Mark Allen and I were contemporaries at Oxford University's Oriental Institute, though he was studying Arabic (under the inimitable Freddie Beeston) while I was doing my first degree in Chinese and Japanese (under the aetherial David Hawkes). We were both refugees from our originally chosen subject; Classics in his case, Geography in mine. An interest ...
In which I talk about Night Terrors, cuckoos and demographic bubbles. Tagged: Doctor Who, me elsewhere, mindless ones
I had a bit of a treat this afternoon at about 5pm. While walking our dog, I turned a corner near Mill Hall, Greenham and, lo and behold, a deer was staring at me. It seemed quite close but was probably about 20 feet away. I took a quick snap (above) and just managed to convert to video to capture it running away into the trees (the deer is in the middle of the video below). I apologise for lack of zoom.
I don't know whether it is their (alleged) propensity to rust. Or their, in some quarters, perceived ungainly shape. But you don't often see a Ford Zephyr these days. You see its contemporaries the Mini, the Morrithou and the Triumphs Herald and Vitesse, but not many Ford Zephyrs or Zodiacs. In fact, outside of motor shows, I can't remember when I last saw one. It was probably 15 years ago at least. So when I saw this one in Newbury today, I just had to take a photo of it. This particular one is in very good shape. Someone loves ...
In spite of massive public opposition, Surrey County Council's plans to hand over many of the County's libraries to volunteers will become a reality once Cabinet approve the final proposals later this month. The report to Cabinet recommends that professional staffing budgets are withdrawn from 10 libraries in 2012. Local Communities in these areas must come up with viable business plans for their libraries by the end of the year or face closure. But that number will double in 2013 when a further 9 libraries which have been earmarked for "Community Partnership" are likely to suffer the same fate. [IMG: ...
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. 1. Public Transport Money. Thank you for all the suggestions for how the borough council can spend the money it has available for public transport schemes. I've had more responses to this than to any other request I've ever included, which is why I just haven't had time to send personal replies to everyone. I have read them all though. I will pass ...
I spent the afternoon at Arts Fresco, the Market Harborough Street Festival that is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The picture above shows Until Now, "a beautifully improbable acrobatic adventure with a little magic and a few surprises," but for me the day's highlight was The Spurting Man, who certainly deserves a post of his own. I met Hazel Cook and asked why the festival had moved from the High Street to Welland Park this year. It's not just that the town centre is still being dug up at the moment: she said that the costs of closing the ...
In the aftermath of the Dorries Amendment last week there were many stunned Lib Dems who looked down the Hansrad list and saw Liberal Democrat's who had voted for it. One such name was Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West. How could a Liberal Democrat vote for such Illiberal policy? Surely it would be naturally abhorrent to any Liberal? These "Liberals" are the enemy of all we stand for right? I'm not so certain. Firstly, I don't agree with Dorries, I believe that a woman should be allowed to decide what she wants to do with her body and ...
The Observer write Stroppy Tories seem to have forgotten they didn't actually win in which they highlight some interesting points which shows some strengths in Nick Clegg: Nick Clegg is delighted when Conservatives complain that he's stopping them from being more rightwing To many critics of the left, the Lib Dem leader was a dupe ...
Our week at Bonkers Hall continues... Back in the 1960s, when I served for some years on Party Council, I often found myself out of sympathy with majority opinion. Notably, when public disorder broke out, I frequently found it difficult to find a seconder for my proposal that we should send for the Rutland Fencible Cavalry. So I was pleased to see from the electric Twitter that Dr Evan Harris is now of my opinion. I have been wondering why this should be so when he is otherwise to be found on the Advanced side of every question, and I ...
A great take by Andrew Rawnsley on the current coalition. Frustrated Right of the Conservative Party accusing the Liberal Democrats of holding them back. Personally, it was one of the reasons why I support the coalition as a means to ... Continue reading →
The Alan Parsons Project was just that: a project put together by Alan Parsons, a sound engineer and record producer, with the help of his manager and fellow composer Eric Woolfson. Tired of having groups reject his ideas, Parsons took control and recruited individual musicians to work on his concept albums. Some players were regulars, and a sort of Alan Parsons house band soon emerged. This was based around former members of the Scottish group Pilot, which had been relentlessly promoted by BBC Radio 1 in its time, perhaps because two of its members had escaped from an early version ...
