Just spent a couple of days on a work trip to Vilnius. The old town is that rare thing in central and eastern Europe - an original old city that survived pretty much unscathed two wars. And it probably has more churches per capita than anywhere else I've been to. Here are just a few: Interestingly the most Stalinist architecture I saw were these blocks of flats: In Luton, near the airport...
Take Me Out has gone global (well it has crossed the pond anyways). Yes our favourite cheesy replacement for Blind Date that is perfect Saturday night television is now on FOX over in the States for a run every night at 8 EST. Apparently it has opened to a relatively poor audience but as we all know Take Me Out is a grower and if the American's can understand the cheesiness of it all then it may grow into a force. Following my successful blog on the Take Me Out Girls UK 2012 I thought I would bring you the ...
The Tring Station Residents Association put their hearts and souls into a splendid and well organised Jubilee Party last Sunday. Good weather meant that many could dine al fresco and the young could let off steam on the green area at the back – but as you can see from the pictures the Iron Room also put to good use. A quiz of royal facts tested their loyal memories – and the popular bar raised significant funds towards the hall maintenance costs. The decorations were a treat to see and the hall served as a convenient place for setting out ...
Last Wednesday Suzanne Moore posted a Guardian comment piece entitled Why do we take economists so seriously? which takes a rather scatter-gun approach to some familiar themes. The argument, in outline, is that the economy is in a mess and this is primarily because we have been hoodwinked by orthodox economists. These economists produce inadequate theories unsuited to understanding society. But we nonetheless invest them with too much power over it, and us. The range of opinions on how to resolve the current crisis is too narrow and largely reflects the interests of those who support the current social order. ...
So, I've now moved and have internet back - and a "den" specifically for reading and interneting. The house is tidy, although there are some loose ends to tie up, and the housewarming is out of the way. There is, therefore, no excuse for me not to get back to regular blogging. I have some ideas for more meaty blogs to come - along with, of course, all the regular features - but for now, here's a Sunday Sound - Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger: And if the semi-naked Adam Levine in the video has whetted ...
[IMG: MITx 6002x - final score] The chart shows I gained a total of 86% overall – meaning I miss an 'A' by 1%. Rats! As always, the questions I answered on the final exam seemed fairly straightforward and the ones I didn't attempt seemed impossible! Even if I'd not made a silly mistake on one of the parts of the questions I did answer, I'd have still been short of the 87% mark by around 0.2% – and there definitely wasn't another part question anywhere on the paper that I could have answered. As the exam doesn't formally close ...
This afternoon I spent a very enjoyable and, thankfully, dry few hours at the first community-run East Reading Festival on Palmer Park. A big round of applause should go to the organisers, led by Colm Daly and Cathy Marsden who I got to know well through the Jollydarity campaign to reopen the Jolly Anglers in 2009-10. They made sure that an event that was under threat was actually the best ever, and will go from strength to strength. When the Council ran the festival and I attended a couple of times, it felt as if it lacked a certain creativity. ...
Black George The remote cove's name turns out to be Black George. He signals to me to come outside, and we wander out into the Cornish countryside until there is no danger of our being overheard. I am told of the suffering of his people and am surprised to learn that even the most respectable of them are involved in the fight against the Pasty Tax. "Be on yonder cliff tonight with a dark lantern, a pistol and a cutlass and ye shall meet Squire Rogerson and Parson Gilbert." Previously in Lord Bonkers' Cornish adventure "Better than a chimbley!"The remote ...
One of the few remaining sf books available on Bookmooch that I vaguely felt like reading; a Big Dumb Object is found on the ocean floor, and though it turns out to be of future human manufacture it also contains another Smaller Dumb Object which is alien. (I see that there was a film version starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson as the three surviving scientists, which completely passed me by.) It teeters on the edge of becoming interesting, especially when it seems like the psychologist who is the viewpoint character may be an unreliable narrator, but ...
