Borgen is wonderful ! The party names are a little confusing but so are they in real life. One of the Danish Liberal parties is called Venstre which translates as Left but is actually right-wing and was part of the last right-wing coalition whereas the other Liberals are Radikale Venstre (Radical Left obviously) and now part of the left-wing coalition.To hell with reality. Watch Borgen.
I've have always had zero interest in sport, in fact a minus interest. At school I was able to get out of football and rugby in winter because I am so short-sighted, and in summer acute hayfever kept me off the cricket pitch. Instead I spent many a happy afternoon slumped in one of the less uncomfortable chairs ...
Very happy to reveal that the Help For Heroes collection on Christmas Eve raised £657 for this most worthy cause. Many thanks to everyone who donated. Your money will do much good.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 255th 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 (1-7 January, 2012), 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. Exclusive poll data: ...
What is it with Welsh Liberal Democrats and reality television? The other day it was Lembit Opik (again). But Eleanor Burnham, AM for the North Wales regional constituency until May 2011, was also on S4C over Christmas. She appeared on Dudley: Pryd o Sêr. Cheat by clicking on the English button and you learn: Over four nights between 27 and 30 December, Dudley: Pryd o Sêr sets a culinary challenge for a group of celebrities that would make the most experienced chef tremble.Eleanor is quoted as saying: I am quietly competitive and although the tasks were hard it was nowhere ...
Priced $2.99. The text is slightly different from what was published here, as Richard Flowers made some useful suggestions. It also has a cover and a short introduction. It will be out within a couple of hours on Amazon (US) and Amazon (UK), and is already available for all non-Kindle formats at Smashwords. As always, ...
This past week we've seen some gaffes from Labour politicians, with Diane Abbott making that "racist" tweet. Which I blogged about here. A day later we had Ed Miliband in tweeting his tribute to Bob Holness of Blockbusters fame, accidently writing "blackbusters". It is highly unlikely it was a typ considering how far apart "a" ...
The link is to a story (29/12/2011) in the New York Times about failed adoptions leading to homelessness.The USA started the obsession with adoption as a "solution" to care. They have about 50,000 "adoptions" from care each year. They don't actually track the total adoptions figure as the most recent total figure is from 2001 and is around 127,000.There is a very important distinction between
LibDemVoice's surveys of party members signed-up to our discussion forum have been running for over three years now. (I posted yesterday the final set of figures from December's poll.) Our surveys are a way of testing members' views on a variety of hot topics. And as they've been running throughout the first 18 months of the Coalition they're also an interesting record of changing views on how the Coalition is regarded within the party. If you would like to take part in the LibDemVoice surveys, there are simply two steps you need to follow: 1) Be a current Lib Dem ...
Available as an ebook tonight... Tagged: Doctor Watson, Doctor Watson Investigates, Sherlock Holmes
I have recently discovered Google Earth's Street Level function. It's dangerously addictive as you spend hours looking for the photos of friends' houses or, as I did last night, searching for the rock in Cheddar Gorge in the cleft of which the Rev Augustus Toplady sheltered from a storm and composed Rock of Ages. I didn't find it because it turns out it was a few miles away at Burrington Coombe
I have long been resistant to the bombast of U2, but I love Johnny Cash and this, the final track from the band's 1993 LP Zooropa, still sounds good. It reminds me of bombing around the Stiperstones in an open-topped car. The spoil heaps at Snailbeach had been landscaped by then, but the words still fitted the area's strange post-industrial landscape. And there was cricket on the radio. A youngster called Ben Hollioake was hitting the Australians all round Lord's on his one-day international debut which means I can date this experience precisely to 25 May 1997.
Oh dear... A number of posts on [Liberal Democrat council by-election candidate Dave Stones'] Facebook page were seemingly calculated to deliberately offend Muslims — including spreading outright smears. Stones claimed that the Royal British Legion were "not selling poppies in certain areas of the UK", implying that objections from Muslims were behind the decision The comments have since been removed and an apology issued: We welcome Mr Stones' unreserved apology and acceptance that the comments he copied and pasted were completely unacceptable.
Southwark Councillor James Barber has blogged: Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker has just introduced a new secure Blue Badge starting this week (1 Jan). He states it's "as secure as a banknote". The previous Blue Badges were made from card and they were handwritten. Easy to doctor and forge. So the new ones with security features similar to latest driving licences - holograms, digital photos, etc should make stealing Blue Badges much less attractive. That's the theory. Fingers crossed that's the practice. As with James, my fingers are crossed too – as in my experience a belief that Blue ...
