Current Wandering Scholars, by Helen Waddell The Doctor - his Life and Times, by James Goss and Steve Tribe Neither Unionist nor Nationalist: The 10th (Irish) Division in the Great War by Stephen Sandford The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu Last books finished Twice a Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece and Turkey, by Bruce Clark The Gift of Rain, by Tan Twan Eng Embers, by Sándor Márai Next books "Bloodchild", by Octavia E. Butler Why I Write, by George Orwell
I said last week that I thought my next film might be The Aviator (2004); what with one thing and another, I did end up watching a film where Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett are romantically entangled, but it wasn't The Aviator. Don't Look Up is an entirely conscious and overt satire on humanity's, and especially America's, failure to deal with climate change (and perhaps COVID to an extent). There is a good piece here by Eric Lewitz detailing how the film gets it wrong, and perhaps hits the wrong targets, and another (if you can get through the New ...
Shropshire councillors agreed on Thursday to spend nearly £3 million on new 240 litre wheelie bins to be distributed to households across Shropshire, beginning in South Shropshire in May. These need to be booked online or by ringing 0345 678 9007. This is an overdue move. Myself and fellow councillors have been pressing for wheelie bins for recycling for years. We wanted to prevent the frequent wind blow of plastics from open tubs onto our streets. There are other benefits from having wheelie bins. They are easier to manoeuvre. The recycling operatives will no longer have to empty tubs into ...
Second paragraph of third chapter:Raphael was 'Raph' when I met him. He was everybody's property; he could be phoned or called on at his home at any time (dropping in to use his lavatory was not unheard of). Comrades from across the world would turn up at short notice, expecting a bed or a floor, a meal and a conversation that went on half the night. 'Another twelve Italian Marxists for breakfast!' I would joke, or half joke - he had once entertained such a group and wowed them with sausage, bacon and fried eggs. God's motley came and went: ...
Writing in the Express, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: "Boris Johnson is a man without shame, or scruples. That is, in many ways, how he managed to ascend the greasy pole." Explaining why he had written to Cressida Dick asking her to investigate Boris Johnson's involvement in the continuing Partygate scandal, Davey asked how anyone of sound judgement can - let alone the prime minister - think it is somehow okay to get out the party hats and knock back the wine on the very day that the government ordered everyone to stay indoors and avoid all human contact ...
The mark of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable people. Ours could do a lot better. Budget Announcement – Thanks to negotiations between @DoddsJane & Finance Minister @RebeccaEvansMS the @WelshLibDems have secured £20 million to deliver much needed reform in services for looked after children and care leavers. Read more here [IMG: 👇] https://t.co/J3PBdms8uM pic.twitter.com/54qPIer8zY — Welsh Liberal Democrats (@WelshLibDems) January 11, 2022 Jane Dodds, as leader of the Welsh LIb Dems and the party's only Member of the Senedd, announced this week that she had secured an extra £20 million for care leavers, who are ...
Hello! I'm Mark Pack, author of Polling UnPacked: The History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, as well as 101 Ways To Win An Election and Bad News: what the headlines don't tell us. Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention poll from each pollster currently operating in Britain. Below the table, you'll find the option to sign up to email updates about new polls and also a set of answers to frequently asked questions about political polling. Or, if you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how ...
Fri, 12:56: RT @EURACTIV: The nine years spanning 2013-2021 all rank among the 10 hottest on record, according to an annual report a US agency released... Fri, 14:02: Hooray! President Ahtisaari out of hospital after his second bout with coronavirus. https://t.co/HBNvhj1Pif Fri, 16:05: Wordle letters https://t.co/z8hOeo773E seaoriltnducypmhgbkfwvzxjq Fri, 18:14: Once & Future vol. 1: The King Is Undead and vol. 2: Old English, by Kieron Gillen et al https://t.co/EWHc462unH Fri, 21:10: RT @MSmithsonPB: This is doing the rounds https://t.co/cM592esXJc Sat, 09:40: Odd, by John Wyndham https://t.co/yLJkaKPhTV Sat, 10:45: How interesting. https://t.co/yN57f1bkPx
This week, the Scottish Parliament debated the horrible, painful, debilitating condition Endometriosis. Shetland's Lib Dem MSP Beatrice Wishart highlighted the distress this condition can cause and the impact it can have on women's whole lives – and says that we must do better than the misogynistic dismissal of this condition that we so often see. Here is her speech in full: I congratulate Rachael Hamilton on securing this important debate. So much has already been said about the impact that endometriosis has across all aspects of life, but I make no apology for repeating some of what has already been ...
As the BBC report that Baglan Energy Park, where 1,600 people are employed, faces months without electricity, with "potentially catastrophic consequences, it is worth reflecting on the controversial way the project got approval in the first place. The full story is set out in Rhodri Morgan's autobiography: What I was most sceptical of was the Baglan Energy Park. On my first day's tour around the project sections, the team responsible told me with confidence that the energy park would produce 6,000 new jobs. I asked them how they could be so sure - it sounded an awful high figure to ...
When, on a day in the late December of 1958, Mr Reginald Aster called upon the legal firm of Cropthorne, Daggit, and Howe, of Bedford Row, at their invitation, he found himself received by a Mr Fratton, an amiable young man, barely out of his twenties, but now head of the firm in succession to the defunct Messrs C, D & H. And when Mr Aster was informed by Mr Fratton that under the terms of the late Sir Andrew Vincell's will he was a beneficiary to the extent of six thousand Ordinary Shares in British Vinvinyl, Ltd, Mr Aster ...
The world is sitting on a migration and demographic time bomb. A perfect storm of environmental, economic, and demographic factors are combing with increased international instability to drive millions of people from the developing to the developed world. An internationally coordinated response is required to deal with the problem that will not go away. It will just become worse. Instead growing xenophobia is constructing physical and bureaucratic dams that must eventually burst. Ironically, the two sides of the cultural and geographic fence have complementary problems. There is a shortage of workers in the xenophobic developed world and a surplus in ...
Welcome to my email digest for news from the Liberal Democrats in London, combining official news stories from the region with those from London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon and the London Lib Dem MPs.
