Counting down towards the fiftieth birthday of Doctor Who with Fifty great scenes... This one's the newest entry in the Fifty and, improbably, the first in the current TV season. That's because Doctor Who returned last night for the second half of its thirty-third season (having skipped a few years along the way). It was broadcast last Autumn, and though that was the first time since 2005 that a new season hadn't premiered at Easter, looking back at it now, what could be more festive than... "Eg - eg - eg - eg - eg - eg - egs—" "What? ...
I have been away for a week so I thought I would get back into blogging with another of my occasional round-ups of Welsh blogposts over the last month. My first choice is a Glyn Davies post on the West Lothian question. The question to which many are seeking the answer of course is "How long will English constituencies and English hon. members tolerate hon. members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important decisive effect on English politics, while they have no say on the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?" As far as Glyn is ...
[IMG: Graph diagram pie chart 3d] The mainstream media seem finally to have cottoned on to the fact that our welfare system is to undergo substantial change tomorrow. I mentioned a couple of months ago that the changes around the so-called bedroom tax were, belatedly, attracting broader media interest. And the media are connecting the deathly dry changes to the regulations to real life stories of hardship. They've also started to join up the dots to realise that it could well turn out that April is, indeed, the cruellest month. Some of us have been banging on about the potentially ...
Liberal Democrats have revealed that at current progress, Herts County Council will repair your footpath every 136 years. Cllr Malcolm Cowan who did the anaysis from official HCC data said 'We knew that footpaths and footways were the poor relation but we didn't know until the this week how bad it was.' Figures presented to the council's Highways and Transport panel showed that in the most recent complete year, 2011-12, 76,500 sq metres of footway were resurfaced or repaired, out of a total of 10.4 m sq metres. That means just 0.7% were worked on, so each stretch will be ...
I actually sent in a letter to the editor of the Echo in the week. It has yet to be published. It of course very well may not be published so here is a copy of it. The back story is that Cllr. Terry has called on Cllr Kaye to resign and force a by-election in Thorpe ward following her decision to join the Tories having been elected as an independent. I was surprised to read that Cllr. Terry was prepared to give up his 'safe seat' of Westborough ward in order to challenge the recently defected Cllr. Kaye in ...
There is an episode in The Simpsons in which Bart gets hit by a car belonging to Mr Burns. There is a subsequent claim for compensation for Bart's minor injuries which ends up in court and it is only Marge's honesty that prevents a big pay-out. The role of the lawyer is to present the accused in the best (or worst) possible light. I could give you many more examples of how ambulance-chasing lawyers do their best to line the pockets of their clients - did I get that right? 'Where there is blame there is a claim' encapsulates the ...
I had an article under this title published in the Autumn 2010 issue of the Journal of Liberal History. It seems you can now freely download a PDF of it from the journal's website: Logan returned as MP for Harborough at the second election of 1910, only to stand down again in 1916, thus landing the Liberals with a difficult by-election. Although there was a wartime truce with the Conservatives, the young Liberal candidate Percy Harris faced a strong challenge from an Independent with considerable press backing. He won, but lost the seat to the Conservatives in 1918 when, although ...
Non-fiction 2 (YTD 7) The Unfree French, by Richard Vinen What's Up With Catalonia? The causes which impel them to the separation, translated and edited by Liz Castro Fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTD 5) A Rag, a Bone, a Hank of Hair, by Jonathan Gash The Castle, by Franz Kafka The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier sf (non-Who) 10 (YTD 18) The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin Intrusion, by Ken MacLeod 2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson The Flight of the Ravens, by Chris Butler Adrift on the Sea of Rains, by Ian Sales Observatory, by Daragh ...
'Is Brussels always so quiet?' Nicolas asked, picking bits of wool off his tunic. Not a lot of best-selling novels set in fifteenth-century Belgium, though I have to say I wasn't hugely satisfied with this one; bad boy artist Nicolas travels between Paris and Brussels impregnating young women, one of them the blind daughter of the weaver of the tapestry which he has designed. There's a fair bit about art and patterns of patronage and so on, but I felt the writer was a little too much in love with her irresponsible hero.
