I was outside the Playboy in Mayfair, London last night (4 June) dressed in my Easter Bunny costume to demonstrate against the use of children by the Heffner empire to increase his billions. I am talking about the merchandise made by Playboy targeted at children. These items of merchandise are pink in colour and have the bunny logo to make it attractive. The discrimination against females is done in a jokey manner so as to make it look harmless. Lots of girls I know have the Playboy merchandise without realising what it means. Well, I saw for myself today what ...
Up-market restaurants whett their pampered clients' appetites with sorbets between courses. But Beckenham Liberal Democrats, at their fund-raising dinner in the Churchill Rooms of Bromley Parish Church this evening, employed an effective alternative: a different, very short, speech from three local members before every dish. Tom Papworth, Crystal Palace Councillor and now Leader of the ...
I had a shock when I was in Stamford the other day. Staniland Booksellers, which had been there for as long as I have been visiting the town, had gone. It has seemed such a fixture that I had to ask someone to make sure that I had not misremembered its location. The good news is that Staniland has not closed, merely moved. You can find the business in a new shop in High Street East, Uppingham.
First half of the two-volume novel which won the Nebula last month and has been nominated for the Hugo. We are back in the time travel world of Fire Watch, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, where near-future historians at Oxford send graduate students back to key points of British history (though their research methodology is never adequately explained). The portrayal of wartime Britain is relentless and in the end wearyingly sentimentalised, the history students too busy being caught up in the moment to reflect on what they are doing there and what they might learn. There ...
The day began with Ronnie and Joyce Fearn's Garden Party followed by our Birkdale Surgery at Birkdale Library and finally on to Lauren Keith's Thank You Party Photos by Mike Booth with thanks
From the BBC Sport website: Jockey Kieren Fallon did not ride in Saturday's Epsom Derby after the owners of Native Khan obtained an injunction to prevent him from racing. Owner Ibrahim Araci said three-time Derby winner Fallon had reneged on a deal to ride for him, but Fallon called it an "innocent misunderstanding". On Friday a judge refused an injunction but on the morning of the race the appeal court reversed the ruling.Lord Bonkers reminisces exclusively for Liberal England: Funnily enough, one of my better Derby chances was spoilt by the courts too. It happened at 6 a.m. on the ...
[IMG: Cover to Justice League #1 (2011)] The news that DC will be rebooting its entire superhero line with issue 1s from September has been whizzing through my mind all week. It's going to have profound ramifications, not just for the DC Universe but for the so-called comics 'industry' as a whole. This promises to be DC's biggest stab of the reset button since the start of the Silver Age. The Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in a number of titles going back to basics, most notably in the case of John Byrne's Superman, but for most of the line ...
I still don't like the ending of last week's episode, it wasn't explained to my satisfaction at all... BUT. That episode was just lovely. I loved ( spoilers and cracky speculation ) for a series and a half now... Yup. I think it's going to go all Classical Mythology on our arses. Which should make [IMG: [livejournal.com profile] ] strange_complex very happy. But yes, as is becoming tradition [IMG: [personal profile] ] magister and [IMG: [personal profile] ] matgb and I sat watching on the sofa... And rather than shouting Oh for fuck's sake! at the telly lots, as we ...
There has been much disquiet in Liberal Democrat circles at the news that the people constituency parties send to the party's Conference now have to be approved both by Cowley Street. Disgruntled Radical makes a substantial contribution to the debate. It gets worse. Welcome to Spiderplant Land points out that, while campaigning to keep the cheque, the party is refusing to accept them itself. Did you get any Olympic tickets? Ian Ridley writes: "An online survey is being used to gather data on who has tickets to see if the distribution was even-handed. Initial results seemed to indicate that you ...
TweetHere is a video from the upcoming Nick Clegg musical, I thought it would amuse you. Enjoy
From the Corrections and Clarifications column in this morning's Guardian:A commentary by John Reid ... omitted to make clear that the former home secretary is a paid director of the security company G4S Regional Management (UK & Ireland) Ltd. Guardian guidelines put the onus on editors to ensure that, in the case of external contributions to the newspaper, a writer's personal, philosophical or financial connections are spelled out at the end of the piece when these relate to the subject matter.I think it would be best if the old brute could have this financial interest tattooed on his forehead, so ...
