The Silk Road, linking the empires of Rome and China, conjours up an atmosphere of mystery and exoticism by its very name. Actually, there were many branches of the Silk Road — just as there were many branches of the Great Wall of China — through a range of more northerly or southerly routes, binding [...]
...well it does if they are being promoted by Liberal Democrat run Watford Council. The Guardian's John Harris - best known for his eulogies of britpop and Tony Blair - has taken to his keyboard in the idyllic Hay on Wye to write a piece attacking the Lib Dems for wanting to redevelop some less than idyllic derelict land by Watford General Hospital (along with some allotments) to expand the local hospital, provide much needed new homes - more than a third of which will be affordable - and provide new jobs. All the existing allotment holders will be relocated ...
I've just noticed that at some time in the last few weeks, the following links were added to my blogroll: stluciaaccommodations.net mydubstepstudio.com femalemmafighters.com waterworldpools.com 1losangelesduiattorney.com lovepsychics101.com raspberryketonesdosage.com I have deleted all of these, notified wordpress and changed my password (I don't host this blog, it's hosted on wordpress.com, so I have only a limited amount [...]
Won by the Daily Telegraph website for its invention of Joe Mourinho.
1980 saw the only European tour of the classic six-man line-up of the Beach Boys. Dennis Wilson was back in the band after his temporary suspension, Bruce had returned to the fold, and Brian was there in body, if not always in spirit. The highlight of the tour was a performance at the Knebworth Festival [...]
A rare sunny day. I finally managed to get use out if my new Panama hat! An early afternoon visit to the Meadows Festival followed by a radiant lunch at Petite Paris. I came to the conclusion that Creme brûlée was reason number 366 for France being the optimum nation state. De Gaulles exasperated question "How do you govern a country with 365 cheeses" tells you what the first 375 are! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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 sixth Doctors turn. And so a double video posting this weekend first the regeneration scene... Although I remember some tail end Tom Baker stories in reality Davison was my first Doctor and for young Carl he was a good un. I could relate to him and at the start of his run I had a voice on the TARDIS through Adric. ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 328th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throacughs from the Aggregator (26 May-1 June, 2013), 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. Brighton Greens ...
Sun 2nd
18:54
Note to Islington Council: if you're going to remove the recycling bins, you really should remove th...
From Hornsey Lane, many, many months (years, I think) since the recycling bins were removed from the site: [IMG: Hornsey Lane recycling bins]
It's astonishingly easy, it seems, for people who have the privilege of writing in national newspapers to be very, very wrong about very simple things. This is relatively easy to explain: when you're writing for a newspaper, you're not writing with the intention of being right, but rather to make the people reading that newspaper [...]
[IMG: Martin Luther - Pope as a donkey. Image via the British Library http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/propaganda/index.html] This afternoon I took a look round the British Library's latest exhibition, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion. I was about to go on and type that I enjoyed it greatly, but that's not quite right, as the footage from Nazi anti-Jewish films was sickening. Part entertaining, especially the ineptness of the Saddam Hussein radio station during the first Gulf War, part educational and part grim more like. Whatever the mix, it's well worth going to see before it closes on 17 September. Even if you are familiar ...
I've been finding writing difficult recently, culminating in the "Meh" post of a couple of days ago. I'm not quite sure why. It's not as if there isn't lots happening in my own life at the moment, nor are then any shortage of things in the wider world which are either engaging me or frustrating me. The problem is, if I were to start to write on most of these topics at any length, you'd find them a very dull read or I'd simply become incoherent with rage far too quickly – and so be a very dull read. A ...
FCC are delivering this letter to local residents this afternoon. LJH letter to residents 31 May 2013
This morning has seen a debate raging about MPs expenses, and the system imposed by IPSA, introduced after the 2010 scandal. MPs get a salary of £66,000 a year which is good but nowhere near what some of those people could be earning if they decided to go into the private sector instead. Being an MP ...
