Whilst generally googling (and binging) I came across a Wikipedia article - 'Political Colour' - 'certain political parties or positions have become associated with different colours at different times'. Thus dark blue is then associated with conservative parties whilst azure (blue) represents peace and hope (a' la the UN). But in the US, blue is increasingly associated with the Democrats. Green is for: the Levellers, agrarian ...
I've never seen the TV Tropes website mentioned on another blog. Which is strange, because it's a pretty massive, informal wiki-type site that looks at writing techniques, plot devices , characterisation and a whole lot more in TV, film, literature, anime etc.I've tried to explain the site to people, when I speak about their eyes tend to glaze over.....But anyway, for example, the "Badass
Okay, so you'll have to forgive the fact that this video was made by a bunch of Communists, but it's still a good vid! Credit where credit is due - it's probably one of the best anti-prohibition pieces I've seen in a long time. Enjoy:
A false picture is given when people say that your future is determined by your GCSE and A level results. I think it is determined when you sit your entrance exams for secondary school. It starts this young because there's a fight to get into the best secondary schools whether it be a grammar or private one. This is because they provide the best education, quite unfairly, to enable a child to get into a red brick university from which employers tend to recruit. I am worried about the path ahead of me and what it brings. Firstly, I am ...
Well, wasn't Mary Byrne rather superb!
We heard today that the Planning inspector has refused the appeal against Stockton Council's refusal of permission for further development of this site, including a retrospective application to add 2nd floor living accommodation to the first floor flat. The inspector considered that the proposals would "detract in a significant way from the character and appearance of the building and the
As you'll know if you read my review of Toby Hadoke's Moths ate my Doctor Who scarf, that show inspired me to see his new production, Now I know my BBC. This was an eloquent and incredibly funny look back at the television shows of my youth. I had thought that it would be a bit of a challenge to the BBC to buck up its ideas. But no, actually, his main point was that we need to appreciate the uniqueness of the BBC, how its public funding means that it has the potential to be properly creative, to not ...
The news that a motion criticising free schools was to be debated at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference caused a rush of excitement among journalists looking for their next "coalition splits" angle. This lazy interpretation ignores the strong tradition within the Liberal Democrats of having open debate and grassroots influence on policy. Although I disagree with the motion, I welcome the chance for our party to debate the pros and cons of free schools. So far too much of the public debate on free schools has been uninformed by the high-quality evidence that exists on the effects of free schools. ...
Writing my last piece this morning, it struck me that although the stigma of illegitimacy is long gone, its legacy is that there is no satisfactory term for someone whose parents were not married. Natural child is probably the least potentially offensive, which makes it a favourite with family historians, but it is also rather odd, implying that children with married parents are unnatural. Born outside wedlock is cumbersome and sounds archaic and coy. Born outside marriage is not much improvement. Illegitimate is precise and formal, but carries an undertone of illegality, seeming to imply such a child has no ...
[IMG: Jolly Farmer] [IMG: Creative Commons License] photo credit: markhillary There's a fascinating article in the Guardian on today's muesli-spitting page (Page 3) about Bray in Berkshire. Amongst oceans of snail porridge, one of the last bastions of sanity was The Crown pub. Now Heston has got his hands on it and "improved" it. Good luck to Mr Blumenthal. And we shouldn't pretend that Bray is in any sense a normal place, sporting, as it does, a clutch of celebrity residents. But the Bray Hestonworld gastro-pub/restaurant scenario is in many ways emblematic of what has been happening, over the last ...
Seen on the Kennet & Avon canal at Newbury today.
So here I am, shut up in a hospital room for a week. I've got my laptop and BlackBerry, but i've also brought plenty of reading matter to try to stave off the boredom, so on top of my locker I have several books which I have started, but am nowhere near finishing: The ...
The BBC reports: The government has confirmed it is planning to scrap the NHS Direct telephone service in England and replace it with a cheaper option. A new 111 helpline is already being piloted in the North East. It was previously reported that the new service may replace NHS Direct, but now the Department of Health has confirmed it will definitely do so. The move comes as the government curtails public spending, even though it has promised to protect the NHS. NHS Direct is currently used by 27,000 people a day, and provides expert health advice and information to callers, ...
"Florence becomes the second child born to a serving leader in a decade after Leo Blair in 2000, who was the first legitimate child born to a serving prime minister in over 150 years — since the birth of Francis Russell in July 1849." states the Guardian today. This is the second time I've seen that proviso legitimate, which strikes me as unusually cautious for the modern British journalist who is usually cavalier about historical accuracy. So, have there been any illegitimate children born to serving Prime Ministers? A quick skim through the Wikipedia biographies doesn't reveal any. I've only ...
This year's Pride is bigger and better than ever. There is no doubt that Manchester knows how to party, although a little disconcerting to see how corporate it now is. Happy Pride.
