It's the end of the month, which can only mean one thing - it's time for another treat from Kylie as she celebrates 25 years in pop. This time out it's a video from the Anti-Tour of B-Sides, Demos and Rarities and is of her singing Cherry Bomb - a B-Side from the single releases of "Wow" and "In My Arms". Here she is: Andrew
As some of you may know, I have been off work for a period of 4 weeks. Below you will find a crime update for the last month. On 23d of March 12, there has been a crime report of a stolen motor vehicle from Peterborough area, vehicle was a recovered by the police in Bar Hill Industrial Estate. This crime remains undetected and under investigation. On 26th March 12, at 01:45, there has been a crime report of a burglary in a building at Tesco Petrol Station IN Bar Hill. At stated times 4 unknown persons have gained entry ...
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. 1. Future Building PlansThank you for all the comments that I have received following my extra email during the week. We had a meeting of the Lib-Dem council group last night and I was able to relay these comments on to everyone else. I do believe that the decisions we take over the next couple of weeks will be the most important that we ever take as councillors as they will fundamentally affect the whole ...
Here's a graph that neatly illustrates the power of celebrity... From the fantastic geek-curiosity that is the England & Wales Baby Names website, tracking the popularity of names given to babies from 1996-2010, here's the graph for the name 'Britney': Of course the value of a celebrity name can go down as well as up — as this graph illustrates has happened with 'Jordan': Posts Related to Britney versus Jordan: the fickle correlation of celebrity and baby names£1.7 million: the price of TB's farewellThis from today's Mirror: TONY Blair entertained celebrity guests as part of his farewell world tour with ...
Today was the official opening for Crafty Corner.. an initiative of a group of women in the Cressington area. It's a former shop which they are turning into a base for art activities, cup cake making/decoration etc. They also want to use it as a venue for organisations that provide a service to the community to come and run surgeries and answer questions. The launch was great.. cakes and champagne.. and the Lord Mayor. Crafty Corner is on Garston Old Road at the end of the parade of shops including the florists and the coffee shop. It is due to ...
The other day I went to visit the Shelter Campaign base in Liverpool. Shelter had taken over an empty shop in the City Centre for a few days to highlight a campaign on rogue landlords. It's a really imaginative way to raise the issues and I was really impressed by what they were doing. They were asking people to sign a card with a statement or thoughts on the issue, which I did. The picture shows me adding my card to the others from other councillors etc in Liverpool.
Following on from my piece on online dating today I saw a profile with a list of all the things girls want on their first date. Seems a bit extensive and over the top to me but maybe that is why I'm single. So ladies...care to comment? 1. Ask her to dance. 2. On windy days, brush wayward strands of hair from her eyes and mouth. 3. When she's coming down the street, across the room, or up the stairs to meet you, walk towards her as soon as you see her. 4. Kiss her between her shoulder blades when ...
An occupational hazard for posties and canvassers alike is the dreaded pooch. My old fiend and counterpart as Housing Convenor in Perth Peter Barratt has been bitten twice in this campaign. Yesterday West Edinburgh Lib Dem MP Mike Crockart tweeted that canvassing in East Craigs there had been disrupted by a dog bite and that blood was drawn! I thought it was something to do with people from Perth; Mike hails from Scotland's Fair City. Mikes wife however informs us that it was in fact our councillor Robert Aldridge who was the victim of the offending canines gnashers. Lib Dem ...
Today's Guardian quotes Nick Clegg as saying of Jeremy Hunt: "Unless anyone has got a better idea I think having a judge where a cabinet minister needs to give evidence under oath is about the best context to really get down to find out what happened or what didn't happen."I have a better idea: let's ask Sir Alex Allan, the prime minister's independent adviser on the ministerial code, to investigate the affair. That's what he is for. It's not a terribly original idea. The same Guardian report quotes Simon Hughes and Lorely Burt as calling for Sir Alex to be ...
