Embed from Getty ImagesOliver! is the great British musical. I regard that as a statement of fact rather than an opinion. Legend has it that the opening night audience went wild, but what did the critics make of it? Well, our old friend J.C. Trewin loved it. Writing for the Birmingham Daily Post on Friday 1 July 1960, the day after Oliver's premiere he confirmed the legend: "May Dickens forgive me!" said Lionel Bart as he took that surprising thing, an author's call, at the end of Oliver! to-night. He came upon the stage of the New Theatre after the ...
"Those that claim to be the party of clever economics and fiscal responsibility would do well to remember this simple truth: the square root of fuck all is always going to be absolutely fuck all, no matter how creatively you're told to to dice it." Jack Monroe asks why elected representatives and salaried journalists and presenters are trying to undermine the ten-year career and credibility of a food blogger. Andrew Adonis reviews Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK by Simon Kuper: "In place of Kuper's plan, I would instead introduce a different 'levelling-up' reform ...
The Liberal Democrats have selected Cllr Sarah Dyke as their candidate for the Somerton and Frome constituency. Sarah lives in the constituency and is from a Somerset farming family which can be traced back over 250 years to the local area. Sarah worked in the agricultural industry and is Portfolio Holder for the Environment on South Somerset District Council where she is spearheading rewilding programmes, investment in electric vehicle charging points and the council's zero-carbon targets. Last week Sarah was elected to Somerset County Council to represent Blackmoor Vale, beating the head of the Conservatives' dedicated anti-Lib Dem unit. In ...
Ludlow Town Council has a second vacancy for a councillor after I stepped down for health reasons. I actually feel quite fit. It's just that my legs don't agree with that assessment. When I joined the council a year ago, I could walk fairly well. But the neuropathy in legs has got worse and I must use a stick for support when I walk, sometimes two. This is often worse in the evenings and sitting in a low chair (which is a compulsory torture in council meetings) makes it worse. Despite generous offers of lifts from other councillors, it was ...
Now there may be those who read this who think that I am talking about football and am trying to ingratiate myself with LFC fans. It's not my intention but I might as well do so! The iron discipline that ... Continue reading →
Modelling data has recently been made available for air pollution across the UK. It allows us to map pollution around Ludlow. The modelling in many respects tells us what we already know. That the air pollution hot spots in Ludlow are on Corve Street, the Bull Ring, Old Street and much of the town centre. But it provides numbers on the estimated level of pollution, data that we can use to use in planning the transport future of the town. The data come from the Central Office of Public interest (COPI), which describes itself as a "creative industry alliance running ...
Welcome to the third of what seems to be becoming a regular series, rounding up the political opinion polling from the last week. We've had five national voting intention polls with fieldwork in the last week, putting the Conservatives on 33-34%, Labour on 37-39%, the Lib Dems on 11-12% and the Greens on 3-7%. There are first signs of a boost for the Lib Dems from the May elections, with the party up in four of those polls and unchanged in the fifth. All movements within the margin of error, but seeing them across different pollsters starts to make them ...
The Lloyd George Society and Rights-Liberties-Justice are sponsoring a showing of the film Mr Jones at the National Liberal Club on 20 June. The movie tells the story of Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist and former employee of Lloyd George, who travelled secretly to the USSR to uncover the truth about the Holodomor, the great famine of 1933 under Stalin's regime in the Ukraine. Jones witnesses appalling conditions, including starving people whose grain has been forcibly taken away for consumption elsewhere, villages whose entire populations have died or just vanished and 'horrifically, he stumbles across examples of cannibalism. Yet despite ...
The Irish question has bedevilled British, European and American politics since... well, forever. It played a role in the Council of Whitby in 664. In 1169 England's Norman rulers invaded and started centuries of direct conflict. All this was supposed to end with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Well two events this week have brought it back from a shallow grave: The emergence of Sinn Fein as the largest party on both sides of the border and British refusal to accept the Northern Ireland protocol. The two political incidents have also brought the possibility of a united Ireland a giant ...
Aldous Harding is a New Zealand artist now based in Cardiff. A 2019 Guardian review of a concert by her said: In the years since 2014, when her self-titled debut came out in her native New Zealand, Harding has become cult-famous for her intense performances. They draw attention to the fact of their own artifice and have garnered comparisons to uncompromising auteurs such as Kate Bush. Harding has a punk rock stare and, on her stool, she adopts cowboy postures that would be called manspreading if they happened on the London underground. When she sings, she is legion: Harding can ...
Sat, 12:56: RT @gavinesler: Probably because your prime minister Boris Johnson in October 2019 at a meeting in the Wirral with the Irish PM Leo Varadka... Sat, 13:38: The Northern Ireland Protocol: or, Now Look What You Made Me Do https://t.co/eIkKp6Wsfo https://t.co/NpFinDABqy Sat, 14:18: The Northern Ireland Protocol: or, Now Look What You Made Me Do https://t.co/gFWrQ6FyIZ https://t.co/f1ifkL8zNT Sat, 14:48: RT @robbeorn: The assembly's research department has published a fascinating short paper showing where transfers went in #AE22 - here's the... Sat, 15:28: RT @ThreshedThought: We're reaching a bit of a tipping point in the Ukraine War. A thread. Sat, ...
Eurovision is an acquired taste. Many people regard it as a pleasure. War is an enforced taste. Very few people regard it as a pleasure. The win last night at the world's most popular, and often cheesiest, song contest is a mood boost for Ukraine. The jury had put the UK entry, Space Man by Sam Ryder at the head of the pack. In an ordinary year, Sam Ryder would have given the UK the winner that has eluded it since Katrina and the Waves. This is not an ordinary year. Last night's event opened with a Rockin' 1000 rendition ...