I was elected earlier this week as Liberal Youth's next Finance Officer, starting in July for one year. Thank you to everyone who supported me and voted for me. I'm delighted to be elected and am looking forward to working with the other executive members and young Liberal Democrat members across the country to rebuild Liberal Youth and to make sure we're campaigning and communicating effectively. I'm also planning to work with the main party to raise funds for Liberal Youth – it's time to move beyond just the grant for our income, especially when party finances are already stretched ...
Here I am in a French hotel room, watching BBC World - it gets just a little exhausting after a while - and who should come on but the Lib Dem Euro-MP Chris Davies. I have a great deal of admiration for Chris, who usually gets it right. But not this time, and in the unlikely event that he reads this, I wonder if I might ask him to think again. The worst moment in the combative discussion was when he laughed theatrically at the German Green spokesman who claimed that 60,000 people had died as a direct result of ...
Police accreditation for Liberal Democrat Conferences1. SummaryTwo problems: data protection and selection of representatives other than by local parties.Andrew Wiseman's response inadequate. Fundamental issues for Liberals, not mere concern.Questions for FCC now and, if unanswered, at conference.Recommended actions:1) Members provide ID info now on explicit condition of guaranteed deletion not
From "Nicked – the musical". It's either brilliant or terrible. I haven't yet decided which. My favourite lines are: Your argument's spurious, you're making me furious and You're stuck in the past, with your head up your arse"
From Dundee City Council : Dundee City Council proposes to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating carriageway surfacing works. The Order is expected to be in force for two weeks from 14 June 2011. Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months. The effect of the Order is to prohibit temporarily all vehicular traffic in Blackness Road from the east side of its junction with Glenagnes Road to the west side of its junction with Forest Park Road. Pedestrian thoroughfare and vehicular access to premises ...
TweetDavid Cameron is to back a plan to stop retailers selling inappropriate clothes for pre-teens and shield children from sexualised imagery across all media, including selling lads magazines in brown covers and making the watchdog Ofcom more answerable to the views of parents. Or so at least the Guardian report here. This sounds like very much a knee jerk reaction off the back of The Sex Education Show: Stop Pimping Our Kids, which I also wrote about here David Cameron's signalled support has kicked off a debate about exactly what Children are seeing and able to interact with. One of ...
The Dundee Airport Manager has advised me that : "We have some major runway works being undertaken at the moment. Our contractor is working overnight to keep the flight disruption to a minimum. We are re-surfacing the runway apron and taxi ways at the airport over the next 12 weeks, the main works have started now and are expected to last around 6-8 weeks. The works are costing £1.7 million and will see the surface being strengthened and improve the integrity of the areas. I have briefed our contractor of the urban environment and they are fully aware of keeping ...
Plans by a number of Plaid Cymru Assembly Members to boycott the offical opening of the Welsh Assembly on Tuesday have made the headlines as they intended. Leanne Wood, Bethan Jenkins and Llyr Huws Gruffydd are planning on carryng out a series of visits and other engagements instead of taking their seats for the ceremony that will mark the start of the ability of Assembly Members to make laws in our own right. There is no doubt that the trio are sincere and as a republican myself I understand why they do not support an unelected monarchy presiding over an ...
This week Liberal Youth elected its Executive Committee for 2011-2012. The new Executive Committee is as follows: Chair: Tom Wood Vice Chair: Charlotte Henry Financial Officer: Chris Jenkinson Campaigns Officer: Cath Smith and Chris Ward Communications Officer: Bobby Dean Events Officer: Thomas Hemsley International Officer: Sam Fisk and Harriet Ainscough Policy Officer: Sarah Harding Non-Portfolio Officers: Robson Brown and Aidan Flood England Convenor: Harry Matthews The following have been elected for the Regions: Regional Chairs: North East: Hannah Claytor North West: Neil Darby East Midlands: Keiran Harley West Midlands: Rory Roberson South East: Jon Bates South West: Dave Cope Scottish ...
When it comes to watching sport on the tellybox I know what I am talking about. My life often revolves around what sport is on and I watch hours of sports each week even in the summer and when the winter comes then that number increases exponentially. Throughout all the fantastic and enjoyable commentry and presenting teams that I watch (BBC F1, ESPN College Gameday, ESPN/ABC College Football Primetime, NBC Sunday Night Football, #9 Cricket, ESPN PTI) one team sticks out from above the paraphit of these top notch teams is the Sky Sports Test Cricket team. Six men between ...
I've read how a lot of authors are having some success selling individual short stories on the Kindle for 99 cents, so I've decided to bundle up the four stories on my fiction page that aren't about Doctor Who, and make them available as a Kindle book, "Four Stories About The Singularity" for 99 cents. ...