Holywood Glam has hit Edinburgh (or more accurately North Berwick) with the arrival in town of Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth. The Oscar winning pair are in the area to shoot the feature version of Eric Lomax's book The Railway Man. My brother bought me this for Christmas a few years ago. It is an extraordinary, true, story of survival in the face of immense cruelty and of reconciliation and forgiveness. Lomax, from Joppa in Edinburgh, was stationed in Singapore when it was overrun by the Japanese. He found himself in Changi prison facing violence and intimidation that I can't ...
One of the Penguin Pockets series, a short set of very short stories, any one of which you would probably identify without much difficulty as by Kafka, with his trademark misanthropy and paranoia. The title piece is ostensibly about China but I suspect much more about the pointlessness of late Habsburg bureaucracy in the name of national defence. One or two of the others seemed to be dreams/nightmares written down, often a tricky endeavour but one which Kafka executes well. I think I would recommend getting the Complete Stories rather than this, but it is all good stuff.
Idly browsing through family history the other day, it suddenly clicked with me that the sister of one of my direct ancestors was married to Sir Arthur Aston (1590-1650). Aston was a Royalist soldier during the English Civil War who ended up in Ireland in command of the garrison at Drogheda, and was massacred along with the rest of the defenders and hundreds of civilians when it was captured by Cromwell in September 1650. According to legend, he was beaten to death with his own wooden leg by the New Model Army. It is fairly widely recorded that Aston's widow ...
There's no prize at stake - just the opportunity to prove you're wittier than any other LDV reader... Here is Conservative leader David Cameron with his culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. After this week's Leveson Inquiry revelations, what do you think might be being said or thought by or about them? And the winners of our last caption comp is... Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Nick Clegg & Kirsty Williams "Spooning Here" Edition. The winners, according to The Voice's judging panel of one, was this one by Simon Oliver: "It starts off warm, sticky and sweet, and ...
Four legged, not human. A number of residents have been worried about the threat to the ducklings on the pond in Gladstone Park. Their concerns were prompted by the number of rats seen – bold things, they are, too. The rats are drawn by food put out for the ducks: no one wants to stop that tradition, but the rats do enjoy the meal. Anyway, Andy Atkins at Brent Parks is on the case and rat bait is being used. It won't cause harm to the wildfowl or any animals, but it ought to diminish the rat population a bit. ...
Today in my own ward in Liverpool, and presumably in other parts of Liverpool as well, the Labour Party have been distributing a leaflet which is a tissue of lies. It is aimed at the elderly and is designed to ... Continue reading →
I've been worried about the apparent lack of progress on re-opening the cafe – and loos! – at the Stables in Gladstone Park. They've both been out of action since Dollis Hill House was demolished earlier this year. My view on that action are that it was appalling and the wanton destruction of a local treasure. I was and am furious about it: so much for a claim by one Labour councillor that voting them in would save it. I can't get used to the gap in the view. I've been asking what's happening to the Stables, and got this ...
I should really be blogging about what is happening in the garden but after the most appalling weather it's pretty much been left to it's own devices this month. Which, quite frankly, as far as the wildlife is concerned, is just how it likes it. If you have a rain-free hour or so to venture out into the garden now, you'll start to see queen wasps looking for suitable nest sites. Male blackbirds will be defending their territories with gorgeous early evening arias. Ground beetles will be scrambling amongst the ground cover and, because of the rain-softened ground, starlings, blackbirds ...
We've got some very good, well organised and active residents associations and neighbourhood watch groups here in Dollis Hill. Three of them are working together to organise what will be a splendid bash on June 2nd to celebrate the Jubilee. It's at Comber Close Community Centre, on the green space, which has hosted a number of very well run and successful events. A highlight – for me, anyhow! – will be our local lady who runs a business making fabulous gelato. That's posh ice cream made with Real Stuff. Other plans include multi cultural foods, drinks, children games, bouncy castles ...
More here: Nothing to be proud of, in my view.
