I wouldn't say Lord Bonkers was away with the fairies this summer, but he was certainly away with the elves. The beechwoods of the Chilterns And Elvis was right. We walked all that afternoon through woods and never heard or saw a motor car at all. As dusk fell we entered an elven settlement in what I calculated to be the Northamptonshire Uplands, though quite where all those trees had come from I never worked out. That evening I was treated to an elven banquet and a harp concert - Aeolian cadences and all that. I returned their hospitality by ...
Second paragraph of third chapter:"I was. . ." Delroy started to excuse himself.A really accomplished technothriller, set in a slightly divergent timeline where the Caribbean states have got their act together to be an effective counterpart to the larger countries who want to play in their sand. Our protagonist, allied with a mysterious but glamorous French agent, gets involved with a criminal mastermind who plans to wipe out large chunks of the human race through biological terrorism. Lots of split-second escapes and dramatic writing; it would make a good film (though probably couldn't fit in the background politics). It seems ...
I was at a loss to understand why I was so absolutely knackered at the end of Conference last night. It's not as if I had had to drag my sorry, Glee-Club hungover backside the length of the country as I would have been if I'd been at an in-person conference. It's not as if I had had about 15 hours' sleep over the past 5 nights of "networking." Certainly, sitting in front of a screen for 12 hours a day is pretty exhausting. So, I guess, is the emotional energy used up wishing I was actually with my friends ...
Christine Jardine went on Woman's Hour yesterday to talk about transgender rights in the wake of Ed's Marr interview on Sunday where that topic was the only one Andrew Marr seemed interested in talking about. Woman's Hour host Emma Barnett threw absolutely everything at Christine, who patiently and calmly answered questions for over 20 minutes. It's worth a listen here. Barnett repeated the question Marr had put to Ed yesterday – what was wrong with a t-shirt with the slogan woman: adult human female. Ed stood up for our policy that trans rights are human rights and we support the ...
Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds gave her first speech to Federal Conferece since she was elected as a Member of the Senedd for Mid and West Wales in May. Here is the text in full: I want to take you back to May 1999, and the first-ever elections to the then Welsh Assembly. Almost 600 years after the first Welsh Parliament was established in June 1404, the people of Wales once again had its own national democratic institution. Wales was entering a new dawn - an opportunity to meaningfully hand power to people, to communities, away from the corridors ...
In last week's reshuffle, Robert Jenrick was booted out of cabinet and Michael Gove nudged across to take over the housing and planning brief. His duties as secretary of state now also include the struggling levelling up agenda. So the department that was most often called the housing ministry has been renamed the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, DLUHC, perhaps pronounced duller huck. Given the ordering of priorities in the title it seems inevitable that the department will be known as the Levelling Up Department, or LUD, though some may think that acronym LUDicrous. Indeed, it has attracted ...
I am, as I may have mentioned elsewhere, Suffolk's representative on the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC). And, in that capacity, I have received this notice; Nominations are open for NALC's National Assembly members for the upcoming elections in December 2021. The primary objective of the National Assembly is to oversee the delivery of NALC's objectives as set out in the constitution, to represent the interest of the local (parish and town) councils in England to provide support and coordination to as aspects of the work of local councils. NALC is looking for passionate, committed, ...
Mon, 12:56: RT @G_S_Bhogal: My peoples, the time has come for a MEGATHREAD. In 40 tweets I will explain another 40 concepts you should know. Strap in... Mon, 18:06: Blood of Atlantis, by Simon Forward https://t.co/pOkzFrsPRv Mon, 19:54: RT @wef: The panel agreed that there's been significant change in recent years. Employees are looking for 'inspirational ethics', explained... Tue, 10:45: A giant space rock demolished an ancient Middle Eastern city and everyone in it - possibly inspiring the Biblical story of Sodom https://t.co/gvJ1FozGCt Wow!!!!!
After a $600 million election that Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn't need to call, voters have delivered virtually the same result as in 2019. Trudeau failed to re-gain the majority he won in 2015. In fact, his Liberal Party is likely to lose a seat and the Conservatives will gain a seat. I had been hoping that the New Democrats would have won more seats to anchor the Liberals to a more progressive path, but they are projected to only gain 3 seats. The Greens will stay on two but not the same two as last time as ...
Responding to the news that the Ministry of Defence has ordered an investigation into a data breach involving the email addresses of dozens of Afghan interpreters who worked for British forces, Liberal Democrat Defence Spokesperson Jamie Stone said: "This is shocking and truly a betrayal. It is deeply unworthy of the standards all of us had thought defined British honour. "Ministers must to see to it that whoever in Government oversaw this horrific blunder is no longer in a position of responsibility. All decent people will expect no less."
: Yesterday, Alex-Cole-Hamilton gave his first speech as Scottish Leader to Conference. It was delayed, despite being pre-recorded. Some technical hitch meant that we had to vote to allow the agenda to change so they could sort it out. Watch here: Filmed outside Holyrood in the sunshine, he paid tribute to his predecessor Willie Rennie and other Scottish Liberal legends Jim Wallace, Jo Swinson and Charles Kennedy. He talked about how the party under him will offer new hope to a Scotland whose public services were struggling due to SNP neglect even before the pandemic. "We are a people trapped ...
I think most of us remember the rhetoric during the Brexit referenda debates about how easy it would be to conclude a trade deal with the USA once we have left the EU, but just in case here is Brexiteer and former UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, speaking at the Institute for Government in April 2017 and claiming that setting up trade deals with the US would be seamless: I think free trade would be relatively straightforward between the United Kingdom and America. If it's legal to buy and sell a product in California, it should be legal to buy and ...
Residents have recently contacted me about the deteriorating state of the road surface in Arnhall Drive, including potholes - see below : I raised this with the City Council's Roads Maintenance Partnership and have received the following helpful feedback : "We have inspected the road and found a couple of Category 3 potholes (repair within 30 working days). Many parts look worse than they are due to it being a concrete road that has been surface dressed. However, on checking the carriageway programme it was due to receive an overlay in 2023/24, this is under review so this may move. ...
The YouTube blurb for this video says: This lost river walk along the Hackney Brook is guided by Tom Bolton's book London's Lost Rivers - A Walker's Guide, Volume Two. Thanks Tom. The course of the river starts just off Holloway Road in North London and then crosses the road cutting across Seven Sisters Road to Tollington Road and from here to Hornsey Road and round the Arsenal Emirates Stadium. We follow the river as it runs parallel to Gillespie Road, past the old Highbury Stadium then crosses Blackstock Road bound for Clissold Park in Stoke Newington. The Hackney Brook ...
Yes, the sly old fox had us all fooled. I hope Nanny, who spent weeks knitting him a fisherman's jersey, will not cut up rough. "We shall travel by the old roads" I had planned to follow Ashdown's lead and spend some time working aboard a Grimsby trawler, but the passage from Rutland Water to the North Sea is a treacherous one and not to be undertaken without the services of an experienced pilot - that may be why it does not appear on many charts. Besides, from what I hear, the Grimsby skippers have all tied up their vessels, ...
