Barbie never lets you down. She was born (invented, more like it) in 1959, four years before me, and was a staple of my childhood. I had one Barbie doll and kept her glamorous while combing her hair and badgering my parents to buy her all those accessories to make her look even more beautiful. ... The post Come On Barbie and Welcome To The 21st Century appeared first on A Midlifer in London - a baby boomer trying to stay relevant .
Wed 26th
19:51
When a young David Bowie played a venue opposite the derelict Leicester Belgrave Road station
One of my favourite Twitter threads is one from The Chisit on gigs at unlikely venues in and around Leicester. It reveals, for instance, that Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon both played Ye Old White Swan, a vanished pub that used to occupy a corner of the Market Place. But it is the thought of David Bowie playing an obscure venue in Leicester as early as 1966 that really intrigues me, though not just for musical reasons. The venue was The Latin Quarter in Belgrave Road and The Bowie Bible says Dave Bowie and the Buzz played there on Friday ...
It's very kind of Labour to publish a list of Parliamentary constituencies in a pdf on their website titled, "ones we're not going to win so think about voting tactically", er... sorry, titled, "non-priority" seats. Release the bar charts! Sign up to get the latest news and analysis
As The Guardian reports: The Labour's party's national policy forum report agreed at the weekend ... contained wording on electoral reform [for the House of Commons] that campaigners who favour proportional representation is significant. This issue is problematic for Labour. At the party conference last year there was an overwhelming vote in favour of PR. But Keir Starmer is not keen, and PR has not been adopted as policy. However, the NPF document does criticise first past the post. It says: "The flaws in the current voting system are contributing to the distrust and alienation we see in politics, but ...
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It's just five days since Sarah Dyke became MP for Somerton and Frome in that stunning by-election win. But she may not hold the crown of most recent by-election winner for long. Emma Holland-Lindsay hopes to win in Mid Bedfordshire if and when Nadine Dorries ever gets round to resigning. Emma's campaign is going well and the odds of a Lib Dem victory are becoming more favourable, shortening to 8/15, while Labour have seen their odds slashed to 4/1 after they failed to win in Uxbridge. It sounds like that "two horse race" phrase might be used soon.... Here's our ...
Wed 26th
08:10Investigation into how warehouse worker became trapped under hundreds of blocks of cheese is drawing...
Once again, the Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award. I'm pleased to say the trapped worker walked away unscathed. So I can end with a joke... "I had a terrible weekend. I went to a wedding, and we were all having our photos taken afterwards when a lorry drove past the church. A huge cheese fell of it, rolled into the churchyard and crushed the photographer. "We all tried to warn him."
The Independent reveals that a failure by the UK Government to build social housing in England has condemned 105,000 families to temporary accommodation. They say that campaigners have slammed the government for failing to support the building of affordable homes and have warned that "the time for empty words on building social homes" had "long past": Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, said families were trapped in temporary accommodation due to "the crippling cost [of] years of no investment in housing benefit and a shameful lack of social house building". He added: "Not only do people not have the stability ...