Ten years after 9/11 I am sure that thee best way to honour the dead of 9/11 and the dead of the War on Terror is to make sure that they did not die in vain. And we do that by not allowing terrorists, or the threat of terrorism, to change our lives by scaring us into abandoning the civil liberties, free speech and democracy which make us better than the terrorists in the first place. In that context, I find that this song, made by a man who was detained for travelling to Afghanistan to star in a film ...
[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 11/09/11] I hope your experience of today's Bristol Half was a positive one – that you got to the finish line in one piece and with a smile on your face. If you were aiming for a time then I hope you hit your target. It was great to ...
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were, to be blunt, not the prettiest buildings on the planet. I had mocked their sterile shape and structure many times and I'm sure I wasn't alone. What we wouldn't give to still have them here, though, for the atrocity that took place a decade ago to have been confined to a nightmare after consuming a particularly pungent selection of cheese. In December 1994, my friend Sue and I went to New York City on a five day pre Christmas adventure. Actually, if the truth be known, we went to see Star ...
So, I was mostly really enjoying this week's episode until near the end. For a near-bottle episode that was apparently supposed to be this season's low-budget effort, it looks absolutely stunning, and it certainly grabbed my attention and held it to the end. I liked the jokes (especially the ones with a tinge of awareness of non-monogamy); I liked that Tom MacRae captured enough of Karen Gillan's speech patterns to give Amy some typically Scots sentence constructions. Yes, there were some flaws. The concept of the two-streams facility isn't terribly well explained (amongst four adults watching, we had four different ...
11th September 2001 was a wonderful, bright and sunny day here in London, just as it was in New York. You didn't need a jacket outdoors. I was on duty for a presentation to a prospective client that morning, at the client's offices. I was done by lunch time and walked through the lobby blissfully unaware of what was happening over the Atlantic, though it must have been on television screens in the lobby by then. As I walked through the sun from Gresham Street to our office on Moorgate I was in a world of my own, relieved that ...
Yesterday morning Paul Burgin who set up the Mars Hill Blog and earlier this year invited myself and others to transform it into a group blog, invited us all to share what our memories were of 9/11 ten years ago. Obviously with being on my way to a wedding and leaving my laptop behind I didn't get around to it today. I wrote about mine from my point of view working away in an office Edinburgh. Paul recalls his recollections after just coming off shift in a coffee shop and his boss telling him one plane had hit the World ...
Can be read over at Liberal Vision.
Graeme Archer's piece in the Telegraph on the Liberal Democrats is not exactly flattering to say the least. He clearly doesn't have much time for the party and believes that if it didn't exist no one would invent it. Angela Harbutt commented that while not agreeing with everything, Archer has a point. Others have responded and can be read below the link Angela posted. I suspect third parties, whatever they stand for, will always have trouble justifying their existence. After all, you can join a main party that you feel some affinity towards and then hope to persuade party members ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 238th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (4-10 September, 2011), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. I'm using a ...
The Daily Post has carries a story about suggestion that there should be an elected Mayor for Merseyside- a sort of Scouse Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson. The journalist whose by line appears with the story is David Bartlett who has proved himself to be a serious political writer and therefore the piece cannot be dismissed as merely a 'silly season story' despite the rather flimsy evidence quoted. Let us be clear the suggestion that Liverpool should have a Mayor is nothing to do with me. It is properly a matter for the electors of the City. For what it ...
Today, like many other people across the world, I paused for a minute's silence at 1.46pm UK time. This was the moment, ten years ago today, when the first hijacked aeroplane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. I remember the moment vividly when the second passenger jet, United Airlines Flight 75, hit the South Tower as I was watching, live, whilst on holiday in Tunisia with my wife. We were celebrating the first anniversary of our wedding, but this became a time we would remember for a different reason. Much time has passed since those terrible events ...
The situation in Greece does seem to be coming to a head. If they don't sort their problems out then they won't have money to pay their liabilities.I would argue that any country that has had to have a rescue of any form has gone through a form of bankruptcy. However, it is only at the point at which they really don't have any way of paying for things that they have the effects of insolvency in
Today's Telegraph splashes with the story, Revealed: secret new life of fugitive Lib Dem donor, devoting its first three pages to the tale of Michael Brown's new life on the run in a Caribbean hideout. Michael Brown, as our readers will not need reminding, donated £2.4m to the party just before the 2005 general election. His subsequent arrest and conviction on several counts of fraud have been an embarrassment to the Lib Dems ever since. The Telegraph's story is, shock horror, a little partial, though. Take this paragraph: 'The Liberal Democrats have steadfastly resisted all attempts to force them to ...