[IMG: fugitive] A collection of linked Tenth Doctor graphic stories, the first two issues set in Hollywood in 1926 with the Doctor collaborating with film star Archie Maplin (an obvious duplicate of Charlie Chaplin) and the following four taking him through a struggle with the Shadow Proclamation, or more particularly with Mr Finch / Brother Lassar from School reunion, aided by a Draconian, an Ogron and a Sontaran. Lee is sensitive to his material and there were several great squee moments for my fanboy heart (including shoutouts to Big Finish continuity). Unfortunately I felt the artists failed to quite capture ...
Message from Dave Bishop, Chair of the Friends of Chorlton Meadows: For a number of years now someone has been setting fire to grassland on Chorlton Ees and part of the Hardy Farm SBI and it has happened again this year during the present dry spell. This is an immensely damaging practice! It kills countless numbers of over-wintering insects and small mammals and deprives birds of food. After the fires, the burned areas are invaded by Rosebay Willowherb ("Fireweed") which reduces their nature conservation potential. If you see anyone setting these fires do not approach them but try to get ...
After he had drawn his game at the Candidates tournament on Good Friday, Peter Svidler came into the commentary room to be interviewed. He was introduced as the Russian grandmaster who loves cricket. Sure enough, when talk turned to how a disappointing loss might affect a player in the next round, Svidler used a cricket analogy - playing one ball at a time. He also admitted that he is not very good at this himself. You can read more about Svidler's passion for cricket in a Standpoint interview he gave to Dominic Lawson in 2011: Having been introduced to the ...
Here for Easter is Kathleen Ferrier singing (in English translation) an aria from Bach's St Matthew Passion. As Wikipedia says, it is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of classical sacred music. Heartbreakingly, Wikipedia also says: "Although Bach wrote four (or five) settings of the Passions only two have survived; the other is the St John Passion." For more on Bach and his music watch last night's BBC2 documentary Bach: A Passionate Life (available for another six days).
So go read Caron's post about Nick Clegg's latest email to party members and supporters.
[IMG: Papers - Some rights reserved by NS Mewsflash] It's Sunday afternoon, so here are a baker's dozen of thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from all those I've linked to this past fortnight. You can follow me on Delicious here. Even Britain has now abandoned austerity – Anatole Kaletsky highlights the abandonment of Plan A: "While Osborne repeated his mantra that "you can't cure a crisis caused by debt with more debt," he will now do exactly this by creating a British equivalent of government-guaranteed Fannie Mae mortgages to offer what the U.S. would describe as "sub-prime ...
As a member of the Church of England, I am occasionally irritated by our erstwhile archbishop George Carey. Occasionally more than irritated, but - since it is Easter - I am choosing words carefully. There may indeed be problems in our society about what he calls 'aggressive secularism', but it has little to do with David Cameron's plans for gay marriage. In fact, statements like that - timed for Easter by the Daily Mail - simply plays into the hands of those in the media and the church who seem to think the central Christian message is some kind of ...
By Daniel Crump Despite the increase in support following the 2010 Prime Ministerial debates, Nick Clegg's new admirers never quite gave him the unwavering approval he perhaps needed to make a serious challenge to become Prime Minister. For the most part, Lib Dem interest came about through their willingness to be seen as an alternative on particular issues that opened up old, stuffy debates that Labour and the Tories weren't interested in having anymore. One of the Lib Dem policies that garnered the most attention in 2010 was their amnesty for illegal immigrants, similar to that proposed by President Obama ...
As a candidate for the county council elections in May I receive many complaints and they often relate to the state of our roads. It's not surprising as they are terrible. However it is quite satisfying to receive a complaint like a pothole, act on it and then see that the pothole is repaired. I am not the county councillor but I am sure that the council is happy to get information from members of the public because it is their job to keep our roads in good repair and if members of the public do the monitoring then part ...
The ever-so-lovely Alex Wilcock has invited people to blog about Lib Dem Values. Typically, I didn't respond in a timely fashion ahead of Spring Conference 2013. Although in a sense I did, because one of my first posts on this blog asked "What does being a Liberal Democrat Mean?". In the 2.5 years since that ...