One of my pleasures in life is taking photos of landscapes. I find this activity is an excellent way to turn my brain off and relax. One of my favourite landscape photographers is Ansel Adams, you can see some of his best work here
So around two years on from the economic coronary we now know as the Credit Crunch and I would have to admit that I struggle to describe the measures in place to prevent a repeat of such 'balloon and burst' approach to credit and its traumatic effect on the national and world economies. The most damaging factor for recovery beyond interest rates themselves is the lack of credit available to small and medium businesses. Credit Unions take many forms but I make particular reference to those in Canada (here) that are business orientated providing what they term 'the best of ...
David Cameron has 'let it be known' (ie, his press team briefed the Guardian) that shadow foreign secretary David Miliband "poses the greatest threat to the Conservative party of all the candidates in the Labour leadership contest". How to interpret this? Is Dave's backing of David a cunning bluff: the Tory leader backing the most New Labour-identified candidate to put Labour members off backing him? Or could it be an even cunninger double bluff: the Tory leader, knowing his endorsement could be read as a bluff, backing the most media-awkward candidate in the hope Labour members will vote for Mili-D ...
A couple of days ago Mark Pack highlighted that the leader of the Taxpayers Alliance (not an organisation I have much time for as they claim to speak for me with no legitimacy at all), who is also heading up the anti AV group campaigning against a Yes vote in the referendum next year, has registered the yes2av.org domain name. This clearly is underhand and speaks volumes about the Taxpayers Alliance of the head honcho uses these sorts of tactics. It's hardly open and transparent is it. Anyone who cares about the state of politics, you would imagine, would decry ...
So, finally one of the most expensive parts of the NHS is to be scrapped, but is this the right decision? The problem with NHS Direct is without very intense follow up telephone calls and research it is hard to monitor its effectiveness both from a cost perspective and effectiveness. I used the service once when I still lived in England and I was given bad advice and different advice from the two telephone calls within an hour of each other. No one ever called me back to ask my opinions or how I found the service - I ended ...
The South Wales Evening Post today accused Derek Vaughan, MEP, the former Neath North councillor and leader of Neath Port Talbot CBC, of claiming money for attending meetings of the South Wales Police Authority at which he was not present. The 2009/10 report of the authority is said to show that over a period of three months, Mr Vaughan was scheduled to attend three full authority meetings as a representative for Neath Port Talbot — but did not attend them. He also did not go to any "additional events" such as public consultations or meetings with senior officers, according to ...
Two related issues to mention here. Firstly, and not for the first time, I've had to listen to my party leader deliver a major speech via a monotone computer voice called Alex. I freely admit to being rather lazy and a fairly slow reader and that I get my Mac to read-out long text whilst I just sit back and chill. Secondly, although I should know better by now, I am still somewhat shocked by the media's lack of effort in reporting the vitally important 'Closing the Gap' speech and which if given by Cameron or one of the 5 ...
Sat 28th
12:34
Chilean miners, Labour Milibands and BBC cutbacks/attacks: reviewing the papers for BBC Radio Oxford
I had the fun of reviewing the Saturday papers for this morning's BBC Radio Oxford breakfast show... I say fun: doing the programme is, having to get up early for the 30-minute cycle somewhat less so. Presented by Phil Mercer – whose last breakfast show it was, as he's now moving to the later drivetime slot – it's a nice relaxed format. In at 8am to leaf through the papers, and pick out three stories to discuss: I went with the Chilean miners, the Labour leadership tussle, and BBC DG Mark Thompson's cutbacks and attacks on Sky. Then a brief ...
Having disposed of FC Timiosoara very easily and installed as favourites for the Europa League at 6-1 (only a mug would take these odds on a team that haven't won a cup since 1976!) we have been drawn in a Group with Juventus, Red Bull Salzburg (hopefully without wings!) and Lech Posnan. I'm not even ...
There's no prize at stake - just the opportunity to prove you're wittier than any other LDV reader ... (Credit: Dave Radcliffe via Flickr). Here's Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather addressing conference delegates at the Liberal Democrat 2010 Spring conference in Birmingham - what do you think she might be saying, or her audience might be thinking? The winner of our most recent caption competition, the "Kennedy points the way to Clegg" edition - according to The Voice's judging panel of one - was this one by LKD. Got a photo of a prominent Lib Dem you think would work ...
That was twenty years ago. I actually went out to buy a scurrilous, small circulation rag to read about the alleged "story". Lawyers were apparently working shifts on Saturday nights then, ready to fend off the News of the Screws, should they attempt to publish the "story". Now it seems a Cabinet Minister is similarly having to ready the lawyers. No prizes for guessing who the cabinet minister in question is. You could get the answer with about 10 seconds of googling. Is the dead tree press getting desperate? We have no right to know about this sort of thing ...
My former undergrad dissertation supervisor, Lord Norton, has been posting old graduation photos of his former British Politics and Legislative Studies (BPLS) students on his very interesting blog. This week he has posted a photo of my graduating class of 2008. As I'm currently ... Continue reading →
Frankly, the Labour leadership contest has been so boring and such a non-event that I doubt if even an attempt by old-style union boss muscle to influence the result could make many people sit up and pay attention. Nevertheless, that is what appears to have happened, with the GMB, a major financial backer of both the Labour Party and Ed Milliband, threatening to take its toys home if it does not get the result it wants. The GMB union, which gave the party almost £1.5 million in the first half of the year, has said that other unions could follow ...