A win for the BBC: Twenty-four men suspected of being held against their will have been found during a raid at a travellers' site.
Thursday night saw a lovely thank you party at the National Liberal Club for Flick Rea, London Liberal Democrat administrator for many a year and by far the party's best Margaret Thatcher impersonator, who has retired this year. Well, I say "retired" but as anyone who knows Flick will attest, retiring is not exactly her style and she is still an excellent and very active councillor in West Hampstead, host of some of the best Liberal Democrat socials and a great friend and support to many Liberal Democrats. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many male Camden Liberal ...
Never let it be said that you don't learn anything here at 'The View...'. Here in the idyllic countryside, the Suffolk Wildlife Trust are working on a project to encourage harvest mice. Harvest mice are seriously cute. They weigh about 5 grammes (about the same amount as a 20 pence coin), and eat grass seed - even the National Farmers Union approve of them. It was thought that numbers were in serious decline, so a biodiversity study was undertaken to find out. This involved examining barn owl pellets to see what they were eating. The more evidence of harvest mice, ...
So I've told you where I was. Now onto the more serious side. 10 years ago today, everything changed. Until then, we were a confident, free society, and enjoyed a life without looking over our shoulder wondering if anyone was ... Continue reading →
Positive discrimination is still discrimination. Now that I've got that out of the way I want to highlight something that is about to happen at the open day of the Labour conference. A woman only conference, on womans issues, where men are barred (Except Ed, who is apparently an honorary woman for the event) What sort of party that has harped on at us for years to tell us they believe in equality (although never actually delivering), yet promote ridiculously silly ideas like all women shortlists and now this? Where men will be banned from an event because of their ...
[IMG: taxpayer funded political view] This weekend Kent on Sunday carries a report on page 10, suggesting that the Kent Police Authority is making political moves at the taxpayers expenses, as if..., well I know that Kent Council frequently use their press office to promote allsorts of nonsense making the Conservative look better than they are. Kent seems to me to be a sort of political Bermuda Triangle in which Tories have become sort of vaguely bonkers lefties, with ever more cranky ways to waste money, whether it's pay vast sums of money to Fat Cats or opening up its ...
There's only one thing on all our minds today. The fact that it's, unbelievably, 10 years since the attacks on New York which shocked and changed the world. Many people are posting what they were doing on that day including Mark Cole. Ellen writes here about what it was like to be working in a newspaper office on that day. There have been two days in my lifetime that have been like that - when Diana died and 9/11 where people never forget what they were doing. For me it started. like most do as an uneventful, unremarkable day. I ...
[IMG: Tax-expired van in Ridge Road] The Council's consultation on whether or not to extend resident's parking controls into the Hornsey Vale area closes in the next few days. Therefore, I'm urging all residents on the affected roads to have their say on this controversial issue. In September, the Stroud Green Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) will be extended up to and including Ridge Road, and will operate 12 noon until 2pm Monday-Friday. Many residents are concerned that this will make parking more difficult in the roads just to the north, and after pressure from your local councillors and a public ...
At 8:46 am (1:46 pm in the UK) on Tuesday, 11th September, 2001 American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north face of the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. 2,996 people died, including the 19 hijackers of the planes. 67 of these were British nationals. In total, 20 countries mourned the loss of citizens that day. Since 9/11, more than a hundred thousand military and civilians have died as a result of military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. The scale of death inflicted is vast, incomprehensible. It is not, though, the numbers that tell ...
Here, now.
Education, freedom of information and children's rights are today's issues in my ongoing republication of Love and Liberty, the booklet on Liberalism I originally wrote back in 1999. It's part of my contribution to exploring what the Liberal Democrats stand for, as the coalition continues and Conference looms. I've added a few more notes and polished up a few sentences today, while stopping short of a temptingly total rewrite; I still mostly agree with myself, but if any of the instalments have dated, it's this. Spot the one written just a year after discovering the Internet... Liberty: Freedom from Ignorance ...
