Last updated Friday 25th April 2025 00:30 BST
it's that time of the month again when the hosting meter needs a few more pounds to keep the site ticking. Ideally we need £10 before the end of the month, otherwise it has to come out of my pocket. With over 0 blogs listed, if each author donated just two pounds a year the site would stay alive. Why not make this month the month you help out?
Many thanks
Fil from Wings of Pegasus has been looking at what exactly it is that we hear in the Eurovision Song Contest final. The rules now allow a prerecorded backing track, and that track can choose to use pitch correction and autotuning as an artistic choice. And guess what? Everyone makes that choice. That in itself is worrying, but what Fil uncovers here is that, for some songs, the backing track contains a fair part of what we think is the lead vocal. So it looks as though Eurovision isn't particularly interested in enforcing its own rules. Fil has disappeared down ...
Now here's a title for a blog post: The Famous Five vs The Lone Pine Club. It's on the blog Unpopular Culture. I shall resist the temptation to quote it in its entirety, and give you just a taste: Enid Blyton is perhaps like The Beatles. Certainly she was massively globally successful and subsequently went through dips of critical and popular appeal, before becoming established again as a recognisable global brand whose enormous material success insists on being endlessly reproduced and extended. I rather enjoy drawing this parallel partly because I know many Beatles devotees will prickle at the thought ...
Here are the predictions from various election experts as to what is going to happen in the May 2025 local elections:
Here's another of my columns for the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy. This time the theme of the issue was Georges - they've already done Davids. I wish I'd thought of including George Eliot. Georges on my Mind The future George I and his wife Sophia Dorothea fought all the time. He once pulled out her hair and throttled her until she lost consciousness - her life was saved by attendants who intervened. When George inherited the British throne, he had already forbidden his 11-year-old son, the future George II, to see his mother or even mention her ...
In delivering the Supreme Court's ruling last week, Lord Hodge went to great lengths to stress that it should not be portrayed as a victory for one side over the other, and that the rights of trans people remained protected under both the 'gender reassignment' and 'perceived gender' clauses of the Equality Act. He urged caution. It's a shame that nobody listened to him. One of the first things I was taught in the first week of my archaeology and ancient history degree in 2006, was that it is impossible to accurately sex a human skeleton due to the chaotic ...
Ed Kiely reviews John Pring's The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence: "DWP officials continue to dissemble when faced with the scale of harm caused by the department, even while pushing out dubious figures to justify the cuts: a recent press release appeared to overstate the increase in incapacity claims by a factor of ten. Labour has shielded the department from serious criticism, expanded its powers and fuelled anti-disabled sentiment with indiscriminate attacks on claimants." "The media keep reporting that Abrega Garcia was mistakenly or wrongly deported. I get the impulse - journalists ... ...
In today's interconnected world, it's increasingly common to work alongside people from different countries and cultures. And while I don't want to fall into the trap of assuming that everyone from a given country or culture thinks and works in the same way, what I do know for sure is that different countries and cultures have different approaches and attitudes to the way they work and do business. For example, people from some countries are more likely than others to spend a lot of time talking. People from other countries, meanwhile, are more likely to prefer to listen or to ...
I write from Pakistan, where I've been visiting family and reconnecting with my roots. What began as a peaceful visit has been overshadowed by two tragic events that have shaken the region and pushed tensions to the brink. On 22 April 2025, militants from a group calling itself the "Kashmir Resistance" carried out a brutal attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. Twenty-six tourists—25 Indian nationals and one Nepalese—were killed, and 17 others injured. The group claimed the attack was in response to what they view as demographic change and "outsider" settlement in the region. Just weeks earlier, on 11 March, ...
We are holding a Thursday street surgery tonight to speak with residents on any local issues or concerns they may have. Should you have an issue you wish to discuss with us, e-mail us at westend@dundeelibdems.org.uk or call Dundee 459378 and we will be pleased to meet you - many thanks.
The Independent reports that Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has been accused of throwing in the towel before a vote has been cast in May's local elections. The paper says that the Conservative leader has warned Tory supporters to brace for a "very difficult" set of results for the party as voters go to the polls next Thursday, adding that Badenoch is leading the Tories into the local elections against a high watermark set by Boris Johnson at the peak of his popularity in 2021. And, setting expectations low for her first electoral test as leader of the Conservatives, Ms Badenoch ...
