I often read other peoples blogs and see that they have blogged remotely using a blackberry or mobile phone. However I think I can at least claim a political blogging first by being the first to blog using a Nintendo Wii. I would add that it might also be the last time I do it too as it takes too long to write the messages out.
Well if Carry Bradshaw can do it, I most certainly can try. Hi and welcome to New York, well not literally! It has been non stop since I first arrived. First night just exploring what the city has to offer and yes it has a lot to offer. Yesterday a day of sight seeing, managing 4 of the top 12 attractions that my guide book suggests (Peirpoint Morgan Library, UN building, Grand Central
Boxing Day: Here’s an idea for NEXT year’s Christmas Special: Millennium Elephant in association with the BBC proudly presents a Russell T Davies television production: Murray Gold’s DOCTOR WHO: THE MUSICAL! Sing along with the roller-blading Time Lord Chorus as they perform their medley of musical hits – “Ra Ra Rassilon (inventor of the Time Machine, there was a Cat that Really was Gone!)”; “How do you Solve a Problem like The Master?”; and “Raxacoricofallapatorius (even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious)”! GASP at OMEGA as he sings the “Antimatter Rhapsody”: ...
Latest from Dundee City Council's Planning & Transportation Department:- Dundee City Council propose to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating rail tunnel strengthening works. The Order is expected to be in force for ten months from 8 January 2007. Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months. The effect of the Order prohibit temporarily all vehicular and pedestrian traffic in (a) Dock Street between Crichton Street and Commercial Street for eastbound traffic only, (b) Dock Street between Gellatly Street and ...
The Weather Won't Halt Dundee's Hogmanay Dundee's Hogmanay celebrations will still go ahead whatever the weather, said a spokesperson for City Centre & Harbour Community Council today. Three years ago when bad weather knocked out many events, the North Carr Lightship was almost the only place in the country where the planned celebrations actually happened! Fireworks may not be possible but the music from Skelpaig and Sheena Wellington and the famous midnight foghorn will go ahead The Family Ceilidh, featuring the Cameron Kellow Group, at Meadowside St Pauls Church Hall and the Church Service are, ...
Heady few days .... finishing lagging my loft .... studying ..... reading ...... re-sorting out our energy - as its mild, are were able to reduce the monthly payments .... added son to our insurance so he can start to drive .... so another fun few months to look forward to ... need to sort out house before we all go back to work ..... Ah ... and, only family member to feel guilty eating cherries
When I was at University In Coventry in the mid 1990's, many of my friends were Tories and were involved in all things Conservative. Through this, I came to meet John Butcher, then Tory MP Coventry South West, a seat that was abolished in the 1997 General Election, so it is with some sadness that I read HERE of his death on Christmas Day. I met John on about three occasions. Once, when he came to my house to speak to my Tory housemates about something, and the other times in a pub. I have to say, that ...
We are finally heading back to my home town of Folkestone tomorrow after a bit of a wait. It is quite an emotional event for me having been away from the area for a few years although I have been a regular visitor in the interim and down there a fair bit since my selection. There have been some changes, both positive and negative in the town and I hope that I will be able to help drive the area forward in some capacity. Naturally I would be delighted if this were to be as Folkestone ...
Before Christmas I reported that the Labour Government has managed to increase both taxes and unemployment. In my enthusiasm for the festive fun, I overlooked a third painful statistic: inflation, too is rising. That taxes and unemployment were rising simultaneously should come as no surprise, as high income and corporate taxes squeeze entrepreneurs and businesses, while high employment taxes (National Insurance to my British audience) raise the price of labour and make expansion unprofitable or shift the balance in favour of capital (i.e. it is cheaper to mechanise than to employ). In the dark and dismal past, however, ...
If Andrew Duff MEP is upset with his leader, then the party should celebrate.
Today’s Grauniad editorial, ‘Liberal Democrats: In search of adventure’, is a critical but generally fair analysis of the party after its annus horribilis, noting that: Poll ratings are dipping from low 20s to high teens;Ming has not found yet a defining issue to make his own, as Paddy Ashdown did with Bosnia or Charles Kennedy did with Iraq;The party is not yet daring to be radical enough on key
The only disadvantage about being back home with my parents is that my Dad reads the Daily Mail. Never been able to work out why anyone would want to do that, but on the plus side he does admit that it is rubbish and he doesn't believe what he reads in it. Anyway, he was reading out some questions from their Quiz of the Year type thing yesterday, which included this: Q. How are Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew better known? One of the possible answers was "the Liberal Democrats". How we laughed. Of course, ...
Congratulations to Labour's Cllr. Andrew Pakes from Livesey Ward who has been selected as their prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Milton Keynes North, a new seat and Labour target with a notional majority of 4% over the Tories. If Labour are serious about clinging on to power they will need to hold this seat. If being a Labour PPC is anything like being a Liberal Democrat PPC in a target seat it seems deeply unlikely that we'll being seeing much of Cllr. Pakes in the near future. He may consider it prudent to stand down to concentrate on ...
Earlier this month, the value of euro notes pushed through the six hundred billion Euro level – roughly double the value of the then-national currencies in circulation at the end of 2001. ...