Sat 4th
14:45
Want a proper Watershed Middle England? Well learn to be a proactive and not a reactive parent
This isn't going to be either pretty nor popular *puts on helmet* and I shall begin. The shall we call it raunchy display by Christina Aguilera in The X Factor last year caused uproar. Well when I say uproar 4,500 complaints came in of an audience of 19.4million. Putting through the old calculator that means that 0.02% of people were outraged enough to write a letter, e-mail or pick up the phone. I remember someone telling me that night that within an hour of the show OfCom had received 16,000 phone calls complaining alone. Just another person lying to emphasise ...
Facebook's habit of deleting profiles or pages which don't fit with its rules was in the news recently when over 50 British political accounts were deleted. I'm with Jon Worth on that story - which is that all the accounts in question were breaking Facebook's own stated rules so a significant part of the responsibility rests with those running the accounts who didn't follow the rules Facebook lays down for everyone. Over-heated claims of political purges were misplaced. One of my reasons is that I've a reasonable amount of experience of reporting fake profiles or pages to Facebook in the ...
Our first ever conference takes place this month (in a fortnight in fact). Called Liberty, Equality and the State we are aiming to look at policy and do some thinking about some pretty fundamental issues. It is a Lib Dem led conference and it does include Simon Hughes, Vince Cable and Chris Huhne but we also have speakers from other parties and none. The event takes place down in London (although we hope in future to have satellite events for people who can't travel quite so far). I agreed to chair a session. In fact I am doing the kick ...
People in the bit off Beechwood Road affected by the ongoing alleygate saga should already be aware but in case there is someone who isn't, here's the update. All the legal stuff was done when a check showed that the wall we wanted to fix the gate onto wasn't safe enough. The gate could be fixed sort of freestanding, but then people could simply step around the gate (there would be enough of a gap) The answer was to pay for a post of some sort to attach the gate to and make sure there isn't a gap. The Council ...
Saturday 25th June is the Garston Park Fun Day. The weather was fantastic last time and it was great to see so many people there so fingers crossed for another great day. The Friends of Garston Park will be there again. This time we're also looking to have a tombola on our stall . We've got some prizes but we could do with some more. If you've got something you can give away to help with this, please either drop it off at 80 Long Lane or drop me an e mail so we can sort out about collecting it. ...
A very large number of Liberal Democrats have been expressing anger on Lib Dem Voice and elsewhere on the blogosphere at a quite outrageous attempt by West Midlands Police to interfere with the Party's political process, and at what appears to be the capitulation of a majority of the Federal Conference Committee (FCC) to authoritarian demands that are totally at odds with the principles and values of the Party. They are found in a totally over-the-top demand for a large amount of personal data and for photographs that would appear to disbar you from attempting Conference if you have a ...
The campaign against the changes to registration at conference has been picked up in a couple of the newspapers today, The Times and The Daily Mail. The Daily Mail seems to have gone the usual route of 'Poor little LibDems' ... Continue reading →
I am writing this on the 22nd anniversary of 'Six Four' (the codename for the Tian An Men incident that occurred on 4th of June 1989). Perhaps no better day to reflect on the subject of media censorship in China and to question the role of international broadcasters? Only yesterday I was with some 200 people at a talk organised by BBC Chinese Service at Chatham House. To my amazement even the English panel speakers such as Dr Kerry Brown (Head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House), Madeline Earp (Research Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists) and Prof ...
Over on the BBC website, William Powell, a newly elected member of the Welsh Assembly, has taken part in a Q&A to introduce some of the new AMs elected in May. Here's a sample: Why stand for the assembly?To be a strong liberal voice for Mid and West Wales, including the old Liberal heartlands in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire Most frustrating thing about your first week as an AM?Negotiating the maze of corridors in the assembly buildings – no prizes for my orienteering so far What's your poison?Whipping Tree Ale, best-selling ale from the Rotter's micro-brewery in Talgarth First record you ...
Yesterday of course everyone of us Liberal Democrats heard the tragic news about Andrew Reeves. Before I'd gone to sleep the night before I was chatting away to one of my friends from Edinburgh who was at home looking after his convalescing father, after himself being the victim of a vicious attack in recent weeks. At about midnight he said his father was starting to suffer the signs of yet another heart attack, his third it turned out, and would have to go. I was getting occasional messages from him at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary until the small hours. Little ...
