London's Polish community effectively took over the Mermaid theatre complex at Blackfriars this evening, for a one-off performance of the musical Chopin Must Die (in Polish, with English surtitles). It's a reflection of how large the Polish community is in Britain, as well as of how vibrant London is as a multicultural Arts centre, that this event ...
Oh dear. Perhaps I am getting too old. I had this conversation with someone the other day. They said: As I get older, like most people, I get more angry. I contested that, saying that I seem to get more laid back as I get older. Ah, but you've had kids. ...said my interlocutor. So I have been very much in Michael "Calm down, dear" Winner mode during the last few weeks over this Royal Charter business and bloggers. Single bloggers were rapidly taken out of the scenario, as specified by one of Lord McNally's four inter-locking rules. Now, some ...
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I had lunch at Boboli in Kibworth Harcourt today with my Liberator colleague Simon Titley. Here is a photograph of the windmill just outside the village that I took a couple of springs ago.
"Clegg's Sheffield office computers stolen" is the headline story in the Sheffield Telegraph today. No personal data was on the stolen laptops. Even so, the Sheffield Telegraph has given the story top billing, ahead of the potentially more interesting "Sheffield ice cream van ban 'madness'", where it turns out that the Labour-run city council is about to ban almost all of Sheffield's ice cream vans from the roads because they breach new emissions rules. Despite having his laptops stolen, Nick Clegg is firmly on the side of the local ice cream sellers: Deputy Prime Minister and Hallam MP Nick Clegg ...
Mansfield beat Wrexham to clinch the Blue Square Bet Premier title and secure promotion back to the Football League. The BBC Sport web site has the great news at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/mansfield-town [IMG: img_50f864b560bcb_svg]
There have now been three arrests for the leaking of information about the Cumbrian police commissioner Richard Rhodes' £700 expense claims for two chauffeur-driven trips. Richard has now apologised for the expenses, and has paid them back, but the people arrested still face substantial jail terms for making public what should have been public anyway. Something is not right here. This is not a private company we are talking about. As Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, has said: "Details of the expenses of public officials ought to be publicly available anyway, we shouldn't have to rely on leaks ...
Richard and Adam are awfully good ...
[IMG: margaret-thatcher] "We are all Thatcherites now," declared David Cameron on the morning of Margaret Thatcher's funeral. Not so, said Nick Clegg: "He's the leader of the Conservative Party he's perfectly entitled to say that. I certainly wouldn't call myself a Thatcherite. I'm a Liberal, she wasn't a Liberal. I've always called myself a Liberal, I always will." Do you think you're a Thatcherite? Well, the Daily Telegraph has devised a test to help you find out: you're 10 questions away from finding out on how much you and The Lady (dis)agreed. You can take it here. And yes, before ...
Have a look at how the Northampton Chronicle & Echo has illustrated its story "Thieves jailed for £57k Lego theft from Watford Gap".
Following my last blog about mobile phones (Phone-y Fears) I should add that I have worked in many physiotherapy departments and they have signs telling you to switch off your mobile phone. Back in the early days of the mobile phone when making calls and storing addresses was all they could do, we were given a reason for this. We were told that our short-wave machines affected them - in particular, that the list of addresses could be affected. One physio was upgrading her phone and had no further use for it so she put it directly under the treatment ...
I was just mucking around YouTube, as you do, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I played this theme and opening titles from Cagney and Lacey. What a great 80s TV series that was, mostly made great by the chemistry between the two lead actors, Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly. The show won a string of glittering awards. Wikipedia states: The two main actresses combined to win the Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama six consecutive years, a winning streak unmatched in any major category by a show. This theme tune was ...
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A week ago I posed (and answered) the question, After Leveson: which blogs are to be regulated? Answer: no-one yet knows. Well, we do now know. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) yesterday announced a 'refinement' of the Leveson legislation included within the Crime and Courts Bill. And it confirms that small-blogs are no longer to be expected to join the proposed self-regulator (though they can do if they wish): The amendments, which have cross-party agreement, make clear that small blogs will not be classed as 'relevant publishers', and be considered by the House of Commons on Monday ...
[IMG: Homes for Haringey bins] I was visiting the Haringey Council block at 4 Mount View Road yesterday and was astonished at the state of the bins. Rubbish was scattered everywhere and was being blown around the whole street. I've reported the mess and asked Homes for Haringey (the Council's housing management arm) to investigate what the problem is. I hope this area is cleaned up soon. Meanwhile my colleague Katherine Reece has been trying to get a new security door fitted at Hutton Court on Victoria Road, after the last one was damaged in a fire. Residents are obviously ...
From the Guardian: The business secretary, Vince Cable, has highlighted the serious disparities between different parts of the country in economic performance and job prospects. He was speaking at a conference designed to boost local enterprise partnerships, the government's chosen vehicle for regional business growth. Cable said: "There are worryingly high disparities between economic performance and employment prospects in different parts of the UK, and those areas that become highly dependent on the public sector face particularly difficult challenges." Liberal Democrat ministers have often talked of the need to ensure that all parts of the UK benefit from economic growth. ...