As we near Conference Season, the team that brought you 'Blue Labour' has been squirrelled away in a dark corner somewhere working on a book known as the Purple Book. It is a collection of essays by senior Labour figures sympathetic to the notions of community politics including shadow Culture Secretary Ivan Lewis. It is viewed by some as Blairite in theme. You may have a slight feeling of Deja Vu. Remember the Orange Book? Well this Purple Book sounds awfully similar, doesn't it? Also community politics - the mainstay of Liberal Democrat campaigning in the UK for the last ...
The perennial question cropped up again the other day, on the beach this time: "What do the LibDems stand for?" I replied that the Tories and Labour view British society through the same prism of class or socio-economic groups, but that the LibDems see individuals. We don't believe that your gender, the colour of your skin, religion, social background, the number of parents you have, your weight or body shape or ability, your education level or bank balance say anything at all about your compassion, your willingness to get involved in your community, your intelligence, your wisdom, your sense of ...
Last year, many residents in Gorton from the Debdale and Woodlands area were delighted that a planning application (092428/FO/2010/N2) was submitted to Manchester City Council for a new supermarket with the address of Reddish Lane, Gorton, M18 7LJ on the site of the former KwikSave. There's a lot of good will in the area for a decent store here and people were pleased when Asda opened last week. So much so, that when I went in to get some items yesterday, large sections of the shelves had been cleared by enthusiastic customers. "A good sign" I thought. What wasn't a ...
Today's Sunday Sound is an absolute classic - the Manic Street Preachers with Motorcycle Emptiness: Andrew
I got into a rather heated debate the other night with a fellow LibDem who said that they still couldn't see any differences between us and the Conservatives in the coalition. They complained relentlessly that the party has been nothing ...
Nothing I can say can do justice to the sense of loss and the outrage sparked by the terrorist attacks on the USA ten years ago today. It was a tragedy and a direct assault on our values and our democracy that changed the world as we know it. As with so many momentous events in World history I, along with so many others can remember where I was when I heard the news. It was the penultimate week in the by-election to replace the late Val Feld as Assembly Member for Swansea East. I had just come back to ...
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, is one of the most famous novels in English Literature. I have never been a Brontë sisters fan - most of their combined output is torrid and turgid by turns. This is understandable when you visit the place where most of their stories were written - Haworth, in Yorkshire. It is a bleak and dark place even at the height of summer. However, Jane Eyre distinguishes itself from the rest both by having some genuinely believable, likeable characters (in contrast to the enduringly unpleasant Wuthering Heights) and, some would suggest, by its status as an ...
The Guardian carried an article yesterday that illustrated how badly split Labour remain foll0wing on from the trauma of the Gordon Brown premiership. The controversy even conjures up the ghost of former Labour spin-doctor, Damien McBride who resigned after it was reported that he had sent a series of emails to former Labour Party official Derek Draper discussing plans to set up the controversial Red Rag blogsite which would be used to post rumours they had made up about the private lives of senior members of the Conservative Party and their spouses. The paper says that The Purple Book, which ...
Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings. President Jimmy Carter
In other words: Is Nadine Dorries starting to be one of the main players in a party within the Tory party? I do wonder whether that question may be the significant one, following this high profile week for the Mid-Bedfordshire MP. I don't think Cameron meant an ooh-missus double entendre with his "extremely frustrated" remark in the Commons. Charges of sexism against the PM, while probably true in part, miss the point. There appears to be hardening antipathy to the coalition within a minority of right-wing Conservative MPs. (By the way, much of this seems to be aggravated by the ...
Publicwhip (under new management) have now published the divisions. It is worth explaining the meaning of the amendment divisions pushed by Labour (as what they saw as the key issues).Delay the abolition of Strategic Health Authorities I cannot understand the argument for delaying the abolition. Either they are worth keeping or should go. I also don't know why Labour really pushed this one.
A quirk of the political calendar means Monday sees both politicians and bankers learn of their possible future fate. For English MPs it is when they get embargoed copies of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission's draft proposals, which get published on Tuesday. Monday is also the day when the Vickers Commission publishes its banking reform recommendations. There is a widespread expectation in Whitehall that the Vickers Commission will recommend isolating retail banking from other banking activities, but without demanding that companies be split up. Internal firewalls and the like will be demanded instead. It is also widely expected that the Vickers ...
