Our latest edition of our email newsletter, eFocus, for the Whickham and Dunston/Lobley Hill area was published tonight. Issues covered include:1)Bridge the gap - help us get a new bridge in Watergate Park;2)Helping children smile;3)Swimming pool plan at Axwell Hall;4)Angels and Santa visit Sunniside;5)Whickham Library Garden needs your help;6)Gateshead flyover lane closure;7)Bin collection dates
In this British Transport Films production we follow a coach tour from Edinburgh to the Highlands. As a site devoted to these films explains, the route taken meets the Highlands at Killin, and then goes over Rannoch Moor and through Glencoe to Ben Nevis, the entrance to the Great Glen. Here we meet the West Highland railway line, and follow it on its journey through the Bonnie Prince Charlie country to Mallaig. Returning to the Great Glen we rejoin the coach route out through the Glen Foyne and Glen Shiel to the Kyle of Lochalsh, and take the ferry over ...
2010: The Year We Make Contact won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1985 The other finalists were, in order of finishing, Ghostbusters, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the David Lynch Dune and The Last Starfighter. All were cinematic productions. I have seen all but the last of these. In general they are a rather uninspiring bunch, TBH, and I think I'd have voted for Ghostbusters. The really important question is, why on earth did The Terminator not get on the final ballot? It's top of one of the IMDB rankings for the year (admittedly beaten ...
[IMG: Decorated Christmas Tree] Christmas can be a really hard time of the year for some people in the best of years, and this is hardly that. The Folkestone Haven is there everyday to support you with your mental health and wellbeing. They are a drop in centre based in Sandgate Road, Folkestone - pop in or call them for an appointment on 07827 533871. In addition there are others that can help: Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) 24 hour Single Point of Access (SPoA) helpline on 0800 783 9111 if adults in Kent and ...
Grim, grim news from the UK as the inevitable happened and Boris Johnson was forced to revoke the silly promises he had made about Christmas. Jack Blanchard has catalogued his mis-steps well: Preparing to do the @TimesRadio paper review at 10.30am, and working my way through Boris Johnson's back catalogue of over-promises on coronavirus. It's crazy. The PM is pathologically addicted to making big stupid promises he can't keep. — Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) December 20, 2020 Meanwhile here, where our prime minister warned us over a month ago that there would be very few Christmas parties, the recent mini-surge does ...
On Saturday BBC4 showed The Story of Fairytale of New York, in the course of it we learnt that there is no NYPD choir. This impressed me enough to tweet about it. But James Tarry, who used to drink with Daniel Farson and must thus be accounted an expert on such matters, put me right. It is slang term for Saturday-night drunks singing in their police cells, which makes perfect sense in the context of the song. The photo here shows the Leicester home of Arthur Colahan, who wrote Galway Bay. Note the blue plaque.
[IMG: Recycling and Residual / General Waste Wheely bins] Sandgate's usual Wednesday waste collections will be only slightly affected over the Christmas period this year. The Wednesday 23rd collection will be as usual: Green lidded wheeled bin (waste that cannot be recycled or composted) Food bin (all your cooked and raw food waste) The recycling collection that would usually happen the following Wednesday (30th December) is now scheduled one day later on for Thursday 31st December. Collections return to usual in the New Year. Published and promoted by Tim Prater, 98a Sandgate High Street, Folkestone, CT20 3BYPrinted (hosted) by Prater ...
The last two months have seen a huge change in the respect people have for two of the North-West's most well-known political leaders Mayors Anderson and Burnham. City Mayors were, of course, an invention of Tony Blair and Regional Mayors ... Continue reading →
I was surprised yesterday to see a tweet from Layla Moran saying that after talking to local head teachers she thinks teachers should be in the first wave of the vaccine. Later on I saw that there is a campaign by the NEU for this and I was surprised when I said on twitter that I disagreed with her, how strong the reaction was. There are three reasons why I think this is not a good idea. The first and most important is that I do not believe that the such a sensitive question as who gets priority for vaccines ...