The Front Page story in the Birmingham Post today as with that yesterday on The Stirrer (Adrian Goldberg's news blog site) report on the threat by North Staffs to sue me. Their lawyers want a meeting with me, but are also suggesting that I should pay the hospitals legal costs. I have made it clear that I will not want to meet up with them if they are going to try to charge me for the time taken
I was going to call it a two-horse race until I realised how ungallant such a headline might appear. But it really couldn’t be any closer in the race for sexiest female Lib Dem, as we enter the final furlong. Not only is it a tie between Kirsty Williams AM and Jenny Willott MP for first place, but just three votes separate the three luminaries vying for the bronze medal position. Here are the
Corot was launched yesterday. Its mission is to track down Earth like planets outside of the Solar System. Corot which stands for COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) is capable of detecting small rocky planets of a similar size to our own. Presumably this is part of a long term plan to find us somewhere else to live once we have destroyed our own planet.
In the Western Mail Plaid Cymru's Deputy Leader has demanded that Labour tell us which party they are going into coalition with after the Assembly elections: Rhodri Glyn Thomas said: 'It is ridiculous for Rhodri Morgan to cling to the fiction he is going to win a majority. The people of Wales have a right to know what Labour will do after the election.' This is a surprise to everybody else. We had assumed that after their little budget deal a Plaid-Labour pact was an inevitability. Could things have gone so sour, so soon? Has it got to ...
I have finally got round to completing the Grauniad’s political Christmas quiz of the year - 23 out of 25, a suitably obsessive-but-not-deranged score. (And three better than Rob over at Lib Dem Voice.) The two I got wrong: George Galloway is evicted from Big Brother, but only after trying to sweet-talk fellow contestant Rula Lenska by talking about their shared interest in? Venezuela, Uganda
Up and down the country, Labour MPs are quaking as NHS cuts begin to bite and public pressure groups join opposition parties in protesting against them. Except, I suppose, in those cases where they manage to lead discontent against the government themselves. And I can imagine how the Bob Marshall-Andrewses of this world could make [...]
Over the past year, one of the major themes of this blog has been Freedom. However, this is not the kind of freedom where "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". It is my belief that the individual has the right to live their life untroubled and untrammelled. Everyone should be free to choose to "go to the devil their own way". Nevertheless, there are many snares in untrammelled freedom- selfishness cuts us off from others, greed ultimately poisons our bodies, or our happiness. Materialism leads us to neglect ourselves in favour of possessions. So, although ...
My membership of the Liberal Democrats lapses on 31st December and once again I have to make a decision whether to renew or become* a passive supporter. For some reason I always take this decision seriously, and last year I had a good long think about whether, ideologically speaking, the Liberal Democrats are the right party for me. This time around, I know they are, which is why I almost
Just over a year ago a gigantic earthquake hit the fault between the Indian and Burma tectonic plates. At 9.3 on the Richter scale it was the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. A few minutes after the quake had stilled, the first tsunami came ashore on Sumatra, before spreading out across the Indian Ocean. Along a huge section of coast the surge of water flooded ashore- often for many miles. The US Geological Survey initially recorded the casualty toll as 283,100 killed, 14,100 missing, and 1,126,900 people displaced- one of the most destructive natural disasters ever recorded. ...
The BBC reports that Hazel Blears has joined a protest against the government's proposed closure of a maternity unit in her constituency. You could almost admire her for this were it not for the background to the story, the on going Labour selections in the area and her past record. Iain Dale reported about two weeks ago on the fact that Hazel Blears has already lost out on selection for one of the new seats being carved out of her existing seat as a result of boundary changes whilst she is looking more likely to lose than win in the ...
The BBC has picked up on the story from the Guardian yesterday which reported that twenty two Tory MP's are being investigated for using House of Commons hospitality to help fund campaigns in Conservative target seats. The rules are quite clear when it comes to using the House of Commons facilities, and it appears the Tories have been up to no good. No wonder "Dave" is so keen to introduce rules on limiting party funding donations when it appears his party have come up with ingenious new ways of getting funding, even if they break parliamentary rules ! 
On Boxing Day, the family (minus Mam and Dad) went over to Seaton Sluice on the Northumberland Coast, near Blyth. Refreshing is the only word I can think of to describe the weather! Blyth harbour was fitted out with wind turbines in the 1990s. You get a good view of them on this video.
On Christmas Eve, we decided to burn off some of the Christmas calories in advance of Christmas dinner by going for a walk to Watergate Park in my council ward in Gateshead. This also gave us the opportunity to check out the family of swans living on the lake in the park. The park was, until the mid 1990s a colliery wasteland. But in the late 1980s, the pit heaps caught fire and the whole area
Just before Christmas the new Parliamentary constituency of Birmingham Hall Green was advertised for its Parliamentary candidate. Hall Green is effectively a new seat, although the name exists already it is being made up of three current Parliamentary constituencies - Hall Green, Selly Oak and Sparkbrook and Small Heath (which has led to some fun with those three Labour MPs!). It has nine Liberal Democrat Councillors, one Labour Councillor, one RESPECT Councillor and one Independent Councillor (that was elected as a Liberal Democrat.
Now that the great fog of December has lifted for 7 days you are allowed to turn your fog lights off. Infact 94: You MUST NOT * use any lights in a way which would dazzle or cause discomfort to other road users * use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced. You MUST switch [...]
The Department of Constitutional Affairs has announced that an official online database of updated UK primary legislation has been made available for access by the public free of charge. The Statute Law Database contains over 30,000 items of UK primary and secondary legislation and the intention is to ensure that it is kept as up to date as possible. This is important because changes to UK 
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