Aksel Rykkvin's voice had already changed by the time I discovered him on YouTube. As I wrote when choosing an aria by him as one of my Sunday music videos: Though he could do angelic if you wanted it, what really set him apart was his maturity as an interpreter of song. Try the recording of Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen he made shortly before his voice changed. As one reviewer of his album said: "I am running out of superlatives." Last night Aksel gave his first public recital as a baritone in the UK, appearing at the National ...
Financial institutions are back in the news yet again, and all for the wrong reasons. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has sent shockwaves around financial markets worldwide. Fortunately the damage in the UK was limited. HSBC snapped up the SV Bank's British subsidiary allowing investors to get access to their money. If only Scottish Widows (SW) could allow the same.SW used to be one of the
Embed from Getty ImagesLong ago, my mother told me that my father had been a schoolfriend of Eric Thompson - the actor, director, narrator of The Magic Roundabout and father of Emma. I wasn't able to ask my father about it - he walked out when I was 11 and I never saw him again - but eventually they invented the internet and it became possible to check such things. It turned out that he had been to the same secondary school as Thompson, but was a year younger than him. This made me doubt the story, as a year ...
I have about twenty years or so left on this planet. I very much hope that before I shuffle off, the UK will have rejoined the EU. I think it will be touch and go whether we manage it. Apologies to our more enthusiastic Europhiles if that disappoints you, but I think it is realistic. The EU needs to see a steady majority in favour of joining over a period of time. We don't have that stable majority yet, though I expect we will. It will then need to remain stable for a number of years (particularly important for us, ...
We know that if the UK were in the European Union, GDP would now be £120bn higher, and tax revenues £40bn higher every year. We know that the UK is the only major European economy not to have returned to its pre-pandemic size. And polling shows us that there is a growing majority view that Brexit was a mistake which has delivered negligible benefits and has done substantial damage to Britain. Yet the Party's leadership at Federal level still does not seem keen to explain these things to voters, nor to offer leadership to the large number of people across ...
Wed 15th
13:19
Reactions to the Budget - "Conservatives so out of touch they are living on another planet"
Here's some of the Lib Dem reaction to today's Budget. Mary and Caron will keep updating it as the day goes on. First up: This does not go far enough. We are calling on the Chancellor to cut energy bills by £500 per household. This would make a significant difference to households and the Government can afford to do it, they are choosing not to.https://t.co/pKlNgs5aM4 — Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) March 15, 2023 The number crunchers at Lib Dem HQ have been busy since the Budget speech. Their analysis shows that stealth taxes will cost taxpayers four times more than the ...
Tue, 18:19: BSFA Best Art https://t.co/FmJzi1Qb31 Wed, 10:45: RT @green_knight: Relevant notes: this was seven words, and her son suggested how to deal with them. You could call it a slippery slope,...
On May 4th, the one third of voters in England who can be bothered will traipse off to their local polling stations to vote in this year's round of council elections. They will cheerfully sign away their democratic rights with an X and, if they think of it at all, many will assume that, if a party polls 4 out of 10 votes, the voting system will ensure that they win 4 out of 10 seats. Unfortunately, our inefficient Victorian First-past-the-post voting system fails to achieve this, with disastrous consequences for English local government. On most English councils, seats taken ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention poll from each pollster currently operating in Britain. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email: Understanding different polling firms You may find these posts useful: 'Waiting for Survation': a reminder of the value of checking the evidence. YouGov: is it biased to the Conservatives? Frequently Asked Questions Why isn't polling company X in ...
The Guardian reports that leaked email and WhatsApp messages show that BBC editors asked their journalists to avoid using the word "lockdown" in reporting at the start of the pandemic and to be more critical of Labour after pressure from Downing Street. The paper say that the emails and messages were shown to them amid concern among some BBC insiders that the corporation has been too cowed by the government in recent years: The messages seen by the Guardian date from 2020 to 2022, and show the BBC coming under pressure from No 10 over the corporation's political reporting. One ...
Conference has always been a central element in my involvement in the Liberal Democrats. Like many of us, all year round I spend a large proportion of my waking hours doing things for the party - and being able to make links, exchange ideas and, yes, gossip with people from across the country at conference not only makes doing that year-round work easier, but also makes it very very much more fun. I have really missed them over the last three and a half years - with the final cruel punch of the last-minute cancellation for non-pandemic reasons of last ...
From Sheena Wellington : Saturday 18th March - 11am - Wighton Heritage Centre, Central Library The Friends of Wighton are delighted to welcome Carole and Alan Prior, one of the best loved and most respected singing duos in the British Isles. Carole is a well known and powerful singer who, together with her husband Alan, has been invited to many folk festivals and singing weekends throughout the UK and Ireland. Whilst traditional songs and ballads are her first love, she also enjoys newer compositions in a traditional style, particularly when they convey emotional themes or a good story. She also ...
Here's the "gloriously unexpected survival right in the centre of the city" I promised you when posting another video from Bob's Rail Relics. That showed a short stretch of the long-abandoned Glamorganshire Canal that is still in water. The city in question is Cardiff, and the survival is a canal tunnel that today acts as a pedestrian underpass. I think what got me so excited was that you can still see the grooves worn there by the narrow boats' towropes. Cardiff Council, incidentally, has ambitions to create a 'canal quarter' by uncovering another artificial waterway in the city. This once ...