An interesting article in the New Statesman concluded Americans were secretly socialists, after a new Gallup poll on attitudes to wealth distribution. Voters in the United States are embracing 'Marxism' as a method to deal with the eviscerating deficit. 57% ... Continue reading →
This morning, along with members of the Community Spirit Action Group, volunteers from Jericho House and Hillcrest Housing Association and City Council Communities Officer, Waste Management and two of my ward colleagues, I participated in another West End graffiti clean up. At the last clean up, we concentrated on streets in the southern part of the West End, so today, we put our efforts into cleaning up graffiti in the northern part of the ward in Community's Spirit's coverage area, tackling graffiti in streets like Milnbank Road, Lower Pleasance and Rosefield Place. Here's me in Lower Pleasance earlier this morning! ...
As we reported in February: A hip-hop musical based on Nick Clegg's role in forming the Coalition government is to be staged later this year. The show (working title: "Nicked") also features David Cameron in a "rap-off" with his backbenchers as well as the student demonstrations and the run-up to the AV referendum. Here's a preview of one of the numbers: Tinderbox, featuring "Nick Clegg" and "David Cameron" singing about AV. (Don't miss "Ed Miliband" beatboxing in the background.) Video also available on YouTube.
Having successfully campaigned as a Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate against Labour's Territorial Army (TA) cuts, I am very pleased to see today's news about a likely boost to the number of TA reservists. This ties in with the Government's response to my Downing Street petition about this issue - thanks again to the thousands of people who signed. I appreciate that the Strategic Defence and Security Review is still ongoing, but this appears to be a very positive outcome for the TA.
As some of you know I'm back playing bowls in Ireland so I'm going to start an occassional sedries of the venues that I have been playing at. First up is Bessbrook one of the longest treks for us within the Northern Irish Bowling Assoccation being all the way down near Newry. However as you can see from the pictures the green is set out in the green surrounded by the old mill cottages on three sides. There are also views of Slieve Gullion and Carnlough Mountain from the green. However, the day we were there as you can see ...
I just realised, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, that both my oldest first cousin and my youngest first cousin have birthdays today. The one is about 40 and the other about 20. My mother is the oldest of nine children, and I am the oldest of my grandfather's grandchildren (he was married twice). Altogether there are 22 of us, with I think about 17 in the next generation so far (my own three children, my two nieces, and a dozen offspring of our other cousins). I don't think we have ever all been in the same place at the ...
[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 04/06/11] Yesterday's Towpath 10k was my first outing at 10k for more than three years. Having missed the Bristol 10k last month I thought I'd enter the next local race that I could get to, if only as a target to keep the training moving forward. I'm pretty sure ...
There appear to have been more worrying developments regarding the registration process for the Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham. I have been approached by one long standing member of our local party who has had an issue applying for conference ... Continue reading →
Warning: contains a double dose of tactical nuclear bastard. The 24 types of Libertarian – Cut out and use as a game of bingo in certain comments threads. (via) Liberal – but not so democratic in the Lords – James Graham looks at why Lib Dem peers seem so reluctant to abolish their cushy, well-rewarded sinecures and proposes a radical suggestion. My 'yes' campaign hell – I'm thinking of compiling a book featuring all the post-referendum reports from Yes To Fairer Votes staffers, entitled How Not To Run A Campaign. This is James Graham's chapter. Illiberal conference: Blog post roundup ...
I suspect one of these topics is likely to be of wider interest than the other... but if you are interested in either putting a motion to conference about Lords reform (it's a good thing and it's a shame that so many Lib Dem peers are opposed to elections) or the Federal Appeals Panel (whose rulings I think are shrouded in too much obscurity and, in the same spirit of transparency we expect of our courts, that should change) then do get in touch. Or, in the case of the Lords, sign up on the Liberal Democrats for Lords Reform ...
Two graphs for your Saturday enlightenment:
My post about a Deltic returning to commercial freight operation seemed popular, so here is a video that suggests that this was not such a remarkable development. The video above shows 55022 Royal Scots Grey working on the West Highland line, hauling empties from the Fort William aluminium works. It first made this run in 2009.
Sat 4th
09:35
June Books 4) The Unwritten, Volume 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity, by Mike Carey
Volume 2 of this series has been nominated for the Hugo this year, but I though I should start at the beginning; I must say if Volume 2 is half as good as this it will probably be getting my vote. Four of the five issues compiled here are the story of Tommy Taylor, son of the vanished writer Wilson Taylor who has immortalised him as the hero of a series of Harry Potter-like books; a series of revelations leads to a confrontation at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland, interrogating the boundaries between genres and between literature and real life. ...