Mark Blyth delivers a masterful, blistering, devastating, and totally convincing critique of austerity in his book Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea. It's impossible to read this book and still believe that austerity is the right policy. Blyth writes engaging, powerful economic history of economies applying austerity, including the US, UK, Sweden, Germany, Japan and France in the 1920s and 1930s, Denmark and Ireland in the 1980s, and the Baltic states in 2008, demonstrating in each case that austerity does not work. It does not generate growth or reduce debt. He shows that the current hot spot crises in ...
Fundraising event at Gilmour infants coming up later this month. Some basic information is on the Facebook page here.
I said a while ago, and I intend to stick to this, that I don't intend to ever write another music book after the third Beach Boys one. I've also, though, been *desperate* to write a book on Harry Nilsson since the box set of his stuff was announced, and yesterday Larry said in comments [...]
A resident group has been formed to fight the proposals for the core strategy in the Odd Down area, there first public meeting will be on 14th June at St. Gregory's at 7pm. Come along to find out what can be done, we will be there.
We noticed that the grass in Oolite Grove was looking very long. After asking the council we were told that this was to be cut back next week.
This is pathway is starting to look overgrown, we have asked this to be cut back.
Last Friday (31st May) two neighbours day events took place in the area - one in Speke and one in Garston. I went along to the Garston one, which was held in the Enterpise South Liverpool Academy. What a great new building for our area. As well as walking round the stalls at the front of the school and inside, we had a chance to have a real look around the building and all the new facilities. The school has so much potential. The picture here is actually the back of the building. There are some fixed exercise points (I ...
Today I joined the Friends of Garston Park to do a few repairs to the artwork around the outside of the sports pitches. The artwork started going up more than a year ago with the final two boards, which include poem by Mike Axworthy, being fixed on last month. The weather's taken a bit of a toll on some of the work though so today we painted and varnished some of the boards. I've written about the art project before but for those who don't know, the idea involved groups producing boards which showed their thoughts about Garston, Garston's history ...
Later this month, shops and organisations in Liverpool 18 are getting together to put on a special day to celebrate what's available locally. On 15th June, the usual Allerton Road farmers market (near the library) will be twice its usual size. There'll be stalls along the road run by organisations like The Reader . The idea is to highlight what's on offer on Allerton Road or nearby. My colleague, Cllr Richard Kemp, is involved in the organisation and he's written a short article about it .here There's still time for businesses and organisations to join in.
Local residents, community groups and businesses are working together to hold an "I Love Allerton Road" day on Saturday 15th. June The Farmer's Market will be double its normal size and 12 organisations including the Reader Organisation and Allerton in ... Continue reading →
This clear-eyed hymn to life in Britain's 10th city has been a local internet sensation this week. The Leicester Mercury explains that it was written by Mike Willis five years ago and recorded by his band Victor: "We were a melting pot of styles and influenced by the great British pop traditions of The Kinks, Madness, New Order and James," said Mike. "But we were a bit rubbish really. We were extraordinarily unambitious but we did have some great nights, playing the Charlotte and other venues - I remember a particularly cracking night at the old Pump and Tap pub ...
I have just heard a Sunday Politics commentator suggesting that if we pay MPs a lot more then a cash for questions type scandal would not occur. Why not? I don't know about Patrick Mercer's bank balance but it is hard to be sympathetic to the idea that MPs are poor. Moreover it is unacceptable to think that a small bank balance is a good reason to break the rules. Rich people can steal too and some would say that rich people steal more. Bribery and corruption is not acceptable whether you are rich or poor. Change the world
Patrick Mercer's reaction after being exposed by Panorama and the Daily Telegraph was to announce that he was resigning the Conservative whip but would remain as MP for Newark until the next general election. Eric Joyce was suspended from the Labour Party when he was charged with assault after an incident in Strangers' Bar but is still voting in the lobbies. This is surely the wrong way round. The moral hurdle for being a member or parliament cannot be lower than the one for being a member of a party. It would be more fitting for these MPs to resign ...
The Energy Bill returns to the House of Commons tomorrow. It's a crucial Bill that will help deliver all of the above, but clearly one issue - the 2030 decarbonisation target for the power sector - has been the focus of much attention over the last few months. Let's be clear, such a target wasn't mentioned in any party's manifesto or the Coalition Agreement, or in the draft Bill when I became Secretary of State. But because we won the argument in Government, and the Bill now provides for a target, Britain will be the first country in the world ...
