Today is Ada Lovelace Day and I thought I would mark it in an appropriate manner by declaring my love of the fantastic web comic '2D Goggles or The Amazing Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage'. Now I am not really a comic fan. That is one realm of geekdom which I haven't much fallen into. (Although I do have some old copies of 2000 AD up in the loft that someone gave me once.) However, Lovelace and Babbage is different and I have been eagerly pouncing on new editions whenever (rather erratically) they appear. Why? Well how could you resist ...
It's a very good night for the stars here. Jupiter is still bright in the East. Using GoSkyWatch we spotted Vega, Mirphak, Uranus, Polaris and Capella. Here's a photo of Jupiter taken just before 11pm tonight with my iPad: -Well, at least it's better than my last effort. Here's a photo of Jupiter taken yesterday, 6th October by Salvatore Iovene: [IMG: Attribution] [IMG: Noncommercial] [IMG: Share Alike] Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Salvatore Iovene
What were the odds on Wayne Rooney being sent off tonight?
And here's where I start being harsher about these albums. Head was the last truly great album the Monkees released, and after that album and film flopped so badly, the rest of the Monkees' career was a panic, with the record label alternating between desperate attempts to regain the band's commercial success and utter apathy ...
Just finished listening to the latest Big Finish audio in their Companion Chronicles series, starring Wendy Padbury as the memory-wiped Zoe, forced to recollect an adventure with the Second Doctor and Jamie in the improbable environment of Tashkent in 1919. I was really disappointed that this exotic setting ended up sounding rather like an English village instead of a Central Asian capital city; my knowledge of Uzbekistan is not huge but sufficient that I did not really feel I was being transported there. Having said that, the kick of explaining how Zoe, her memory wiped by the Time Lords, can ...
Found this little gem on Facebook and thought I'd share it... Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank ...
Regular readers will know that that both Toby Flood's grandfathers were considerable actors. Recently I came across this picture of one of them, Gerald Flood, which shows a distinct family resemblance. Anyway, good luck to England tomorrow. I am glad Toby Flood is playing, but I wish he were at fly half.
This is clearly the best cover version ever. For many years I actually thought Jagger and Richards wrote this specifically for her (as they did for the ironically named Marianne Faithful)
No, don't panic. It is not the end of the world. Just some dust particles burning up in the atmosphere. On the evening of Saturday 8th October, astronomers predict there is a chance that the Draconid meteor shower may exhibit storm-force levels. This means several meteors may be visible each minute. Meteor showers are usually ...
On the day the First Minister opened the refurbished Dundee College premises, along with my colleague Cllr David May, Convener of Angus Council's Infrastructure Committee, I met with Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Alan Mitchell, regarding our joint concerns at huge cuts to the college budgets at Angus College and Dundee College. The Chamber of Commerce has made clear it will seek clarification from Scottish Government about the level of revenue budget cuts affecting the colleges that, for example, amount to a 13.5% reduction for Dundee College in cash terms during the period 2012/13 and 2014/15. It ...
What a twit! It was Chris Huhne who coined the phrase "Calamity Clegg" yet it is "Hapless Huhne" who is running from one bad story to another. Earlier this evening Hune was reported to have tweeted "From someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story. C" . Doh! Rumours are flying that it refers to a row brewing between Huhne and Osborne. That, frankly, is the best case scenario. If some mischievous paper runs a story on Nick Clegg !! Well....
It's a great shame that the debate on Human Rights is dominated by their detractors. The loathsome Daily Express and Daily Mail constantly churn out totally inaccurate stories about supposed mis-use of Human Rights. Even senior politicians are shamefully attacking the legislation. So it's very refreshing to find a strong endorsement of human rights. Liberty have released their response to the Home Office's Consultation on Family Migration. It's relatively lengthy at 26 pages, but you get the flavour straight away. Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers. Quite simply, human rights are a defence against oppression. They are ...
