One Parliamentary and six principal authority council by-elections this week, including some good news for the Liberal Democrats on the candidate front: Excellent not only to see full slate of @libdems candidates this week, but that's up two on the last time these wards were contested. https://t.co/jONccnEBoT — Mark Pack [IMG: 🔶] (@markpack) December 15, 2022
All Saints, Margaret Street, which I have blogged about before, is so High it makes the Pope look like a Strict Baptist. This silent video shows its Corpus Christi procession of 1959. Anglican nuns, women members of the congregation with their heads covered, choirboys in buckled shoes and God knows who else process a couple of blocks north of the department stores of Oxford Street. It's Barbara Pym or The Towers of Trebizond come to life.
Donald Trump has said for days that he was going to make a "major announcement". After all the waiting – this is it! It has been described by US political commentator Taegan Goddard as "beyond parody". Come for the claim that Trump was a better president than Washington and Lincoln, stay for the "Trump digital trading cards" pic.twitter.com/qEKWYpgXL7 — The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) December 15, 2022 I particularly like the fact that the cost of his digital trading card is "nine-y nine" dollars, which brings to mind these Harry and Paul 'American car dealer' sketches: * Paul Walter is ...
The Guardian reports on today's strike, whereby tens of thousands of nurses are walking out across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, sparking a major disruption to services in the first such action in NHS history. They add that members of the Royal College of Nursing are staging the strikes in an effort to win a pay rise for this year of 5% above inflation, and in protest at the government's decision to award them an increase of at least £1,400, which is the equivalent of about a 4% uplift. Welsh health minister, Eluned Morgan, is quoted as stressing that her ...
We are all shocked and saddened by yet another tragedy in the Channel, as those looking for sanctuary with us are drowned or had a terrifying experience not knowing if they will be rescued from an icy sea. But as well as being upset by the tragedy, I am, yet again, angry with our Government's response. They sound sorry about it, but do not begin to understand the situation, think getting tough on traffickers will solve everything, along with putting those that do get here on a plane to Rwanda. Their ideas are not only impractical but half baked and ...
Chat GPT is becoming a favourite internet game. It has serious possibilities for learning, writing, and cheating. The AI writer generates errors, mostly because time for the current version stopped in 2021. For example, it thinks that Boris Johnson is still prime minister - or has it been hacked by the BJ camp? Development of artificial intelligence has been underway for decades. From primitive beginnings, it has been growing in power and in "humanness". Contact your bank or your council and in many cases, you'll be talking to AI by voice or online. But no one thinks these have intelligence. ...
A Christmas song for people who are lonely at Christmas! We need a song like that. - Joni Mitchell American Songwriter explains: River reveals one of Mitchell's most vulnerable moments in songwriting, opening up about a breakup and the deep bond that's difficult to shake. The lyrics of River are thought to have been inspired by the end of Mitchell's relationship with musician Graham Nash; the two dated from 1968 through 1970. River comes from Joni Mitchell's classic album Blue and has been recorded more times by other artists than any song of hers except Both Sides Now.
A resident recently raised with us road safety at the Ancrum Road/Tullideph Road junction pointing out : "The speed of traffic turning from Ancrum Road into Tullideph Road is often inappropriately high and I suspect an element of this is that they're using Tullideph Road as a rat run to avoid the wait at the Logie Street Lights. Vehicles very regularly cut the corner at speed when entering the road and over the years I've had to take avoiding action as cars enter Tullideph on the wrong side of the road, it's particularly dangerous if I want to turn right. ...
