When I published a book chapter on Charles Dickens and antisemitism a couple of years ago, I managed to slip in the expression 'well-behaved orphans'. But it turns out that the original Well-Behaved Orphan wasn't Oliver Twist but his benefactor, Mr Brownlow. For the Wikipedia entry for Mr Brownlow says: Mr Brownlow's name and character generally believed to be derived from John Brownlow, the director of the Foundling Hospital, which was dedicated to looking after abandoned and unwanted children. Dickens, a regular visitor to the hospital, knew Brownlow well. Dickens scholar Robert Alan Colby argues that "in naming Oliver's benefactor ...
We interrupt our festive break to bring you the happy news that the Liberal Democrats have seen three people honoured in the New Years Honours list. Jude Godden has been awarded an MBE for her services to local politics, Gavin Stollar has been awarded an OBE for his work within the Jewish Community and Andrew Dixon was awarded an OBE for his work in tackling inequality and for his support to British entrepreneurs. Jude Godden Jude Godden has been serving her community for the past 20 years, first running adult education for a large rural area and delivering over 200 ...
You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. That was Moria, where they let loose the Balrog. The Dwarves were similarly ill advised in the Nottinghamshire coalfield and they let loose Lee Anderson.
Someone I encountered:tall, austere and somewhat gaunt,stern and awkward, with a side of anger;thin-souled, though woven from the threadsof everyday humanity Words were disconnected. They had been finely drawn –perhaps by longing's subtleties, perhaps by isolation's anguish –but certainly by fitting in (best efforts made)while never in conformity A lifetime. Of all that. He was puzzled [...]
I became a supporter of the Texan retro-folk-prog-rock band Midlake about the time of their 2006 breakthrough album The trials of Van Occupanther when one of its tracks was included in one of the sampler CDs that came with the much-missed Word magazine. It was described as drawing on 1970s soft-rock, but it to me it felt more a Fairport Convention/Strawbs/Stackridge kind of thing. So I was a little surprised when reviewers commented that their follow-up The courage of others was a move in the direction of British folk-rock. While there had been a certain evolution, it seemed to me ...
An indication of how little changes in politics, and how much common ground exists between Labour and the Tories, is evidenced by two articles in today's Guardian. In the first, the paper reports that sending asylum seekers to holding camps on the Scottish island of Mull and removing them to "safe havens" in third-party countries such as Turkey, South Africa and Kenya, was among the "nuclear options" considered by Tony Blair's government. They add that twenty years before the Conservative government's Rwanda plan, "big bang" solutions were discussed after Blair expressed frustration that "ever tougher controls" in northern France had ...
The New Year gives us the chance to rest our nation and to move back to the more normal 'liberal democrat' policies pursued by most Parties until the Tories slid into the pit in 2015. In my last blog I ... Continue reading →
Herman Sörgel wanted to create the largest civil engineering project the world has ever seen: a colossal dam across the Strait of Gibraltar, lowering the Mediterranean sea. There were, of course, a few problems with this.
Residents will recall our previous articles in August and October about insufficient capacity on one of the school buses (the 6s - the pupils concerned live in the Pentland area) to/from Harris Academy, we have again been in touch with the council's transportation team in the run up to the Christmas school holidays. The team has responded to us with this helpful update in advance of the schools returning after the New Year : "As previously discussed, I wanted to update you about the route amendment we have agreed with McGill's buses for the Service 10s to be introduced officially ...