Many congratulations to the Watermill Senior Youth Theatre for a fantastic production of David Copperfield, which finished its run last night. The production climaxes, both bizarrely and magically, with the cast miming to "Top of the World" by the Carpenters. Our resident teenager had not heard of the Carpenters. This led me to go into my "Best voice ever/terrible waste and tragedy" riff about Karen Carpenter. I now have an extremely pleasant earworm. It's cheesy. It sounds as though it's played on a cheap Bontempi organ. But it's magical. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
[IMG: Council Chamber] This picture was tweeted during the evening by Cllr Fower Liberal Democrat councillor for South Werrington and North Gunthorpe, Cllr Darren Fower, has received a telling off from Peterborough City Council's Solicitor to the Council ...... for tweeting an image during a break in the last Full Council meeting! In an email to Darren, the Solicitor to the Council stated, "I have been made aware that [the recent] Council meeting you took photographs in the Council Chamber, and subsequently tweeted them, without informing anyone that you were doing so, or seeking permission." The Solicitor to Peterborough City ...
Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander has published a robust defence of the Coalition's welfare reforms in The Sun on Sunday. Here's how it starts: Last week a young woman came to talk to me about her housing situation. Her frustration was obvious. She was working hard in a low-paid job and was stuck in an overcrowded home with a young family and desperately needed to move to a bigger home. She couldn't understand why she had to wait so long to get a home that was the right size for her and her family. It's a ...
Dear Reader(s), Well it's been a long time. Well a very very very long time indeed. So I thought I'd write you all a letter to let you know what's been happening. Anyway, today is actually Easter Sunday. The day when Jesus was resurrected from the dead, which is quite unfashionable to say, as the modern tradition has it that an angry farmer decided that all the mourners were kicking up his cabbages and decided to move his body somewhere else other than the tomb. Nevertheless, somehow this backward Palestinian carpenter has managed to transform the lives of countless millions ...
The Liberal Democrats have already begun the process of drafting their manifesto for the 2015 general election. Dr Alun Wyburn-Powell reminds us of something fundamental the party risks forgetting: The major political parties are worried that the voters will blame them for the state of the economy at the next election. But with opinion polls showing that voters share the blame between the last Labour government, the current coalition and the problems of the world economy, there is little to be gained for any party in trying to revisit the past and apportion blame to their opponents. Why?Voters tend not ...
Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 650 party members have responded, and we're publishing the full results. 70% say: withdraw unemployment benefits IF job offers refused without 'good reason' In principle, do you support or oppose withdrawing benefits from unemployed people who refuse offers of work without good reason? 70% – Support 21% – Oppose 9% – Don't know The overwhelming view — held by 7-in-10 of those Lib Dems who responded — was that in principle ...
[IMG: MarketFishGoodFriday] As usual Nick and Rosemarie had a meal of fish on Good Friday (actually the piece of pollock at the bottom of the photo) purchased from the aptly nicknamed "Chubby Monger" on the Tring Friday Market. Then in the evening we played our vinyl record set of the Matthäus-Passion by good old JSB (Janet Baker, Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Diesau and the Münchener Bach-Chor). A little tradition in our household. It reminds Rosemarie of joining in the singing the St Matthew Passion with the school choir in the cathedral in Bury St Edmunds many years ago. And Nick of ...
A new planning application has been received which is within Holyrood Ward as detailed below:- Application number: 56119 Type of application: Full Date Registered: 19/03/2013 09:55:17 Location: 20 Orford Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 3DB Proposal: Two storey rear extension Plans will be available to view on the Council's website here (use the planning application number to search). Any questions or if I can help please just get in touch. Tim
A new planning application has been received which is within Holyrood Ward as detailed below:- Application number: 56129 Type of application: Telecom Determination (56 Days ) Date Registered: 21/03/2013 Location: Land On Footpath Fronting 472 Bury Old Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 1NL Proposal: Prior notification for installation of a 12.5 metre high dual user monopole radio base station and 2 no. equipment cabinets. Plans will be available to view on the Council's website here (use the planning application number to search). Any questions or if I can help please just get in touch. Tim
A new planning application has been received which is within Holyrood Ward as detailed below:- Application number: 56138 Type of application: Full Date Registered: 25/03/2013 Location: 2 Mount Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2QQ Proposal: Two storey extensions to side and rear (Resubmission of 55771). Plans will be available to view on the Council's website here (use the planning application number to search). Any questions or if I can help please just get in touch. Tim
Send to KindleHere's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Mandelson's attack on Labour's economic policy in full | Westminster blog Missed this by @kiranstacey at time. Interesting, esp final part > Mandelson's attack on Labour's economic policy http://on.ft.com/16aNiP4 BBC News – Should Britain let go of London? Stephanie Flanders concludes many UK probs the result of "UK's over-centralised system of government". Yep. http://bbc.in/YogqTf A French lesson for Labour: don't enter office without a proper plan | Andrew Rawnsley | Comment is free | The Observer Andrew Rawnsley on why Lab doesn't talk abt France much now: "Miliband shd contemplate ...
