I'm devoted to the football commentaries of Allaster McKallaster. They offer a bracingly different, and very Scottish, perspective on the beautiful game. Here he is at the 1974 Charity Shield, which was held during Brian Clough's brief tenure at Leeds and features a notorious clash between Billy Bremner and Kevin Keegan.
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: One of the more niche fads of the 1980s, less widespread than Cabbage Patch Kids, shoulder pads or the Rubik's Cube, was the 'double incumbency effect'. The 1983 general election saw the Liberal/SDP Alliance nearly outscore the Labour Party in the popular vote but fail massively when it came to seat numbers, with nearly all the Labour-to-SDP defectors losing their seats. As a result, when people started analysing the results and wondering what the future held for the parties, one of the ...
Clash says: Hailing from the depths of South London, Honeyglaze took the music industry by storm with their self-titled debut back in 2022. Fraught with pent-up emotion, vocalist Anouska Sokolow composed sincere coming-of-age tales which, when brought to life by Tim Curtis and Yuri Shibuichi, quickly established the band as one to watch. Cold Caller is a track from their second album, Real Deal. It is, says Clash, "more mature, both in sound and lyrically". Not only that: Listening to Honeyglaze's latest album is an education as well as an act of musical appreciation. 'Real Deal' teaches us to be ...
With thanks to SJ Bogue and Dundee Memories, a festive City Square in 1959.
Sky News reports that Sir Keir Starmer has ordered Britain's key watchdogs to remove barriers to growth in a bid to kickstart Britain's sluggish economy. They say that they have learnt that the prime minister has written to more than ten regulators - including Ofgem, Ofwat, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority - on Christmas Eve to demand they submit a range of pro-growth initiatives to Downing Street by the middle of January: One recipient of the letter, which was also signed by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said it was ...