@danohagan tweeted wittily: If Malcolm Tucker was real, he'd be chasing Chris Huhne around the office with a chair-leg right now @jpshaddock was also on the ball with this one: If you listen carefully you can here a press officer in Lib Dem HQ sobbing 'Why?! I was *this* close to leaving the office for the weekend!' This is turning into a Twitter wagfest: @petepahides says: This Chris Huhne thing reminds me of the time I asked 8000 people to set the video for Dr Who. 18:49 Oh dear. Chris Huhne Twitter "page not available". 18-50 Eh-up, it's back up ...
TweetSo today we learn that the introduction of several billion by quantitative easing was a pre-emptive strike to attempt to reduce the harm that will be generated from Moody's downgrading of twelve major banks and building societies in the UK. Cameron's decision to remove his comment on paying off credit cards from his conference speech ...
British Musical Fireworks Championships 2011 Southport - day 1 from RG on Vimeo.
I shall leave it to my colleague Tony Robertson to give you the full story
This week work has started on a zebra crossing to improve the safety of Priory Road in Muswell Hill following a successful campaign by local Liberal Democrats which started over seven years ago. Cllr Gail Engert and Lynne Featherstone MP, whilst a councillor, started a campaign in 2004 following a series of accidents on Priory Road. Now a pedestrian crossing will be installed on Priory Road and there will be associated works including raised entry tables at the junctions of Park Avenue North and Park Avenue South to improve safety for pedestrians. Cllr Gail Engert (Muswell Hill) comments: "I'm glad ...
Isn't it time we stopped wasting money on quantitative easing, funnelled so inefficiently through the banks - and started taking direct action to put the money where it will be effective: creating a new green, enterprise economy and tackling the climate crisis at the same time:
This week we hear that David Cameron changed his speech from "The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households - all of us - paying off the credit card and store card bills," to, "The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That's why households are paying down their credit card and store card bills." An interestingly subtle change as a result of pressure from retailers, with political implications I will return to in another blog! Joanna Elson from the Money Advice Trust has rightly ...
The day itself may be October 10th, but local supporters of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust will be out and about in Consett town centre this Saturday to publicise it. Look out for them with the Police MARC vehicle and possibly a fire engine. They deserve all our support in raising awareness of the need to take sensible precautions to stay safe. You can check out full details of the National Personal Safety Day here.
There were three principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 6th October. There were two Labour holds and a Tory hold. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC. [IMG: Peter Kosta , our Norland candidate] Kensington and Chelsea have pioneered developing their local parties capacity in the last couple of years following their tremendous victory in Colville Ward By-Election in July 2009. They have worked on neighbouring wards and used the combined strength of the London parties to build their strength in other recent by-elections such as Brompton and Queens Gate. A sensible tactic for ...
On the whole, as I reported previously, I thought we had a pretty good conference up in Birmingham. Having now seen Ed Miliband's joke of a speech and the Conservatives fall out big time over a cat of all things, I take it all back. We had a brilliant conference! How on earth the Conservatives have let the "cat" story (unimaginatively dubbed "cat-gate") run for three or four days goodness only knows..but it has. The latest shock revelation today, in the Telegraph, is that the man at the centre of the Clarke-May row, Ranzo Avila, who admitted shoplifting from a ...
I'd hoped to get an Ada Lovelace Day post up today, but I'm not very well. I'll probably post the next Monkees post tonight, as that's already written, and then try to get a belated ALD post up sometime this weekend. I did suggest the subject for Holly's very good post about Lynn Conway, though. ...
Well thanks go to Mark Pack for bringing this to my attention, but the wikio ranking see me back inside the top 100 political blogs. With some difficulty getting Wikio to accept the new address initially, taking time out from blogging really cutting stuff while I worked for Yes! to Fairer Votes with an array of parties and the fact that some people still link to http://linlithgow-libdems.blogspot.com instead of http://stephensliberaljournal.blogspot.com hasn't made things easy. But I am back at number 95 I'll be looking to see how that improves over the next few months see if I can get back ...