So it's Sunday - it must be time for another tasty half dozen posts and articles which I've found thought provoking, interesting and/or enjoyable over the past week or so... First up, from this morning, Stephen (Glenn) takes on Lord Carey (something I'm quite likely to do here later, too...) and another bishop is featured as Stephen (Tall)'s Liberal of the Week - the Bishop of Dudley urges leadership not capitulation on the issue of immigration. Not unrelated to immigration (given the economic benefits it can bring, and the need for government raise its income and seek to engineer growth, ...
This morning's Wales on Sunday contains a stark warning from the Welsh Liberal Democrats MP for Cardiff Central, Jenny Willott that plans by Labour to introduce a regional cap on housing benefit would have a "disastrous effect" on Wales and punish people for living here. Jenny Willott made the claim in the wake of fresh comments made by Liam Byrne, the Shadow Work and Pensions Minister, that it "made sense" to have different caps in different parts of the country: Mr Byrne made the comments in an interview with the Inside Housing publication, in which he confirmed continued Labour support ...
Nick Clegg's latest letter to supporters wishes us all the very best for a relaxing Easter holiday. He's off on a family break visiting his parents — or "holidaying at a millionaires' playground" if you prefer the Mirror's styling. My Co-Editor Caron Lindsay has written a reply highlighting the many and various ways Lib Dem members will be spending the break: campaigning. However you spend it — we at LibDemVoice wish you all the best. [IMG: libdem letter from nick clegg] Just a quick note this week to wish you a happy Easter weekend. It's been a hectic year so ...
Rather than wait for the Hugo Voter Pack to become available, I downloaded a few of the nominated works available in electronic form after last night's announcement, and selected this nominee for Best Graphic Story to read first. Paul Cornell takes us to New Mexico, where the governor has just announced her candidacy for President, and at the same time she and her husband are mixed up in a peculiar incident of apparent alien abduction. It isn't utterly dissimilar to his London Falling, which also has establishment figures from unusual backgrounds (his varied police squad) having to deal with the ...
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the longest running science fiction show in the world I am taking a weekly look at some of my favourite Dr Who episodes focusing on one Doctor a month. This month it's the third Doctors turn. Journalist Sarah Jane Smith has conned her way into a research centre where top scientists are being protected while UNIT investigates the disappearance of a number of their colleagues. She meets the Doctor and stows away on the TARDIS and is taken back to medieval England, where the missing scientists are working under hypnosis to repair a crashed ...
We live in tough times and the Government has cut the amount it spends on subsidising council tax and this has caused Blackpool Council to pass on the costs to those who receive the benefits. Tory led Lancashire County Council has been going through tough times too but they have managed to announce a 2% cut in council tax bills. This is great for those who pay the full council tax. By coincidence we have elections for the County Council in May. However, for those who receive council tax benefits then things may not look quite as good. There is ...
Send to KindleAn interesting snippet from today's LabourList interview with Ed Miliband. On the subject of tuition fees, here's what the Labour leader has to say: "We're definitely looking at [a graduate tax]. I think there's been some work going on at IPPR looking at the options too. We've said £6000 [as a cap] before, and we're looking at all of these issues for the manifesto, and what can be done." That reads to me like Labour readying itself to ditch the first policy commitment that Mr Miliband made as Labour leader 18 months ago: to reduce the maximum fee ...