Labour Leader Councillor Ann John and her Labour Executive have been accused of giving away two taxpayer paid for buildings worth £1.5 million without lifting a finger to prevent their loss. The transfer of Kensal Rise Library and Cricklewood Library to All Souls College has deprived the local community of facilities valued at £1.5m by Brent Council officers. According to the report presented to the Executive on 15 November 2010 (section 4.2) Kensal Rise Library has a building market value of £772,034 and Cricklewood Library has a value of £724,765. The buildings were erected on land provided by All Souls ...
This week, I have been attending NUS' National Conference in Sheffield, on Liberal Youth's behalf. There is, as I'm sure you'll be aware, a lot of bad blood between the Liberal Democrats and the NUS. After some MPs breaking that pledge, strangely enough the NUS weren't too happy with us. It has, however, given people ...
Here's Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg saying that the Leveson Inquiry is the best place for culture secretary Jeremy Hunt to give evidence about his role in the BSkyB takeover bid... (Available on the BBC website here.) And here's Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes calling for an inquiry into whether Jeremy Hunt breached the ministerial code of conduct through his role in the BSkyB takeover bid... (Available on the BBC website here.) * Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.
Yesterday's South Wales Evening Post reports that a request for action at a children's playground has been put on hold because it was deemed too political. Coedffranc Community Council had a letter from regional AM Peter Black asking it to consider upgrading the equipment at the park in Jersey Marine. However, it was pointed out that an election candidate for the area had made claims about the park in an election leaflet. Members had previously agreed not to discuss any political issues during meetings held in the run-up to the election. Instead they decided the council's finance committee should consider ...
I remember starting this book when I was a sixth-former, the memorable opening chapter introducing us to the fragile Prince Myshkin (the 'idiot' of the title) returning to St Petersburg by train after long years of ill health abroad. He finds himself at the centre of other people's familial and romantic intrigues; as an innocent, he rarely looks for dishonesty or manipulation and is forgiving when he encounters it. I got a bit tired of some of the other characters (especially the other men, who are almost all pretty unpleasant) but enjoyed it through to the ambiguous end. Interested to ...
The Evening Standard reports: Ten children in one family suffered "appalling" neglect and cruelty during seven years of abuse in the borough where Baby P was killed. An investigation in Haringey has found that social workers, NHS staff, housing officials and pest control workers all failed to ensure that the children were protected despite the abuse occurring over a "prolonged" period. Warnings from teachers, a nursery and members of the public about the dirty condition of the children — who were aged between eight months and 16 when police were finally called in — failed to prompt action. The failings ...
It's what we do best. Pointing at things. And many Lib Dems are hard at it now. Good luck to them for next Thursday. I have recently highlighted a website showing Kim Jong-il looking at things. How typically undemocratic! Our representatives must point at things, as Mitt Romney has clearly shown. So well done Spidey for creating the LIBDEMS who point at things website. I can certainly see the point of that. Not to be out done, here I am doing a full hand point at a a hedge (right). I know, it's not the same is it? I just ...
Somehow I have got very far behind with recent Big Finish releases, so I am listening to them all again, in continuity order. The Anachronauts, by Simon Guerrier, brings together the fantastic First-Doctor team of Peter Purves and Jean Marsh as Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom, in a story set immediately after the Christmas episode of the Daleks' Master Plan; something mysterious is up with the Tardis, and the crew encounter the peculiar and violent survivors of another timeship. The best bit is the third of the four episodes, where Steven and Sara find themselves in a very well-realised 1966 ...
FOCUS Editor, Julia Davidson and local LIB DEM ward councillor Darren Fower, are on the look out for community minded residents to join them and the rest of the local FOCUS team to help ensure the views of local people are heard at the Town Hall! If you think you could afford half an hour each month to help deliver the FOCUS newsletter to your neighbours, or perhaps would like to get involved in some other way, then please contact either Julia.Davidson@peterboroughlibdems.org.uk or Darren.Fower@peterboroughlibdems.org.uk Commenting, Darren explained: "We're always on the look out for people to help out whether its ...