John Milton (1608-1674) Areopagitica (1644) John Milton is best known as a poet, in English and in Latin, particularly for his epic Paradise Lost, one of the major works in all English literature. It is work with a religious structure, which also shows evidence of his opposition to (Satanic) tyranny, and support for republicanism as the most godly form of government on Earth. As this suggests, Milton was also one of the major seventeenth century English republican thinkers. Nineteenth century English liberals gave great importance to Milton as a forerunner, as in The Whig-Liberal historian, politician and civil servant Thomas ...
Why should we take down our Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night (January 5th)? According to this website it's because the wood spirits will bring us bad luck otherwise. Christmas is the second most important festival in the Christian calendar, and it has become the biggest festival in modern Western society. But Christianity plays a diminishing role. In the many-layered concoction that Christmas has become, Christianity has left a number of distinctive strata. The carol service, the children's nativity play, concerts of sacred music and midnight mass. These come on top of European pagan strata, and underneath more recent secular ones ...
The Coalition Government is currently coming under fire for cutting public sector pensions, but the truth is that pensions funding was cut 13 years ago by Gordon Brown when he launched his raid on pension schemes. Until the last Labour Government came into office the accrual of interest on pension funds was not taxed — pension schemes could build up funds more quickly than other modes of investment in order to pay out benefits when members retired. Labour changed that and taxed interest on pension investments as it accrued; pension schemes which had aimed at paying out a defined benefit ...
On the whole, the BBC audio series by Paul Magrs with Tom Baker reprising his Fourth Doctor have not really grabbed me. But I felt that The Hexford Invasion, the fourth of the Serpent Crest series, was a significant improvement, largely because the excellent Susan Jameson is given her head as the Doctor's housekeeper / companion Mrs Wibbsey. She was rather callously left behind to do the dishes at the end of the last episode; now she must suddenly deal with Mike Yates and UNIT, showing up with a scruffy but authoritative little man who calls himself the Doctor but ...
In the news this week Dianne Abbott and Ed Miliband caused a stir with ill thought out tweets and a typo. Dianne Abbott and Ed Miliband Dianne Abbott, in a conversation with a Journalist stated words to the effect that White people like to Divide and rule. I can't comment on the context or say what I think she may have been trying to say or whether or not I thought she made a racist remark or not. All I can say with certainty is there were grounds for offence and offence was taken whether real, false or hype. She ...
Every so often my musical taste coincides with that of our resident teenager. This is a case in point. Rizzle Kicks and Mama do the hump. I can see this being played in thirty years time. It has all the makings of a classic. Rizzle Kicks photo credit: Some rights reserved by Tomodo89 [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Last year I started taking a photo a day (hence PAD) and posting it online. I did a weekly summary here. It only lasted until the end of March. I hope I'll be able to do better this year. Here is the first week's offerings New Year's Day Trifle 2nd Shaggy Puppy Dog 3rd Neat Puppy Dog after her first grooming 4th Tian Tian having a disco nap 5th - replacing a long since lost treasure of my childhood 6th Last view of the Christmas Tree for another year 7th Edinburgh Playhouse for We Will Rock You
Tomorrow sees politicians from across Europe gather for a meeting of Liberal leaders, hosted by Nick Clegg under the auspices of the European Liberal Democrats (ELDR). Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn and German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler are among the senior liberal figures joining him at the mini-summit in London. Having promised to 're-engage with Europe', Nick sees this meeting as part of that process, using the umbrella organisation of European liberalism to gather potential allies and influence the European Commission more positively than David Cameron did at last month's Brussels summit. ...
Something I forgot to mention last year was that I did complete NaNoWriMo again, though it was probably the most difficult time I've had of it in my four successes. This time I was a rebel in that I produced my 50,000 words in unconnected short stories rather than as a single novel. This was because I'd just finished an early draft of a novel and wanted to try out all the ideas that had sprung up in my head while I was writing that, ready to clear out my brain ready to go at the next draft. (And don't ...
Key figures in Labour and the Trade Unions have been much exercised over the last 18 months in arguing that the best alternative to cuts in public spending is to close loopholes in the tax system so that the filthy rich are forced to pay their share. Putting aside the problems with enforcing this across international boundaries (it can be done but not to anybody's satisfaction), I tend to agree with them. That after all is why the UK Coalition is seeking to do just that. Yesterday's Telegraph came up with a prime example of how legally organising your company's ...