Here are the five posts published on this blog between January and March 2013 that recorded the most hits: Help to buy? (20th March) The politics of the bedroom tax (9th February) Clegg courts catastrophe (10th March) Research and the policy process (13th February) The boundaries of academic blogging (20th January) This quarter has seen 3 of the 4 busiest months since the blog started. I'm glad that people are continuing to find these ramblings of some interest. Onward and upward! Thanks for reading. And commenting. Even when you're disagreeing with me. Image: © iQoncept – Fotolia.com [IMG: Share]
I asked young F the other day if I might borrow his Cressida Cowell collection. He went and rummaged in his shelves, and came back with three books, apologising that the fourth in the series was missing. "Are these the first three, then?" I asked. "No," he replied, "these are the first, fifth and tenth!" I had no idea that there were so many, but at least I can now say that I have given them a fair sampling. He also later found the fourth book as well. The series concerns the adventures of a teenage Viking and his faithful ...
Last Tuesday I wrote a post in which I looked at some of the major changes for the better that had occurred in my lifetime. In many cases they were eventually consolidated in legislation, but cultural shifts had to happen over a long period of time before Parliament was willing to formalise them in law. Before outlining some ideas for the future, I wanted to highlight a few more changes in my lifetime. Some of these required only minimal or no legislation but the changes in culture were nevertheless significant. Mental illness was considered deeply shameful and patients were locked ...
Blogging has been light for various reasons lately but that may be over-compensated by a slew of posts today, so be (potentially) warned! Anyway, for Easter Sunday, Handel provides the music to one of my favourite hymns (and, yes, an athiest is allowed to have favourite hymns!) I was also quite taken by this instrumental version: Andrew
This April will see a tax cut for the richest. The top income tax rate will be reduced from 50% to 45%. Much comment has been made about how unfair this is. The 50% income tax rate has an interesting if short history. It was introduced by Gordon Brown in the last month of the 13 years of a Labour government. Some suggest it was an election stunt. For the other 13 years the Labour government top income tax rate was 40%. Under the coalition government, the top rate of income tax will have been 50% for three years or ...
David Attenborough hugging a leaf (tags: ) Spoiler Alert: Stories Are Not Spoiled by 'Spoilers' - Association for Psychological Science "Spoilers don't spoil stories. Contrary to popular wisdom, they actually seem to enhance enjoyment." (tags: ) DOCTOR WHO ANNOUNCES ALL-STAR CAST FOR 50th ANNIVERSARY Spoiler alert ;) My reaction? Oh ARSE. (tags: ) Poverty's poor show in the media - FT.com "Morals aside: by ignoring the poor we are missing the economic story of the decade." (tags: ) Lord Carey somehow mistaking 'not getting own way all of the time' with 'persecution' (tags: ) The Real Blog: Lots of data, ...
Ian Hislop goes off the rails is worth watching on BBC iPlayer. He looks at the impact of Beeching's Axe, which hacked off a significant chunk of the British railways system. The programme ended with that glorious Flanders and Swann song "The Slow Train" which is on YouTube below. Sadly, despite its rich rhyming potential, F&S did not mention Bude, whose railway station was closed down and is now replaced with housing. I was on the last train out of Bude, alongside my grandfather, who saw the first train coming into Bude. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
BBC Parliament is continuing its bank holiday tradition of giving political geeks the chance to relive elections of their lives. Tomorrow they are broadcasting the 1983 election results. I know Mrs Thatcher being re-elected with a stonking majority is not something we want to dwell on. Nor is the fact that the Alliance came within a whisker of knocking Labour into 3rd place in terms of the popular vote and ended up with just 23 MPs. It was my first election, though, in the same way that Tom Baker is my Doctor. It was the first time I'd delivered leaflets, ...
Irish EU Presidency, EU Presidency : 100objects Free ebook about Irish history (until 31 March)! (tags: Ireland ) Why dinosaurs are the ultimate childhood companion They're like dragons, but real. (tags: books children ) 2013 Hugo Awards | The Hugo Awards Nominations announced: 11/18 women in fiction categories! (tags: sf )
You can download a high quality PDF with more details about this event here.
Don't read if you liked it, I may 'harsh your squee'. I'm quite serious here. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who does enjoy the show. I *want* to like it. I just can't. I won't be watching after this series has finished, but I'm going to complete the reviews for Mindless Ones.