I was asked two weeks ago if I would be prepared to put my name forward to the selection committee to be considered as a candidate in the forthcoming by election, I agreed that I would, but as a gesture of respect for the family and friends, only after the funeral of Brian Goodwin. At a recent meeting the Thanet branch of the Liberal Democrat Party has agreed that I should be the Candidate in the Westgate on Sea by- election. Bill is currently Vice Chairman of Birchington Parish Council, a retired Managing Director Bill moved to Scotland for a ...
This is the last of the Rebus books for me - though I still have about a half-dozen other Rankins on the shelves - a collection of short stories published in 1992, when Rebus's sidekick was still Brian Holmes rather than Siobhan Clarke; I missed her but otherwise really enjoyed all the stories, excellent little crime vignettes - in some cases you can see what the twist is likely to be but still admire Rankin's skill in getting us and Rebus there. (A couple of odd stylistic lapses in the second story, "The Dean's Curse", which almost made me wonder ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 277th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (3-9 June, 2012), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. The death of ...
A posting on the Do You Remember? board captures an experience I had a few weeks ago: I'm currently watching an episode of Top of the Pops from 1977 on BBC4 and they just had a band called Contempt on singing "Money is a Girl's Best Friend". I feel like I've slipped into a parallel universe as I don't remember this band or this song at all. I was 16 in 1977 and really into music so I don't know how it/they passed me by. I can't find much about them on the Internet - anyone help me out here?I ...
Today's Big Sunday was a superb success and the WestFest organisers did a great job. Hundreds of people were on Magdalen Green this afternoon and it highlighted the huge community spirit in the West End. Those of us on the West End Sports and Heritage Association stall at Big Sunday had a great time publicising WESHA's projects for improving sporting and environment projects in the West End and talking with many local residents about our plans for improvements in our area. There's a whole host of superb events during the WestFest week right across the West End and I have ...
I have been meaning to do this for a bit but have not really had time. This selection of stuff that has caught my eye may not appear that often but I will endeavour to do it more than once. First up is Glyn Davies MP who explains why, despite being opposed to the Euro he wants Britain to remain within the European Union: This issue has often been the basis of discussions I have enjoyed with my Ukip friends in mid Wales. The Euro is an issue we generally agree about. But where I disagree is that I'm not ...
On Saturday, Kew Ward Liberal Democrats held their Thank Kew Barbecue as a way of saying thanks to all who helped in the recent elections. Despite the poor weather we had a good attendance of deliverers, activists, councillors and(of course) Lord & Lady Fearn. The other Fearn(Maureen) was on hand to personally thank people for their hard work throughout the last 12 months to help in getting her re-elected for another term in office. Pictured above are Fred and Julie soon after the barbecue was lit. The event was held at our Shakespeare St HQ and special thanks go to ...
This was one of the sf anthologies that made a huge impression on me as a teenager, and I think about half of the ten stories fully retain their magic for me - "We Purchased People" by Fred Pohl, "The Hole Man" by Larry Niven, "The Author of the Acacia Seeds [etc]" by Ursula Le Guin, "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts" by Philip K. Dick, and "If The Stars Are Gods" by Gordon Eklund and Gregory Benford. (And the other five aren't bad either.) God be with the days when you could credibly do a Year's Best SF with ...
Robbie Gibb, Producer of the Daily Politics and Sunday Politics, tweeted this earlier today... It's more evidence of Zac's unhappiness in the Tories and debate continues over whether he will decamp to UKIP, become an independent conservative, or even (Sunny Hundal has suggested) stand as Mayor of London should Boris resign - a role in which he could take an independent stand from Tory policy and fight against the third runway. In any event it seems increasingly unlikely that he will be the Conservative candidate for Richmond in the next general election. Interesting times in Ham Common...
Hooray: after three years of trying, I've finally got Haringey Council to remove some graffiti from Muswell Hill Broadway. Well, I say "I", but it's more like two and three quarter years of me trying and failing and then Cllr Martin Newton (Fortis Green ward, Haringey) responding to my request for help and very effectively pushing Haringey to get it sorted. Thank you Martin!