The media are constantly looking for signs of policy splits within the Coalition. Across policy fields - the economy, welfare, housing, defence - the search is on for contradictions and conflicts, whether real, manufactured or imagined. While many of the stories have been given an airing here, one that passed relatively unnoticed was last week's discussion of rail fares. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond hinted that the current fiscal situation is so severe that it may be necessary to re-examine the formula restricting regulated rail fares to increases of no more than RPI+1%. The suggestion was that this might increase to ...
So Crispin Blunt has become the latest MP to announce he is gay. I assume that this admission is to prevent his outing becoming a moneyspinner for a tabloid – there seems to be no other reason why he would suddenly would suddenly announce this fact to his wife and the world on the eve of an ...
Many thanks to Unmann-Wittering Blog for introducing me to this, er, remarkable film. The Old Grammar School in King's Norton won the BBC's Restoration competition a few years ago and I bought my first SLR camera in the Great Western Arcade a year or two after this footage was shot. But for the most part, Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham is calculated to put anyone off visiting the city. Certainly, Savalas did not go to Birmingham. As Unmann-Wittering explains, he got no nearer than the de Wolfe studios in London: This wonderful short film was produced as a 'quota quickie', ...
Today I really am heading home, for those of you who followed by exploits last weekend you're probably wondering what I'm talking about. What I mean is that the male line for at least 4 generations before be has come not from Bangor but from Ulster's second city Derry/Londonderry on the banks of the Foyle. The reason I am travelling practically to the other end of Northern Ireland and on one of the longest railway journeys you can take across the six counties is for Foyle Pride. Although there has been Foyle Pride since 2007 there has never been a ...
The new St Mary's Focus hits the streets today, in what can only be described as the biggest publishing phenomenon since J K Rowling's unpopular foray into adult entertainment - "Harry Potter and Hermione: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Because Focus is delivered entirely by hand by volunteers (as well as being paid for, written, edited, published, printed and folded by the same hardy bunch) it might be some weeks before your copy floats serenely down from your letterbox to your door mat. I suspect most people will be able to wait though. In the meantime, if you ...
It is not widely known (if it was before) that despite losing his seat at the last General Election, Lembit Őpik has retained his column in the Daily Sport. In this week's edition, which is available on-line, he writes about those unfounded rumours that he was going to defect to Labour: Do you like football? If so, has anyone ever accused you of planning to change the team you support mid-season? Well, that's what's been going on in the World of Őpik this week. But in my case they don't mean football teams. For teams, read "parties." Some journalistic Willy ...
I am delighted to report that the Council has appointed a developer to build our first Council Housing in a generation. Crudens have won the contract to develop the Gracemount site where we are looking to build 215 homes of various sizes including colony style dwellings. These will replace the 3 massive tower blocks demolished last year at the press of a button by Council Leader Jenny Dawe (see left). Half of the homes will be affordable with the other homes sales cross subsidizing the building. With an amazing inspection report, record investment, the first council housing in a generation ...
[IMG: There's a little theme emerging in one corner of my book collection] You can get the books from Amazon here, here and here.
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of a variety of key issues, and what you make of the Lib Dems' and Government's performance to date. Almost 600 party members have responded, and we'll be publishing the full results of our survey in the next few days. First up we asked about Chris Huhne's announcement that he is now backing nuclear power in order to ensure the stability of Britain's energy supplies. Do you believe Chris Huhne is right to say that nuclear power, alongside oil and gas and renewable sources, should ...
I saw this on a note on Facebook and just had to share it to a wider audience. 01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. 02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall. 03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract. 04) Straight marriage has been around a long ...
The thing I hate about the Daily Mail, for instance, is not its illiberal politics (although I find those difficult to stomach) which tend to be what its readership want to hear, but the way it constantly pushes the emotional buttons of the readership, and plays on their negative character attributes. The fear, bigotry, ignorance ...
births and deaths 28th August 1918: birth of Tutte Lemkow, who played Kuiju in Marco Polo (1964), Ibrahim in The Crusade (1965), and Cyclops in The Myth Makers (also 1965). He also choreographed the dancing scenes in The Celestial Toymaker (1966).
The status of this path has been clarified and it is a right of way. It is also a vital part of the rather limited parking facilities for the area. As a compromise, Chris has agreed that it be lined to indicate which parts of the alley are reserved for pedestrians and which can still be used for cars. Hopefully, therefore, everyone will be able to access on foot or in wheelchair and no-one will lose any parking. The works will be carried out shortly
Bollards, benches and bins made the news a couple of days ago because Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary has called for a reduction in "street clutter". He also includes items such as signs, advertising hoardings, and even traffic lights. Eric is concerned about safety and the damage done to the character of English towns and villages. I think we do have too many signs. We have too much paint on our roads and we are told to do things too often, but many people make a living out of painting white lines or writing signs. My particular concern was the ...