The release below say it all. Councillor Jenny Dawe, Leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, welcomes news that leading banking software company Avaloq is to create hundreds of jobs in the city. "The City Council, in close partnership with SDI, went to great lengths to ensure that Scotland 's capital was Avaloq's destination of choice and this announcement sends a clear signal that, despite tough economic conditions, Edinburgh is still seen as an exceptional investment proposition. "Once again, the city has been recognised for the high standard of its workforce and higher education institutions - but also for the ...
No I'm not making it up. David Davis said at a fringe during Conservative Party Conference this week that 'God must be a Conservative' due to the fact the Party is doing 'ridiculously well considering the circumstances' better than both David Cameron and George Osborne had expected for this stage in the electoral cycle. He told this during an Ipsos-Mori 'Beyond The Bubble' event on Tuesday evening. Now first of all I think it is fair that the existence of God has yet to be proven. In fact the proof is shall we say rather minimal and I'm being kind. ...
Someone highlighted to me that three Apples have changed the world... Adam and EveIsaac NewtonSteve Jobs A bit cheesy but food for thought none the less!! So, with the passing of Steve Jobs this week I wanted to write about him and also the three apples that completely changed the world. Adam and Eve - the power of storytelling The Biblical story of Adam and Eve eating the apple - the forbidden fruit - will be well known to you, whatever your religious viewpoint. In fact it is one of the best known stories in the entire world.Adam and Eve ...
Fri 7th
13:50
Opinion: Intelligent quantitative easing is best hope to stop the bleeding and begin reviving the pa...
At our party Conference in Birmingham I described accelerated fiscal consolidation as pure poison: "Poison for the party, poison for the Coalition and, most important, poison for the country." I know that Liberal Democrats in ministerial office cannot be heard to say such things in public. But Liberal Democrats who do not have to labour under the restraints of office should be making it plain how oxymoronic 'expansionary accelerated fiscal consolidation' really is. They will be in good and growing company. The announcement of a further round of Quantitative Easing (QE) – much larger than the financial press had anticipated ...
I'm not an Apple obsessive. In the Apple versus Android battle I'm firmly on the side of Android. But even though the eulogising of some people about everything that Apple does actually makes me want to dislike the company, I can't. In terms of innovation, Apple is head and shoulders above most other IT companies, ...
Well. It was only a matter of time before Eton became the focus of protests. I just wish they had while I was still at the school. Have a read of any Eton-related post on here and watch this. Mr Bone is only a little deluded. Fine, disagree with Eton and private schools in general. That ...
Wandsworth Council commissioned an independent review of the disorder in the borough in early August, which is mainly about the riots at Clapham Junction on Monday 8th August. Clapham Junction, of course, is located in Battersea, and not Clapham, which is a couple of miles away and in a another borough. This report, by Neil Kinghan, was published this week. What can we learn? The most valuable part of the report is its clear description of how events unfolded. It is amazing how quickly garbled stories gain currency, especially since our media aren't particularly fastidious about factual accuracy. The trouble ...
I'm always surprised that it's often the most religious of people who are against religious freedoms and liberal humanists and secular folk who are left to argue against discrimination. I probably should not be surprised, but perhaps the constant tirades from the church and "journalists" in newspapers like the Daily Mail complaining about how they 're being repressed has had some effect on me. A case in point is the current debate over equal marriage. The Catholic Church and Church of England are against equal marriage with the latter stating that "the Church's view remains of marriage as the life-long ...
