The hashtag #FBPPR is mostly used on Twitter and stands for 'follow back, pro-proportional representation'. It is a deliberate echo of the #FBPE – follow back, pro European – hashtag, based on the logic that electoral reform is not only good in its own right but also a route to securing Britain's return to the European Union. Hence the first tweet, I believe, to mention #FBPPR, which came from Andy Nash: After Brexit is stopped, #FBPE should morph into #FBPPR...https://t.co/M5bYnnHejE — Andy Nash [IMG: 🔶] (@andynash) March 23, 2018
Working through the Black Archive monographs on Doctor Who, I've now reached the seventh, on the 1968 story The Mind Robber, which features the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie transported to a Land of Fiction, and includes one episode where Fraser Hines is briefly replaced by another actor as Jamie because he had caught chickenpox. I like it. When I watched it for the first time in 2007, I wrote: The Mind Robber features... Oh, let's get it over with. Zoe. Nobody can keep their hands off her. Certainly not the Doctor (see right). Certainly not Jamie. And the first episode ...
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia. I spent most of July 2014 at work in Brussels, escaping at the end to Northern Ireland. Before that, F and ...
The Chilterns were once covered in forest, if my geography lessons are remembered correctly, which meant that the recycled paper going through doors across Chesham and Amersham was now coming from elsewhere. And, despite a huge lead in the polls, Conservative MPs were becoming a bit fractious, with a rebellion in the Commons over cuts to the overseas aid budget. The tensions between the new 'Red Wall Tories' and the traditionalists were beginning to emerge, and this theme became more and more a talking point as the year went on. William Wallace highlighted some of those tensions. A week out ...
The Independent reports that British disability blue badges are no longer being recognised in major holiday destinations across Europe thanks to Brexit. The paper says that automatic recognition for Britain's 2.4 million blue badge holders - a perk of EU membership - stopped across Europe on 31 December 2020 when the EU transition period ended and despite ministers promising to negotiate individual deals with EU countries to recognise British badges, they have failed to do so for the most popular destinations: Travellers with disabilities still face uncertainty and inconvenience in countries including France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal - all ...
The deadline is approaching for submitting motions to Spring Conference, which should be a great chance to pin down our policies and demonstrate our values. For me, those values include deep concern about both climate change and animal welfare. If you share those concerns, please sign a motion that's being submitted - available at this link. On climate change, we should further strengthen our party's green credentials by grappling with the environmental impacts of food production. The Climate Change Committee's pathway to net zero includes reducing meat consumption by at least 35% by 2050. Importantly, this is based on the ...
Wed, 12:56: UEFA boss Aleksander Čeferin's fight for future of football - POLITICO https://t.co/feOX9E1J9V Wed, 16:33: "Blood Music", by Greg Bear; Startide Rising, by David Brin https://t.co/L8eJbjjRrl Wed, 16:42: RT @cmioffice: President Martti Ahtisaari has been diagnosed with new Covid-19 infection. Ahtisaari is doing well under the circumstances,... Wed, 17:11: Tony Blair considered asking Queen to open Stormont assembly https://t.co/vzU8slGg0u It would not have helped! Wed, 17:38: On recommendation of @ChairmanYaffle, am hugely enjoying the Apple TV Foundation series. But what's with this weird pronunciation of "buoy" to rhyme with "coo-ee"?
Since this site started in 2009, I've been keeping an eye on which is the most popular blog post with readers. It's a little trip down memory lane, showing how my own interests and my audience has evolved over time. Here's the latest round-up: 2021: Latest general election voting intention opinion polls – see 2020. Three years in a row it's been polls that have been the most read story. It this continues, I may have to introduce a new rule to disqualify my poll round-ups...2020: Latest general election voting intention opinion polls – we may have only been in ...
I think over time people will expect, of course, to take some form of Senolytic to clear out zombie cells. Senescent cells are cells which are the living dead of the body. They are not healthy enough to function, but they are also not ill enough to actually die off. Ideally the immune system will clear them out and although they are sterile they often send out inflammatory markers and create
Xplore Dundee is making several changes to bus services from next Monday, 3rd January. + I am very pleased at the launch of a new Service 6 linking Ninewells with Menzieshill, Elmwood Road, Tullideph Road, Pentland Avenue, Blackness Road and the city centre. This will operate hourly and is good news as it assists with provision of services around Ancrum Road and Tullideph Road, something I have been campaigning for since the Service 17 was re-routed right along City Road. + The Service 9/10 (Outer Circle) is renumbering as Service 10 - a service linking communities to the north of ...
