"Finding junk and talking bollocks." That's how Lance (Toby Jones) describes the life he and his best mate Andy (Mackenzie Crook) live in Detectorists, the gentle and beloved BBC sitcom that began 10 years ago this month. David Renshaw had a nice piece on Detectorists in the Guardian earlier this week, though calling the series 'gentle' downplays its ability to embrace the mystical and the sinister. Mackenzie Crook, the writer of the series, came up with a better word: "I deliberately set out to write something uncynical and removed from the awkward 'cringe comedy' that was prevalent at the time," ...
The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award. The judges ask why there is now a mania for strange breeds when the domestic cats we know and love are so beautiful.
Alexei Navalny's memoirs are adamant: Putin's Russia is based on corruption and "lies, nothing but lies." "It will," he has written, inevitably "crumble and collapse." The late Navalny's scathing assessment is a central theme in his memoir "Patriot" which is published this coming week in 11 different languages. Russia is a modern-day feudal state wrapped in the flag of nationalism and plagued with corruption, bribery, kleptocracy, cronyism, a crooked judicial system, and suppressed media and personal freedoms. There are an estimated 100 oligarchs at the top of the Russian heap. Their cumulative net worth is about $500 billion. The exact ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with party leadership ratings. 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, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Opinium 24% (nc) 31% (nc) 12% (+1) 8% (nc) 20% (nc) 7% 16-18/10 GB Techne 25% (+1) 28% (-1) 13% (+1) 7% (nc) 19% ...
In my boyhood the UK helped to win the War using British made Lee Enfield rifles, British built Centurion tanks, British Spitfires and Hurricane fighters and Wellington bombers, and Clyde or Belfast-built warships. After the War we resumed producing Leyland buses and famous motor cars: Rileys, MGs and Austin Healeys; Rolls Royces, Lagondas and Bentleys; Rovers Jaguars, and Jowets (in Bradford), to name but some. By contrsast the German Volkswagen company was limited to producing Austin Sevens on licence. The Duke of Edinburgh pointed out that the British had invented Television and the Jet Engine. What wasn't to like? Today ...
We recently received concerns from residents that directional signage in Seafield Lane is very worn and becoming unreadable - see photos. We have therefore asked the City Council to have the signage replaced.
The Guardian reports that Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves are at loggerheads over a major programme of social housebuilding, in the latest sign of cabinet tensions over this month's budget. The paper says that as housing secretary, Raynor has been pushing Reeves for billions of pounds more for affordable housing, which she argues will be needed to hit Labour's target of building 1.5m new homes across five years. However, the Chancellor has made it clear that there will not be enough money available in this spending review for an immediate cash injection: The standoff is the latest sign of the ...