I presented Tescos Computers for Schools at 10am this morning and Lyndon Green had tweeted a picture of the event within 2 hours. here
Atar Allecha - Ethiopian Split Pea Stew (Snake Soup members only) Savoury Muffins Bean Stew Roast Sweet Potato with Black Beans
I'm sure like me you have been inspired by the Rugby World Cup and are looking forward to the weekend's Quarter Finals. Local Rugby club Old Bedians are running a social tournament next weekend to encourage players back to ... Continue reading →
Here are the Liberal Democrat entries in the top 100 political blogs as ranked by Wikio. New in this month – Ming Campbell and George Potter, plus a welcome return for the two Stephens. Mark's Liberal Bureaucracy is the one to fall out of the top 100. 1 (6) Liberal Democrat Voice Up 4 2 (16) Jack of Kent Up 3 3 (19) Caron's Musings Up 6 4 (41) Liberal England Down 6 5 (48) Craig Murray Up 7 6 (50) Mark Pack No change 7 (58) Paul Walter Up 19 8 (59) Nick Thornsby Up 39 9 (60) Mark ...
Liberal International reports that Det Radikale Ventre, a Danish founding member of LI, has received 6 Ministerial portfolios in the new three-party coalition government. They garnered 9.5% of the votes (up from 5.1%) and 17 seats in the parliament. The party leader Margrethe Vestager will become Minister of Economy and Home Affairs. "We must show that we will definitely enter, participate and contribute to European cooperation", said Mrs. Vestager, asserting that DRV will ensure that Danish politics embodies a clearly liberal and internationalist direction. Among the six ministers is the country's first foreign born cabinet minister, Manu Sareen (originally from ...
One of the highlights of conference for me was the breakfast roundtable organised by Make Justice Work. As conference goers and fringe organisers will know, getting one MP along is a challenge, managing to attract three must be close to a record! So it was a demonstration of the commitment our party has to reforming the criminal justice system that Justice minister Tom McNally, chair of the Justice Select Committee Alan Beith and member of the Home Affairs Select Committee Julian Huppert, all attended. For those of you who don't know the organisation, it was founded by Roma Hooper to ...
OK, I've got the message loud and clear: it's comments about commas which get you, lovely audience, excited. So I've got a special treat for you today. It's a story about commas. Featuring data. And graphs! Sit down, clear your diary and head over to Research Trends to find the answer to that pressing question: should you use commas in the titles of academic papers?
OK, I've got the message loud and clear: it's comments about commas which get you, lovely audience, excited. So I've got a special treat for you today. It's a story about commas. Featuring data. And graphs! Sit down, clear your diary and head over to Research Trends to find the answer to that pressing question: should you use commas in the titles of academic papers?
I link to the judgment released today where Wall P recognised that he erred in law in imposing a suspended sentence on Elizabeth Watson when he released her.It has recently been drawn to my attention that the Official Solicitor is supposed to act to protect people convicted of contempt of court. I wonder what they have been doing.Obviously they may have been involved in this particular decision,
Still sorting out lots of housey stuff, so don't really have time to blog Ada Lovelace Day properly, but I would like to encourage you guys to all remember it. This year we are supposed to be remembering women who have influenced us personally; I have lots of those, but few of them are sciencey/technology/mathsy people. However, I would like to give a shout out to my a-level maths teacher, Sue Kunc, who put up with my horrendous behaviour at school, and still managed to drum some mathematical ability into me. Thanks Sue. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Success! Through the intricacies of mutually reinforcing links, I have climbed to the heady heights of 80th top political blog in the wikio rankings. Now, this is just a bit of egotism but I have been hoping to get into the top 100 for a long time and it's rather pleasant to have made it. So, for the time being, I intend to bask in the smugness of being more popular than Lynne Featherstone's blog (though I freely admit that the content on hers is probably far superior to that on mine). Shame the economy isn't doing as well...
Lambeth Council has produced a report suggesting more than 15,000 Lambeth residents are fraudulently claiming 25% Single Persons Discount council tax out of the 50,000 . These people will be challenged and they suspect 90% will be proven fraudulent – 13,500! Southwark Council has 53,145 residents claiming Single Persons Discount. So how many Southwark residents are fraudulently claiming Single Persons Discount? If at the same ratio as Lambeth that would be around 16,000 – 10% = 14,400. But as Lambeth recognise investigating such claims costs on average £1,000, taking a resident to a magistrates court £1,800. This clearly shows that ...