A US political thriller from the early '60s with Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton and Burgess Meredith, if you were watching BBC2 this time last week you'd have caught Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent. It's a gripping film, but always blurs in my mind with Franklin Schaffner's The Best Man from two years later (either side of the far more famous The Manchurian Candidate). While one was written by a conservative and the other by a liberal, they're remarkably similar in outline: Henry Fonda wants to get a high position; a secret from his past; a dying President; and gay blackmail. ...
Among the many newspapers that serve London's multicultural community, the Portuguese language As Noticias is something of a leader. There are reputedly around 400,000 Portuguese in Britain — not to mention the large numbers of Brazilians, Angolans, etc. — a substantial proportion of whom are in London, notably in the Vauxhall area of Lambeth. But ...
When phone polling was first introduced in the UK it attracted flak over its accuracy (least remembered about those ASL polls the better), but also gained popularity through both its lower costs compared to the then dominant face to face polling and also its greater flexibility. The same pattern has been seen again with the spread of internet polling the UK. Just as face to face polling used to be the gold standard and phone polling the upstarts, now phone polling is the gold standard and internet polling the upstarts. The merits or otherwise of YouGov have been much debated ...
I must admit that at various points in this novel I wondered how Jo Walton had got inside my head. Her narrator is a teenager in 1979-80, growing up reading Vonnegut, Zelazny, Heinlein and all the classics of science fiction, coping with the usual pains of growing up. Of course, Mor has a few extra problems that I didn't have: no real friends at school, a move to a different country (Shropshire is very different from South Wales), dealing with a new family, and coping with the physical and emotional scars of the car accident which killed her sister and ...
I had a good Easter, thank you very much. I am a Christian of the Anglican variety - squashy, middle of the road, (I know that makes me sound like a hedgehog with a short life expectancy) and with a high tolerance for ambiguity. You don't hear much about me in the media though. You do hear lots about other kinds of Christianity. This Easter was a time of joy for me, as Easter always is. Jesus rose. Everything was renewed. Suffering did not go away, but my sense of purpose and my sense of life were reborn. At the ...
Following the series of questions from me to the party's federal committees at the party's Spring conference, all the major committees promised to provide written reports in future after each of their full committee meetings. The first such Federal Executive report has been posted up in the members-only forum on this site (see the Party Organisation section), but the Federal Policy Committee has instead gone for publishing its first report via the main party website (see the foot of this page), which I have reproduced below. Although the report is fairly minimalist, it does provide the key information about which ...
This was the sign that greeted me as I made my way into The Camden Head for the first Museums Showoff... [IMG: Pub Sign reading "Terence Eden and Guests"] Now, I've no idea why I was the headliner – but I certainly wasn't going to complain! Museums Showoff is a spin-off from the popular Science Showoff. The idea is that ten speakers come along and show off. They chat about what they're doing, things they've made, stuff they've built, or anything that gets their juices flowing. With the permission of the participants, I recorded the event. Here are the videos: ...
The Call of Cthulhu - for beginning readers Lovecraft a la Seuss! (tags: ) Wind Map Cool! (tags: weather ) South Sudan wants EU to send troops | European Voice Intermittent clashes since January have in the past month turned into substantial military engagement on the ground, with repeated reports of aerial bombardment by Sudan. (tags: eu southsudan sudan )
Via the Brent Liberal Democrats council group: Labour Leader Councillor Ann John and her Labour Executive have been accused of giving away two taxpayer paid for buildings worth £1.5 million without lifting a finger to prevent their loss... Labour councillors refused to respond positively to the well thought out bid from local residents to run their own Volunteer Library at no cost to the Council. You can read the full story here.