Isn't this brave, brilliant and just right?
Upon the historic day in 2009 when I was selected as the Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate for Hendon, I started a campaign blog, and copied across some pages from another blog that I'd started in 2007. It was then that I became a regular blogger, blogging also on the websites of the Hendon Times and the Jewish Chronicle (JC). Prior to that, I'd not thought much about blogs or blogging. I'd never set out to be 'a blogger'. I'd always planned at some point to do some more writing, having spent large parts of my working life in editorial jobs ...
My grandmother's step-brother, explaining how New England in the early nineteenth century saw an extraordinary outburst of literary talent, which he attributes in part to the region developing its intellectual resources through Harvard and proximity to Europe, while at the same time it became increasingly politically and economically sidelined as the continent opened up, benefiting New York and points south. (This then of course doesn't explain why the era of literary excellence ended at the time of the Civil War, but perhaps the war itself is explanation enough.) I had not previously appreciated the literary importance of Concord, Massachusetts. As ...
It is not every day that you see a British rider in the leader's jersey with the champions number 1 on his back celebrate this far down the field. But this in the moment that Bradley Wiggins knew he had defended the Critérium du Dauphiné. It is seen by many as the ideal preparation for the Tour de France and indeed is the only other race that all the five time winners of the Tour de France have also won. Indeed on 10 of the 63 previous running the winner has gone on to win le Tour. 1955 Louison Bobet1963 ...
Nils is a Swedish boy who gets magically reduced in size and discovers that he can talk to animals, and has a bunch of adventures, some of which are morally improving and some of which are just adventures, mainly with geese though other animals get a look-in too. Lagerlöf, who was an early Nobel Prize winner, clearly loved the countryside and her writing is very sensitive to the rhythms of nature and the rural economy, and also somewhat anti-modernist. I wasn't completely satisfied with my translation, by Velma Swainston Howard, but I loved the illustrations in my edition by Thea ...
The Electoral Commission has recently published the latest donation and borrowing figures for the political parties, showing that the Lib Dems raised £606,724 between January and March this year. (At the foot of this post is the full breakdown of donations (excluding public funds) received by quarter since 2005, and annually between 2001 and 2004. I've uploaded a public Google spreadsheet of all Lib Dem donations between 2001 and 2011 available here; and a separate one for the first quarter of 2012 available here.) By comparison, the party raised £698,875 in the first quarter of 2007 (the equivalent stage of ...
At Over The Air I demonstrated what I considered a novel use for one of Android's sensors. I wanted to create a Theremin – a type of musical instrument which is played by moving one's hand over it – changing pitch and tone by moving nearer or further away. My first attempt used the proximity sensor. However, on all the Android phones I tried the sensor's accuracy was binary – it could sense if something was close by, but not say how close. So, what else could I use to detect how near or far a hand was from the ...
One of the nominees for Best Related Work in this year's Hugo, this is a collection of essays about sf cinema, mostly published before in fanzines and on the now sadly defunct Internet Review of Science Fiction. Several of the early pieces are a bit peevish, but most of them brim with enthusiasm and certainly gave me a few thoughts for films which I haven't seen but might enjoy. (The gaps in my cinematic knowledge, both of sf in particular and of classics in general, are pretty huge.) Inevitably, as you get from any collection of previously published pieces, it ...
I came home from points east today, a rather horrible journey where the planned travel time of seven hours ended up more like thirteen. However, this meant that I read a lot of books en route, combined with a small backlog from the outbound leg, so there will therefore bee much bookblogging this afternoon. Hard Times was flagged up to me by first F.R. Leavis and then you guys as an interesting Dickens book. I must say I liked it; of course, part of the usual charm of Dickens is where he goes over the top, but it was really ...