Today the Flemish government is having an Open Monument Day, with hundreds of normally inaccessible historical sites on display to the public. Our commune's contribution to this event is two squat structures in Sint-Joris-Weert, which I have driven past on numerous occasions without giving them a second glance, now revealed as bunkers built by the Belgian army in the late 1930s and actually used by the British in May 1940 shortly before the retreat to Dunkirk. This was part of the KW-line, integrated into the so-called Dyle plan, using the river Dijle as a defensive barrier. You can see the ...
The Irish Peace Centres has launched a report LGBT Communities' Experiences of Faith and Church in Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately neither Steve or Nigel can make the 19th, please contact us via email or phone
I don't think I need to spell just how much of a parody of herself Nadine Dorries is becoming, but something worse is appearing, and surely that is bringing the Tories into disrepute? Their is two pieces which I believe do this, firstly, is this link here, After George Osbornes joke at the GQ magazine awards (Okay yes I admit it, I laughed) she has seen fit to call him some very childish names. Now i have no problem with criticising the chancellor, but I'd rather do it because of his economic beliefs. But calling him tacky and immature and ...
The daily linkspam function from Delicious still isn't working, so here's a few things that caught my eye: Things that distract me from Writing - Good overview of latest Orson Scott Card controversy For Abkhazia, Recognition Is Coming Piece by Piece - How the World Domino championships interact with geopolitics. A history of conflicts - Brilliant on-line atlas of the history of war. A new Libya must also be for women The Fall & Fall of Scottish Conservatism - The future for the political Right in Scotland. (Bleak.) The ISS: Threat or Menace? - The International Space Station as bringer ...
Set in Northern Ireland during the 1970s; at the same time as the human conflict unfolding on the streets of Belfast and Derry, there is a supernatural conflict being waged between the Church and the Otherworld. It would be very easy to do this badly, but Leicht has avoided almost all the obvious pitfalls; the two plots reinforce each other rather than seeking clunky parallels. Her viewpoint character, Liam Kelly, is swept by circumstance into the IRA and co-opted by his supernatural paternity into the less visible war, and both he and the grim circumstances of 1970s Ulster are memorably ...
Conservationists are concerned that Cambridgeshire County Council is endangering rare wildlife by its failure to cut roadside verges properly.Sixty seven roadside verges across the county have protected status and they need cutting in the autumn to preserve the balance of wildlife at a cost of £13,000 a year.But Cambridgeshire County Council is refusing to cut more than a one metre band of the verges. It claims if more needs to be done parish councils must take on the work and pay for it.Conservationists claim that, unless the verges are cut correctly, the loss of grassland species recorded over the past ...
As reported in yesterday's Courier and Friday's Evening Telegraph, I have condemned the mindless vandals who have pulled over 23 headstones in Balgay Cemetery. Their actions were extremely destructive and very upsetting for the families involved and come on top of previous vandalism a couple of months ago. The police have promised high-visibility patrols in the area and that is to be welcomed. I have been in touch with the Inspector for the West End also requesting that mobile CCTV be used as a deterrent and in detecting those responsible. Yesterday, I visited the cemetery to see the vandalism for ...
This Thursday the voters of Surbiton Hill ward in Kingston Borough will vote to elect a new councillor. And it is shaping up to be an interesting contest. It's probably the richest ward in Ed Davey's constituency and the Southborough area provides some of the moxt luxurious addresses in south west London. But it also contains a sizable chunk of a former Labour ward - Tolworth West - which was keenly fought between Lib Dems and Labour until it was abolished in 2002. The Tolworth roads are not poor - they contain solid Victorian and Edwardian villas and terraces like ...
TweetThis evening I had the pleasure to attend Canterbury Liberal Democrat dinner with the speaker Lord Chris Rennard. For those of you that do not have a mental biography of Liberal Democrat Peers, here's a precis; 1984 Becomes a national Area Agent 1989 Appointed Director of Campaigns and Elections. Awarded MBE 1990-95 Six By-election gains 1997 General Election. Liberal Democrats win 46 seats, up from 18 1999 Created life peer 2000 By-election gain 2001 General Election. Liberal Democrats win 52 seats 2003-09 Liberal Democrats Chief Executive Chris is a superbly inspirational speaker, chosing to focus on what is, essentially, the ...
Tribute to 9/11. Words by Aaron Sorkin as spoken by Martin Sheen playing President Josiah Bartlett (West Wing - '20 Hours in America'). "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students, and our teachers, and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded wth angels. But every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This ...
