Mark Norman, creator of The Folklore Podcast, talks on American TV about his book Zoinks! The Spooky Folklore Behind Scooby-Doo.
Lord Lucan is everywhere this week, because it's 50 years since he murdered his children's nanny, attacked his wife and then disappeared. The new Fortean Times has an article on the affair, which quotes the reaction of Agatha Christie:" I wonder what has happened to Lord Lucan?"Christie may seem like a figure from an earlier era, but she did not die until 1976. And Lord Lucan died in 1974. Or did he?
I never wish that I was born into a different time because technology is generally making life easier, but I was born just too late to catch the career of John Arlott. I started following cricket in 1981 (Botham's Ashes) and Arlott retired in 1980. I would come to know all about Arlott though, as he was one of my Dad's biggest heroes. Arlott was a superlative cricket commentator, a failed Liberal politician (was there any other kind in the post-war era?), and a major catalyst in the D'Oliveira Affair. Were it not for John Arlott we may never have ...
"There is a pervasive rhetoric circulating on the role of environmental regulation. It goes like this: regulation blocks growth, slows things down and should be stripped back. Such blunt logic usually misses the point. There are many reasons why we have regulation but none more important than the protection it provides to people and the environment from harmful practices."Ruth Chambers argues that limiting the use of judicial review would be an assault on democratic values. Ruth Swailes is sceptical about government plans to offer care and education for two-year-olds within existing schools: "By the time children start nursery education at ...
So much has already been written about the budget that it seems almost indecent to add to it, however, I just wanted to highlight one aspect that so far has received little attention. Opposition politicians have quite rightly attacked the impact of the increase in employers' national insurance contributions on business and whether this measure breaches a Labour manifesto promise. For the record, I think it is a breach, that it will have an impact but that the Chancellor needed to raise money somehow to fill in the financial black hole she inherited. I also think that if she was ...
Michael's surgeries take place today and every Thursday during school term time. They are as follows : Thursdays at 5.45pm prompt - West End Campus (come to reception area of St Joseph's RC and Victoria Park Primary Schools) Thursdays at 6.30pm prompt - Harris Academy reception area All welcome - no appointment necessary!
I have just stumbled across a quite astonishing headline in the Independent, which reports that a Northern Rail official has admitted the operator still uses fax machines to communicate with its train crews. The paper says that the shocking admission came as Northern mayors were grilling the rail operator on its poor performance on Wednesday, with issues raised including staffing problems, underinvestment, bad communication, and a lack of coordination with other parts of the sector - which has all led to repeated cancellations and growing anger among passenge: When Andy Burnham put to the rail official that he had heard ...