Mayor Hewett This may seem like I'm jumping on the band wagon but reading Councillor Jarrett's piece in the Medway messenger infuriated me somewhat. I would also like to echo my agreement with Cllr Osborne's article. I'm not going to comment on the selection process for the Mayor as. basically I don't know enough about it to make an informed comment and I fear that I would be lining myself up for a battle I couldn't win. I will, however, add my voice to that of Medway Labour on disputing the celebratory Mayoral dinner which will be held in at ...
We have received this email from First about mobility scooters on buses, any issues please contact us. Earlier this year the Confederation of Passenger Transport and the Department for Transport launched a Code of Conduct for the carriage of mobility scooters on low floor buses. This had hitherto been something of a "grey area", not being subject to legislation, and the increasing use of
There are a lot of things you could say about West Lothian's constituency MSPs Fiona Hyslop (Linlithgow) and Angela Constance (Almond Valley), but one of them is not that either of them are shy. Over the years I have known them they have both been forthright about their views and expressed their opinions in an open and public way. Therefore when the Equality Network published their list on which MSPs were supporting equal marriage I was somewhat shocked to see that neither of the them had expressed an opinion. I know it was a question that came up in the ...
Police are urging residents to call them immediately if they spot anyone acting suspiciously around vehicles after recent thefts. Since Thursday May 31 2012 six catalytic converters have been reported stolen from cars in the Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Old Sodbury areas. The vehicles have mainly been parked on driveways or streets in residential areas overnight. Officers are carrying out extensive enquiries, visiting scrap merchants and making targeted patrols of the affected areas. Police say thieves can steal a 'cat' within five minutes. Drivers are advised to garage their cars overnight if possible. If parking on a driveway install low ...
All political parties are coalitions. And the messy reality of governing exposes these coalitions for the world to see. Even in the event that the UK economy is running on all cylinders by 2015 (looking increasingly unlikely), we all know that we're going to be in a tight spot come the general election. So can we expect a debate between Liberal Left and Orange Bookers as we seek to define our message to the country? Between those who think that a distinctively centre-left message will take us back to the heady polling numbers of 2010 and those who argue that ...
The work undertaken by Somer is looking good, thanks go the team that has made this happen
We are asking this question at the next development control committee Since 10/04039/FUL, Land At Rear Of 4 Bloomfield Drive, Bloomfield Drive, Bloomfield, Bath, was refused by the planning department and subsequently by the planning inspectorate at appeal, could the officers detail what has happened with regard to replacing the wall. As this was a retrospective planning
Hurry over to Liberal Democrat Voice for full details.
This country is so afraid of being called 'racist' that it has gone to an extreme of ignoring serious ethnic related offences. We should realise that if someone commits a crime and is from a certain cultural or ethnic community then they should still be sent to jail if the offence is an affront to UK justice and law. We recently saw the grooming of young girls by Asian men in South Yorkshire. It took so long for them to be convicted because we thought that it would have been seen as racism. http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3576/full I find it horrendous how some ...
All will be explained on Thursday
The latest issue of Liberator magazine (issue no.353 - June 2012) has just been delivered to subscribers. In the unlikely event that you are not yet a subscriber, here's a summary of the contents: The editorial column Commentary examines the electoral consequences for the Liberal Democrats of the coalition. It also looks at the consequences for the party of the Leveson inquiry The insider gossip column Radical Bulletin includes a report of the paper circulated by John Pugh to fellow Liberal Democrat MPs following the May elections. 'Leaders on a different planet' - Tony Greaves (a Liberal Democrat member of ...
I'm not a football fan, in any of its forms. I don't follow a football (soccer) club. But I do get swept into the excitement of the big international championships that take place every two years: the European Cup and the World Cup. The European Cup for 2012 has started but there's almost no visible excitement in this football-mad nation (England – here not the other British nations) – so there's nothing to be swept by. The Jubilee Union Jacks are slowly coming down – but few George Crosses are replacing them. What is happening? I think that what we ...