The House of Lords debates the Same Sex Marriage bill on Monday 3 June. They will address the general principles of the Bill before voting on a Second Reading. When the matter was debated in the Commons two weeks ago, I was saddened to see that so many of my friends were upset by a protest against the Bill. Think about how it feels to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and to see people demonstrating outside Parliament to exclude you. They tell you that they think that your relationships are somehow less valid. It makes me feel angry to ...
"It won't be easy: there will be bumps and scrapes along the way." That's what I said three years ago, in the joint press conference David Cameron and I gave on the first day of this coalition government. And as you'll have noticed, some weeks are more bumpy and scrapy than others! Some times we have fierce disagreements that leave people on both sides deeply frustrated. But given that this coalition is formed of two political parties with many widely differing beliefs and policies, that's not exactly remarkable. What I believe is remarkable is the resilience of this government, and ...
A useful email arrived from the GVOC (Gateshead's umbrella body for voluntary organisations) on Friday which included a link to a section on the Woodland Trust's website which offers community groups free woodland kits. One of the large kits contains enough wild fruit saplings to create a hedgerow 120m long. This is ideal for one of the projects we have set up in our ward. Last year Gateshead
The EU seems to be a topic of some interest here at the moment (see "Liberalising the European Union" from Barry Stocker and "EU- It really is getting sillier by the day" by Editor). Here is one more little item that may be of interest. On Friday, Foreign Secretary William Hague was over in Germany calling for a "red card" scheme so individual nations can block laws unwanted and unnecessary EU legislation. This is, in effect, an extension of the current "yellow card" system under which parliaments in member states can force the European Commission to reconsider a law. The ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe: Also on YouTube.
Today's Daily Mail carries a story of a love affair which, apparently, has shocked David Cameron so much and got Downing Street panicking to the extent that they are worried about his political agenda being derailed. From the story, which has no names or much in the way of detail, we can deduce that two middle aged people had an affair which is now over and which caused distress to others. No current cabinet ministers are involved and, from what I can gather, no Liberal Democrats either. When you get down to it, it seems that the Mail has published ...
Having been a supporter of OPSTA (Ormskirk, Preston & Southport Travellers Association) for more years than I care to recall I, like many folk, continue to find the fact that the electrified Northern Line from Liverpool stops at Ormskirk. The Merseyside commuter belt certainly goes at least as far as Burscough/Rufford whilst the logical end for this electrified service is quite obviously Preston. One day a Government of whatever colour will see the sense of extending the electrification but whether I am still breathing is a different matter. The shot below (taken in April) is looking towards Ormskirk Station with ...
This is a shorter post compared to the earlier one this week. And in some cases, it's a bridge between the previous and next post. As a lesbian trans woman, like other lesbian trans women, I am often criticised by neoradical feminists for being a "pretendbian"; I am pretending to be a lesbian. Because I'm really a man, you see. And as such, by my very existence as a trans lesbian, I run the risk of appearing on the site of the same name, which is basically an excuse for transphobes to dox trans people. Because that's what feminists do, ...
On behalf of local residents, I recently reported to the City Council the broken street sign on Hillside Road at its junction with Glamis Drive. I am pleased to note this has now been replaced - see right.
There were three demonstrations in London yesterday, there was a rally by 50 extremists from the British National Party and the English Defence League, a counter=demonstration by hundreds of activists from anti-extremist groups including Unite Against Fascsim and Hope Not Hate and a much larger contingent of protestors campaigning against the English badger cull. According to the International Business Times, the far right got more than they bargained for: Shortly after lunch, a die-hard core of around 50 BNP and EDL supporters was confronted outside parliament by hundreds of activists from anti-extremist groups including Unite Against Fascsim and Hope Not ...
Talking about Survival... and about Matt Smith's departure from the show
As featured in the Independent on Sunday, The Social Liberal Forum has sent the letter below to all non-Ministerial Liberal Democrat MPs, urging them to follow eleven of their colleagues in supporting the inclusion of a clear target to decarbonising...Read more ›