Cllr Ellis asked Tracey Smith for an update on Neighbourhood Plans. Tracey Smith gave a brief Powerpoint presentation detailing the timetable, responses so far and community engagement that had been done. Based on the responses so far, she detailed the aspects people liked about the area and the things people though needed improving. The latter ...
Fri 7th
10:26
West Wirral Area Forum 6/10/2011, Melrose Hall, Introductions, Minutes, Bridge Court Part 1
Present: Cllr Gerry Ellis (Chair) Cllr David Elderton Cllr Geoffrey Watt Cllr Eddie Boult Cllr John Hale Officers: Dave Green (Director of Technical Services) David Ball instead of Kevin Adderley (Lead Officer) Tracey Smith (Area Forum co-ordinator) Partners: Merseyside Police (Sgt Andy Carter) Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (Paul Murphy) On a very windy night, ...
Britain's history curriculum is about to return to the past. Michael Gove's plan to change the way this important subject is taught in our schools "smells of Whiggery; of history as chauvinism", according to Professor Tom Devine. In the second of a series of two articles (part one here), I look at the dangers of Gove's desire to make history a patriotic subject. History should be beyond ideology. History should be about the truth. It should be about looking at past societies, not judging them, and not attempting to own them. A patriotic view of history is equally as dangerous ...
Some of the candidates in the Irish Presidential election have released their earnings.[1] Martin McGuinness doesn't get paid directly from the Northern Ireland Assembly for being an MLA and Deputy First Minister. Instead his salary gets paid to Sinn Féin and they pay him an "average industrial wage" which is currently £1,605 per month after tax. Sinn Féin have released a bank statement for Martin McGuinness's joint bank account with his wife in the Bank of Ireland. There are some payments to Asda, Tesco and B&Q but there does appear to be a glaring omission – there doesn't seem to ...
Before I start can I just say how freezing cold it is here in the shire this morning? Someone seems to have turned off the weather and I am not impressed at all. Time for the long jumpers to come ...
North Meols and the surrounding areas are in the news at the moment as the hunt for shale gas takes off. The area, on Banks Marsh in the Ribble Estuary, which is part of the Bowland Basin, is currently the latest site for drilling and test fracking exploration by Cuadrilla Resources for this much heralded source of natural gas. This was also the site this week of a meeting between local Southport councillor Sue McGuire and the new executive director of Friends of the Earth Andy Atkins, who was visiting the area to talk to FOE members and local residents ...
@maxatkinson Many thanks for the #ff in reply to maxatkinson # @CllrDaisyBenson @caronmlindsay Oh, it will do so much more than change your life! in reply to CllrDaisyBenson # While others watch #scd I'm watching You've Been Framed on ITV2+1. Surely I win? Strictly classy. # A fair assessment » Bagehot: Ed's dangerous dream http://t.co/K5xKNY1U via @theeconomist # MT @Kevin_Maguire Cameron and his Cons are the political wing of high finance http://t.co/ovRLPhqI « & Labour of strike action. # RT @simonsketch Can I get into a book of quotes with this, please? "The trouble with Equality is who do you ...
Last night Cornwall Council published its first draft budget for next year. This morning I was up early to appear on Radio Cornwall debating the proposals with the Council Leader Alec Robertson. My first thoughts are these. The Conservative led Council is desperately trying to make up for the mistakes they made last year. But in too many cases the damage has already been done and vulnerable local people have suffered severe hardship. They have also failed to go far enough in undoing the damage they have wrought to our services and infrastucture. The decision to reverse last year's £4m ...
The FT blog speculates who is out and who is in. You can read it here.