Hurrah! At last – Highgate can operate as an entity in its own right. The inaugural meeting of the Highgate Neighbourhood Forum will take place on Wednesday 30 May at 8pm upstairs at The Bull, North Hill, Highgate. For so many years Highgate has been bedevilled by being split between two local authorities – Haringey and Camden . We all worked very hard during the passage of the Localism Bill for an amendment that would allow local areas like Highgate that are split across different local authorities to have a Neighbourhood Forum – and we won! So – the next ...
How can you possibly compress Cambridge MP Julian Huppert into a mere five minutes? Well, one of the LSE's blogs has attempted that and here is a sample of the outcome: [IMG: Julian Huppert, Lib Dem PPC for Cambridge] You have mentioned that you would like to see more scientists entering Parliament. What advice would you give to those who might be tempted to consider a career jump into politics, and why do you think it would be important for more academics to move into politics? We need more people with a scientific background in Parliament; there are very few ...
I'm on my way to London for a meeting of the Council of Unlock Democracy, almost certainly my last, given that elections take place shortly, and I am not minded to run for re-election.Regrets? I have a few. But then again... I've enjoyed much of my time on Council. The intellectual challenge presented by my colleagues, as well as subject matter that lies at the core of what I believe in, has allowed me a perhaps naïve sense that I am 'making a contribution'. I have been made to feel welcome by the staff and most of my fellow Council ...
I've just been told that the new Gondar Gardens reservoir application will be heard by the planning committee (more properly called Development Control) on 10th May. I've also been told that the report presented to committee will recommend approval of the scheme. I'll put up a link here as soon as the report is made available.
Sat 28th
08:45
The Weekend Debate: Who'd get your 2nd preference after Brian in the race for London Mayor?
Here's your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate... This Thursday, millions of voters will go to the polls to cast their votes in local elections. And although London is only one of those elections, its electoral size and the colourful prominence of its candidates means it has got the lion's share of the media coverage. For the Lib Dems, Brian Paddick has fought a terrific campaign. The former Metropolitan police chief only narrowly squeaked ahead of Mike Tuffrey for the party's nomination following what Brian himself has acknowledged was ...
Cllr Kevin Wilkins (LD, West Chesterton) Cambridgeshire County Council has been accused of moving the goalposts over plans to give villagers funding for safety improvements. Parish councils were told before Christmas that they could bid for funds to make improvements in their areas. But problems started even before they had even submitted their bids; the county council delayed the submission date and then changed it twice. Now villagers have been told by Cambridgeshire County Council that economic development is now its top priority and they must meet a whole range of new criteria before the money will be released. "Parish ...
I recently mentioned that my council colleague and sister in law Helen Dick was taking part in an art exhibition at the Botanic Garden. Helen's latest painting has something of a West End theme!
I'll be posting the first essay in my series of posts on Cerebus tonight. I tried this last year, though, and didn't get very far,so I thought I'd repost the introduction I wrote then, so people would know what I was and wasn't going to be doing: I am planning, over the next few weeks, ...
Cerebus is possibly the most daunting work in the whole history of art. This is not an exaggeration. In every other field of art, other than comics, an artist works on different projects over the course of her career. James Joyce starts with the relatively straightforward short stories of Dubliners, progressess to the modernist-realism of ...
...but you probably knew that. The Daily Mail carried the following front page headline today: You can read the story online here. In it, they report that Labour has thrown its weight behind the Mail's campaign to "Block Online Porn". They suggest that the Government's proposed "Opt Out" system - in which Internet Service Providers will have to ask people if they want access to porn - is due to Cameron's relationship with Google and a consequent reticence to take stronger action to block content. They further report than an all party group of MPs is also in favour of ...
The Scottish Cup final between Hibs and Hearts takes place on 19 May - only the second time the two teams have met in the final - the last being in 1896. So as part of the build up to what is likely to be the biggest and most importance match in the oldest derby series in Scottish football here are a very young Craig and Charlie Reid with a slightly less young David Letterman on their US debut...