"Seething in private is not enough when lives, jobs and sanity are at stake. MPs must reflect over the coming days on the tumultuous events of 2020, which began with Johnson saying this would be "a fantastic year for Britain" and ends with the sort of headlines about a mutant virus cancelling Christmas that might be found in a science-fiction film." Ian Birrell says it's the duty of Conservative MPs to depose Boris Johnson. Paul Sorene looks back to the Grunwick dispute of 1976: "Prime minister James Callaghan set up a cabinet committee under Lord Justice Scarman to resolve the ...
South Gloucestershire Liberal Democrats have welcomed the statement by the authority's majority Conservative group, following pressure from the Opposition Liberal Democrats, that the Council has declared a formal Ecological Emergency. South Gloucestershire's neighbouring West of England local authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and Bristol declared Ecological Emergencies earlier in 2020, however Conservative-controlled South Gloucestershire had, until tonight, made no formal statement on the subject. Following the submission of a motion to tonight's full council by the Liberal Democrat Group calling for the declaration of an Ecological Emergency, the Conservative group gave notice to the opposition groups ...
I was joined again by Professor Tim Bale for the last episode in 2020 of Never Mind The Bar Charts. We took a look back at Tim's five lessons for opposition parties and discussed how both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are doing on each of them.
The Grovelands planning application for temporary accommodation is 203439 on the council website. The units are positioned almost exactly on the footprint of the existing temporary accommodation units. The biggest issue for most people is the double height. This is a mobile home site, and so any units have to be able to be moved. These new units are modular build. Each individual one is roughly the size of a mobile home. They will be lifted into position. One on top of another is still moveable therefore, so the view is that this can be permitted – although I can ...
Mon, 12:56: I'm not going to write these words very often, but here goes: I completely agree with @AmbJohnBolton on this one. https://t.co/jKMbBz0Ogm Mon, 15:31: RT @SebastianEPayne: Feeling very 1979 this morning https://t.co/6rdPbrNS86 Mon, 15:56: Mr Singh Has Disappeared: A Concussed Novel, by Horst Prillinger A short novel about the narrator's investigation of the disappearance of the head waiter of his favourite Indian restaurant. A real surreal classic. #nwbooks https://t.co/Eatnx2MyD4 https://t.co/dXKjXLpNiq https://t.co/KF3tZsoc8k Mon, 16:05: Christopher Eccleston opens up on returning to Doctor Who https://t.co/tV6BHhLiT9 Looking forward to this! Mon, 16:21: Looking for Jake and other stories, by China Mi�ville A ...
Tue 22nd
09:31
Covid Watch: New warning from Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin councils about Tier 4 travel
With travel to continental Europe from the UK suspended, and who knows for how long, the public health directors for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin have issued a stark warning about travel to and from Tier 4. In a word. Don't. This includes people from Wales. This is the time of year when many people come from London and the South East to south west Shropshire to spend the festive period in holiday lets and second homes. They bring a lot of trade to towns and villages. Very often, families and friends meet up here having not seen each other ...
It is another day and yet another Government target scheduled to be missed. This time it is around superfast broadband with the telecoms sector telling a Parliamentary select committee that it has "no genuine belief" the government will be able to meet its broadband targets despite those targets having been cut just weeks ago. The Guardian reports that in its national infrastructure strategy, published in late November, the government announced plans to connect 85% of the country with ultrafast gigabit broadband, which usually requires a fibre-to-the-home connection, by 2025: That target was a downgrade from a previous goal, affirmed as ...
broadcast anniversaries 22 December 1973: broadcast of second episode of The Time Warrior. Sarah is rescued by Hal, while the Doctor is captured by Irongron and Linx. 22 December 1979: broadcast of first episode of The Horns of Nimon. The Tardis collides with a ship full of sacrifices from the planet Skonnos.
The opening hours for welfare advice and other support services over the Christmas period can be downloaded here.