I was listening to Radio 4 a few weeks back (I think it might have been Front Row) and heard Harriet Harman being interviewed about her new role as shadow for the Culture, Media and Sport brief. Dearie, dearie me. She was given ample opportunity to show her more human side. Indeed the brief surely requires that the holder is able to show how they have enjoyed culture and hence inject a bit more of the personal? No chance from Harman. She came across like an "I speak your policy" robot. The only thing I can really recall her saying ...
The Iron Lady is at its hearts a story about an old woman struggling with dementia who continually hallucinates about her dead husband reflects back on her life in politics. Whilst, its about Margaret Thatcher, it could really be about any woman with dementia who has struggled in a man's world. The political drama could ...
This week we've heard that a committee of Lords and MP's have rejected reducing the House of Lords from nearly 800 'working' Lords to 300. Apparently they think 450 are needed. Weirdly other western democracies find everything from 69 to 321 members of second chambers work perfectly well: Australian Senate – 148, Canadian Senate – 104, French Senat – 321, German Bundesrat – 69, US Senate – 100. I suspect 450 has more to d0 with maintaining the atmosphere of the UK House of Lords being a fine gentleman's club with only enough work for members to need to attend ...
Happy new year. For Christmas amongst the books I received was a copy of House of Cards by Michael Dobbs. I had been half heartedly looking for a copy of this and was pleased to see it. Thanks to my ... Continue reading →
One of the sff books set in Ireland that has been on my list for many years and which I got off Bookmooch back in the days when Bookmooch actually worked. It starts as a fairly standard tale of alien intrusion into our world (northwestern Ireland in this case) and the two young people who find themselves caught up in it, complete with stock scene of bellicose American general wanting to nuke the problem. But the author's reluctance to give proper names to most of the settings and incidental characters made it feel a bit unmoored, and the twist at ...
To mark the start of 2012, we're running a series of posts over consecutive days on the main challenges for the Liberal Democrats in 2012. I've already written about the four priorities for the party's new Chief Executive, Tim Gordon, but as the Liberal Democrats are more than just the one man whilst he has four, this series sets out six for the party. Yes, the party still needs a narrative. No, a shopping list isn't one as Neil Stockley explains. Yes, it needs to be consistent. No, it shouldn't major on the bad news. Yes, it should feature fairness. ...
... to everyone who's sent me a note of support this week, either by leaving a comment on my last post, through twitter, facebook or by sending me an email. It's been somewhat overwhelming to be honest! It's also been my first week back at work after the Christmas and new year holidays and I've been very busy, so I haven't (yet) been able to reply to everyone who's contacted me and I apologise if you're one of the people on that list. I will try to get my act together over the course of the next few days.
Sometime towards the end of the fifth century BC the young Athenian Xenophon encountered a man in a narrow side street. The man blocked his way and asked where every kind of food was sold. Once he had received a reply, he asked another question: 'And where do men become good and honourable?'. Xenophon was rather puzzled by this. 'Follow me,' said Socrates, 'and learn' (based on Diogenes Laertius 2.6.48). [IMG: Rafael, School of Athens, Detail: Socrates and pupils] Rafael: The School of Athens. Socrates and pupils. The rhetorical questi0n about directions to the market – where food was sold ...
After the Iowa caucus last month resulted in a win for Mitt Romney by just 8 votes, the world has moved on to New Hampshire and what happens next. But it's probably worth remembering that the results of the Iowa caucus are not finalised until some 2 weeks after the polls close. And they are still finding errors in the count. Which, with a majority of 8, could make a difference. It won't change the number of Iowa delegates Romney and Santorum take to the convention, when the GOP pick their candidate. But if it turns out Romney has the ...
Julian with the EAAA's Bolkow 105 and Dr Ed Gold and Jemma Varela, Critical Care Paramedic, East of England NHS Ambulance Trust MP Julian Huppert made a flying visit to the East of England Air Ambulance, at Cambridge Airport on Friday, 9 December to hear about its new helicopter and meet the team. The EAAA is a charity and operates the region's air ambulance service. Julian was given a guided tour of the operation by the EAAA's Chief Executive, Tim Page, and took a look around its current aircraft, a Bolkow 105. He was then given a briefing on the ...
Here's details of this Tuesday's West End Community Council meeting :
Sun 8th
01:55
Epilogue: Doctor Watson Investigates - The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief, the final part
(To read the rest of the story, click on the Doctor Watson Investigates tag at the bottom. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.). On Holmes' return, I told him of the events that had occurred while he was away, and how I'd solved the ...
And I've not seen it, please point me to the link. I've just migrated away from Google Reader and imported all my feeds to the new alernative rsshero.com (which is still invite-only, and not quite up to the old standards of Greader but significantly better than the new 'improved' version). However, it imported every post ...