My head hurts, and I've had about 4 hours' sleep. The headache is probably due at least in part to the overconsumption of Chardonnay last night. I was not impressed to be awake before 6 this morning. However I have caught up with Coronation Street. Can't believe Weatherfield's police are so completely rubbish is my only comment. And please don't tell me off for watching a soap. You know I like trash. What can I say? But before I'd got out of bed, I'd looked back at 8.5 months' worth of text messages from Andrew Reeves, going back to the ...
Nineteen adventures into the Eighth Doctor series, and he finally gets a new companion in the shape of Fitz Kreiner (I have seen a claim somewhere that there are more stories with Fitz than for any other companion), picked up on a visit to 1963 in which his mother is killed by the gruesomely horrible Taine, leech-like internal parasites feeding on brainwaves. The writing is decent enough; I was a bit startled by Fitz's unreconstructed early Sixties predatory masculinity directed to Sam, having only read later stories in the range; presumably he mellows out in the course of the series. ...
It must be around thirty years since I read this book, which came towards the end of Dickens' career (followed only by Our Mutual Friend and Edwin Drood). For today's reader, the portrayal of the poor as either comic or villainous grates somewhat, redeemed a bit by Magwitch's personal history when we eventually find out about it; and few of the middle-class characters are very nice people either (particularly the women). It seems a somehow mean-spirited book, holding a slightly distorting mirror up to society without really digging into the wider causes of human misery. Wikipedia has the original ending, ...
i) births and deaths 4 June 1927: birth of Geoffrey Palmer, who played Masters in Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970), the Administrator in The Mutants (1972), and Hardaker in Voyage of the Damned (2007). His son Charles Palmer directed four episodes of Doctor Who in 2007. 4 June 1933: birth of Ric Felgate, who played Roy Stone in The War Machines (1966), Brent in The Seeds of Death (1969), and Charles Van Lyden in The Ambassadors of Death (1970). 4 June 1940: birth of David Collings, who played Vorus in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975), Poul in The Robots ...
A further £700,000 worth of cuts could be made to frontline fire services in Cambridgeshire. They could come on top of the £4 million worth of savings already agreed and the £1.3 million worth of cuts to frontline services to be discussed in October. The extra cuts could lead to Cambridge's second fire engine being taken out of service at night and the merging of two Peterborough fire stations. Fire Chiefs claim that while the fire service currently needs to save £4.2 million by 2015, the Cambridgeshire Fire Authority needs to plan to save £6 million to cover the cost ...
Just a little reminder that in one weeks time on the corner of Campkin Road and Northfield Avenue the annual Arbury Carnival (now in it's 34th year!) will be kicking off. Your local Liberal Democrats from King's Hedges and Arbury will have stalls, come along and talk to us! The website with more information is; www.arburycarnival.org Next year will be the 35th Anniversary of the Carnival and we'll be doing something special. If you'd like to volunteer to join the committee and help us organise it then you can either contact me (via email) or come up and talk to ...
John Stafford the Chair of Conservative Yes says that the main campaign did not really want their involvement.
Deconstructing Pointy-Eared White Supremacists « Ars Marginal (tags: fantasy fiction elves) Nematodes found living a mile and more under the earth's surface Nematodes (round worms) are awesome. (tags: nematodes nathistory zoology) Nine Reasons Women Don't Edit Wikipedia (in their own words) A lot of these make sense to me; after all, they are why I've never edited Wikipedia, and I'm a woman. How widely shared is my experience? I don't know (tags: feminsm wikipedia) P.G. Wodehouse's American Psycho Rhian Jones mashes up two social satires on McSweeney (tags: satire humour books)
Humanitarianism in Crisis | United States Institute of Peace Money quote: "Without a vigorous restatement of the principles of humanitarianism, humanitarian action will remain in a state of crisis and continue to be a selective tool for the powerful and hence fail in its global mission of protecting and restoring the dignity of human life." (tags: war politics)
How did you do in the Olympics tickets lottery? Did you get all that you applied for, some or none? An online survey is being used to gather data on who has tickets to see if the distribution was even-handed. Initial results seemed to indicate that you had to apply for around £1500 worth of ...
Today's tragic news about the death of Andrew Reeves at just 43, has sent shock waves through the party. Many tributes to him have already been written - with Caron Lindsay's here being particularly poignant . My thoughts are with his loved ones and his many friends who knew him better than I did.