I guess Jo Swinson is seen as a far more friendly face to Lib Dem activists than say Danny Alexander who always does badly in polls of party workers, for it is she who has written to ask us for our views on jobs and growth. Time will tell if this is a genuine attempt to engage members or if it just looking for confirmation of a plan many -I suspect most of us- feel is unbalanced. So its time to 'get it off your chest' as all the best FOCUS leaflet say: Good evening Ms Swinson Liberals have argued ...
Sun 10th
10:15
Local pay for the public sector: a row the Lib Dems and the Coalition will want to dodge?
The Huffington Post published an excellent dissection of the twists and turns the debate on local pay for public sector workers (sometimes called regional pay) is taking within the Lib Dems: Letters written by the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander [suggest] the number two minister at the Treasury appeared wildly enthusiastic about civil servants being paid different amounts depending on where they work as recently as the start of this year. But subsequent letters show Alexander softening his stance, suggesting he's come under pressure from fellow Lib Dems over the proposals, confirmed by George Osborne in ...
Every politician who remains in the public mind, after their term in office has ended, becomes associated, in time, with a particular sound bite or phrase. John Major will forever be associated with "back to basics". Tony Blair with "pretty straight kind of guy" and Gordon Brown with "abolishing boom and bust". At this stage, David Cameron is probably hoping that "hug a hoodie" is the phrase with which he becomes synonymous, though the outcome of Leverson and the grandstanding opportunities presented by the Olympics may change that. Since entering government, Nick Clegg has tried to corner the market in ...
This week marks the start of a new feature I'll be running in association with the CentreForum think-tank: Liberal of the Week. The aim is simple enough: to showcase public figures who help promote liberal ideas. How are we defining liberal? Well, as you might imagine we're interested in folk who advance the four tenets of liberalism described by David Laws in his introduction to The Orange Book: economic, personal, political and social liberalism. We will be highlighting individuals regardless of their party affiliation, and indeed from beyond Westminster: if they stick up for liberalism then they're in contention. Nominations ...
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 560 party members responded, and we're publishing the full results. Ken Clarke remains Lib Dems' most popular Tory cabinet minister The Lib Dems have been in Coalition with the Conservatives for two years — so we thought it would be interesting to find out who our sample of party members think is 'hot or not' among our Coalition partners. LDV asked: Which of the following Conservative ministers have genuinely impressed you ...
WestFest gets off to a great start at 1pm today on Magdalen Green with the launch of Big Sunday. I am on Wave 102 news this morning urging all to come along - click 'play' below to listen:
I'm a man. Brought up by two strong, independent women. I've never really seen women as anything other than equal to men. In fact I find gender politics confusing. Why anyone would expect all women to be the same is beyond me (i.e. expect them to "stay in the kitchen" etc.) but conversely I don't appreciate certain people acting as if all men are sexual perverts and violent monsters. I find this "us vs. them" approach crazy. Some men are bad people. Some women are bad people. When will we just accept this? And yet the idea that there is ...
I have long campaigned, on behalf of local residents, for improvements to the pavements in Perth Road. I was pleased that the south footway west of Step Row was resurfaced back in January but I have also long highlighted the footway east of Step Row. I was therefore pleased to be updated recently from the City Council as follows: "Resurfacing of the south footway in Perth Road, between Thomson Street and Step Row, is programmed to commence on Tuesday 12th June for approximately 2 weeks. All frontagers have been notified in writing, and the works discussed with the two businesses ...
Sunday: So, to the department of Culture Media and Sport - the Olympics provide the Sport, Lord Leveson is covering the Meeja and as a SLIME MOULD... Look, just because he's got no hit dice doesn't mean he can't make a saving throw... especially when supported by a wandering Prime Monster. Appearing on possibly the most oleaginous Mr Marrmite show in AGES (and is there anything else, my lord bishop, that you should like to share with a grateful nation on this occasion of jubilisious auspitude?*), Mr Balloon made his position quite clear: He didn't WANT to sack Mr Dr ...