CARLOS Tevez could finally be on his way out of Manchester City — in a shock loan move to lowly Doncaster Rovers. It's in The Sun so it must be true! After the stunt Tevez pulled Doncaster is too good for him. If I was Mancini I'd let him rot in the reserves or send him to play for an obscure club in the moon of Endor league.
There are two issues with this morning's article in the Telegraph about the Government's plans to reform the way that DNA is stored by the Police. One relates to the age-old complaint about any government legislation, namely that discretionary powers are given to Ministers and questions as to how they plan to use them now or in the future. The second is a bit more fundamental. The paper focusses on the report of the committee scrutinising the legislation which would give ministers a discretionary power to "rewrite" rules of entry at will. Ministers say they will use these powers to ...
TweetI came across some brilliant examples of Feminist Subvertising this week. This is the sort of civil disobedience I can support. From Object's campaign to cover up 'Lad Mags', where groups of people trawl around newsagents putting them in paper bags or turning the magazines to face inwards through to ingenious graffiti, there is a ...
The BBC in the late sixties created a second TV channel, BBC2 and it gave the responsibility for that channel to David Attenborough. Under his leadership the BBC created programmes like Civilisation, The Ascent of Man and Monty Python's Flying Circus. The channel did not broadcast all day, and when it did not, it showed the test card (see above). There were two TV channels and eventually four radio channels. Attenborough was not only a talented broadcaster himself, he was an inspiring leader in television innovation. Now, decades later, the BBC has a huge number of TV channels and even ...
The New Statesman yesterday published an article saying that Miliband's speech where he told the nation he was "ripping up the rule book" set the agenda at party conference this season. Ed Miliband has got some praise for his "ripping up the rule book" stance from the media like from Medhi Hasan, the guardian, the ...
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members responded, and we're currently publishing the full results. Our latest survey of party members finds a small majority backing the government's controversial plans for the planning system in England. By a margin of 48% – 39% Liberal Democrat members in the survey supported the scheme to cut central control over planning but also introduce a presumption in favour of development if plans are sustainable and in line with ...
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members responded, and we're currently publishing the full results. Our latest survey of party members finds a small majority backing the government's controversial plans for the planning system in England. By a margin of 48% – 39% Liberal Democrat members in the survey supported the scheme to cut central control over planning but also introduce a presumption in favour of development if plans are sustainable and in line with ...
This is the fifth and final collection of pictures from See No Evil - at least on these pages as I have more to post over on my Tumblr blog from time to time. You can see all the posts in the series here. My favourite in this set is the third picture, what's yours? Enjoy! Andrew
I'm running the London Marathon! I'd be completely lying if I didn't admit that I'm pants-wettingly scared about this fact AND so over the moon that I want to shout about it from the rooftops! I keep reading blogs from previous Londons and getting chills about the whole experience. And then, a split second later, wondering how on earth I'll cope with the training, the wall, getting the nutrition strategy right (am I the only person who wonders about this obsessively?). I realize how well I already know the course and how much better I'm going to know it soon. ...
Norland voters in the other London Royal Borough voted to return another Conservative councillor today. I went along to help for a few hours and had a great time. The junior London Royal Borough is incredibly posh and I met my first housekeeper on the doorstep. The Tories won - but with a massively reduced share of the vote. Kensington and Chelsea used to be simple - it had 42 Conservative councillors and 13 Labour councillors. For ever. They even taught Labour Sunderland how to count the votes so fast. Their returning officer counted the votes for the non Tory ...
With much wailing and gnashing of teeth the BBC announced today exactly how it intends to find the £670million a year savings by 2016/17. Everywhere it turns out. The earlier insistence from BBC Trust to BBC management that salami slicing would not be in the interests of licence fee payers has, well, been ignored frankly. Faced with disgruntled viewers losing their favourite shows/sports/channels or disgruntled unions losing their members, Auntie has chosen to take on the unions. The morning news rang with warnings that the nation was waiting to hear which of their favourite programmes would be cut. I was ...