My dad liked Margaret Thatcher. Quite a lot. I don't think he'd mind me saying this cos he was fairly unashamed about it whilst she was in power when i was growing up. Yes, am giving away my age a bit, but I was born a few short weeks before she came to power....... My mother, not so much of a fan. I also grew up in a pit village - my father wasn't a miner but plenty of the families around us were. So when the miners don't seem to have a lot of sympathy for her, I remember ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Leveson: new proposals to ensure small blogs are exempt from exemplary damages and costs incentives for membership of a press regulator – News stories – Inside Government – GOV.UK The DCMS speaks » Leveson: new proposals on small blogs http://bit.ly/ZCmft0 Why has Ed allowed the unions to stitch up the euro candidate selections? What happened to the new politics? « Labour Uncut Have people *just* woken up to Lab's candidate stitch-up? Did they miss Peter Watt a week ago? http://bit.ly/YzrCsT Send to Kindle
[IMG: nick clegg eastleigh] There was a double dose of senior Lib Demmery on yesterday's World at One with Nick Clegg and Tim Farron both talking about the local elections. Firstly, Nick on the Liberal Democrats making fair decisions in challenging economic times: Everybody knows money is tight and that local councillors have done and will continue to have to make savings. The question is who can be relied on to do it most fairly. You certainly can't rely on either Conservative or Labour parties if you look at their local records. I think the Liberal Democrats locally have proved ...
[IMG: House front in scaffolds] When the Chancellor announced his two-part Help to Buy scheme in the Budget last month it was met with a chorus of disapproval. Representatives from the mortgage and construction industries – who, of course, have a financial interest in seeing the scheme implemented – were positive about it. Pretty much everyone else thought it was a pretty dumb idea. When I reviewed the scheme at the time I noted: Just about the only perspective from which this initiative makes sense is carrying through on an absolute determination not to add directly to the public sector ...
An economics student has overturned a key finding in the economics literature on the relationship between high public debt and low growth, the BBC reports. While it remains clear that heavily indebted countries grow more slowly, Reinhart and Rogoff's particular finding that growth drops sharply when debt reaches 90% of GDP appears to be in error. We should of course be greatly relieved because the national debt stood at 90% at the end of 2012 (source). So we are now, like it or not, in the 90%+ danger zone of slower long term growth. To avoid this would have required ...
When the management theorist Naresh Khatri went to live in the USA, having been brought up in India and Singapore, one thing particularly intrigued him about the American health system: why did everyone talk about how much it was changing when, as far as he could see, it wasn't changing at all? Khatri had been in the USA before as a student, and - to him at least, and despite all the rhetoric and cacophony of change - nothing actually seemed to be any different. Certainly there were changes of regime. There were the new health maintenance organisations and the ...
The academic case for austerity crumbles... but it won't change anything | Bright Green "in the many factors which determine how the world is run, the facts play only a very small role." (tags: ) Extended school time | Toolkit | The Education Endowment Foundation Actual evidence for those wanting to argue for/against Govey's latest scheme. (tags: ) Mark Ruffalo Just Learned About 'Science Bros' -- Vulture "I endorse it 100 percent. You know what it is? It's open-source creativity." Mark Ruffalo: made of awesome. (tags: ) I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100 - Tim ...
Two contrasting quotes I've come across recently capture the two conflicting approaches that good political campaigners need to reconcile. First, here's Clive Woodward on winning the Rugby World Cup with England: Winning the Rugby world cup was not about doing one thing 100% better, but about doing 100 things 1% better. That's the same philosophy as the one that has given British cycling a Head of Marginal Gains. Relentless focus on taking what you do and making it a bit better, again and again and again. However, that's not all there is to success. Google is in many ways the ...
More bad news for Android owners. A huge Russian malware operation is infecting Android apps in the the Google Play Store. The malware - hopefully now removed - hijacks your personal details, and sends premium rate text messages to drive profits for its owners. Nasty. This is the price we pay for Android's open access policy. iPhone users can smirk all they want - but I like being able to run anything I desire on my phone, rather than be restricted to the puritanical walled garden of Apple's App Store. The late lamented Symbian OS did many things wrong - ...
According to The Times (£) Special Branch are now interviewing Paris Brown for sending some 'offensive' Tweets. Special Branch? You would think that they would have a lot better things to do than scare the bejeesus out of a 17 year old girl over what she writes on Twitter. Lets face it, its not as if the capital is on heightened alert for tomorrows London marathon after bomb attacks in the USA! Come to think of it why is this still going on at all? This story broke weeks ago. The continuing investigation is absolutely disproportionate and bloody disgraceful. Its ...
A large site which has been earmarked by a council for residential housing, but owned by a major supermarket chain, has been lying derelict for 11 years. At a time of pressing housing need, this is a scandal. Perhaps you know of similar cases to my story. If so, share them in the comments. Does anyone know how much land is being hoarded in this way? In 2002 Tesco bought a redundant Ministry of Defence site in Tolworth, which lies within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, in the southwest corner of Greater London. The sale was by private ...
A bit of a theme is emerging within the Labour Party as their economic message continues to be challenged within their own party. The Independent reports that Ed Miliband is under mounting Labour pressure to adopt a tougher line on welfare in an attempt to reassure voters about his plans to spend more than the Conservatives if the party regains power. They say that Blairites are prepared to support a 2015 election pledge for higher spending on major projects such as housebuilding, but they want Mr Miliband to tackle the perception that the party is "soft" on benefit claimants in ...
As part of a national screening programme, men aged 65 in Dundee and the rest of Tayside will be invited to attend a local clinic to receive an ultrasound scan which can detect Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAA) - a condition that affects one in 20 men. The condition affects the aorta - the main artery that runs from the heart down through the chest and abdomen. As people get older, the wall of the aorta in the abdomen can become weak and balloon out, forming an aneurysm. AAA is most common in men aged 65 and over. Most are unaware ...
