Another video from the people at Londonist. This one finds some appealing fragments of the southern half of the line and that the northern half - from West Drayton to Colnbrook - is still open for freight traffic. You can read more about this line on the Disused Stations page for Staines West.
[IMG: IMG_0024(1)] BBC iPlayer users in the UK will need a valid licence to use the service from September 1, even if they don't have a TV and only watch online via a laptop or mobile. Specifically, you still don't need a licence to watch other on-demand services like Netflix or other terrestrial broadcasters' digital platforms, like ITV Player. The £145-per-year BBC TV licence is only currently needed for those who watch live television, but the changes mean that anyone who chooses not to buy a licence can no longer legally watch BBC programmes live or programmes on demand, including ...
Holy Trinity in the village of Teigh has an interior that feels as much like a Georgian country houses as a village church. Leicestershire & Rutland Churches speaks of its "unique feature": the fantastic triple pulpit built into the west wall, the 'Strawberry Hill Gothic' pulpit, prayer desk and Lectern are all built over and around the entrance to the nave. The rector and readers would have been in the different position and heights during the service. You would only see their heads and tops of their bodies a most unusual feature. We see why the pews are facing each ...
It is hard to live so close to a port like Liverpool without being aware how important to the whole community are the ships that visit. Big cruise ships bring thousands of visitors to the whole region. The enormous container ships docking at the new Port of Liverpool docks in Bootle are crucial to the economy of the north. But there is one other category of visitors that come to us from the sea who are extremely hospitable and they are the navies of NATO. Last week two ships deployed on NATO duties docked in Liverpool; one Portuguese and one ...
I have just read Handsome Brute, an account of the life and crimes of Neville Heath. Apparently a charming RAF pilot and playboy, Heath murdered two women in a way that horrified and fascinated the British public in 1946. My defence of true crime books, and this is a very good one, is that they depict the details of everyday life - clothes, food, furnishings - in a way that no other books do. Handsome Brute, for instance, paints a picture of genteel Bournemouth in Word War II that changes your view of the town. Piers dismantled; beach mined; the ...
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Here's a feel good story that the Liverpool Echo has covered all about a medal winning man and his Maghull family celebrating his bronze diving medal in the Rio Olympics. Sadly, there seems to be an issue with the national media in that they were far more interested in covering the story from the perspective of his more well known diving partner.
Walesonline suggest that one of the reasons the UKIP National Executive backed off expelling their sole Welsh MEP from the party was money. Nathan Gill had faced expulsion in a row over "double jobbing", having been accused of breaking a promise to resign as an MEP after being elected as a regional AM for North Wales in May's National Assembly election. At yesterday's meeting of Ukip's ruling national executive committee however, a decision was taken to pull back from expelling Nathan Gill, the party's leader in Wales, after a strong plea on his behalf from Scottish MEP David Coburn, Mr ...
Land clearance machinery had been seen and heard on the site off Maghull's Turnbridge Road over the past few days so I went today to check it out. [IMG: Trees taken out at the end of Maghull's Turnbridge Road] Trees taken out at the end of Maghull's Turnbridge Road Whilst this site, which Labour-run Sefton Council has earmarked for house building, will be accessed off Maghull's Turnbridge Road the site is in reality all within Lydiate as Maghull Brook forms the Maghull/Lydiate boundary right at the end of Turnbridge Road. I had a chat with one of the men doing ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: Stanley was sitting about ten rows back, handcuffed to his armrest. His backpack lay on the seat next to him. It contained his toothbrush, toothpaste, and a box of stationery his mother had given him. He'd promised to write to her at least once a week. This is apparently a classic of recent vintage, having won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal. I must say I'm not at all convinced that it will have the staying power of, say, A Wrinkle In Time. It's a sweet ...
Last night the relatively new Liberal Democrat Creatives group heard Lord (Tim) Clement-Jones outline some of the challenges facing the UK's creative industries as a result of June's vote for Brexit. He is part of the LibDems' parliamentary team covering the Department of Culture, Media and Sport brief. We know from opinion polling that the [...]
[IMG: directory2016] If you are planning to attend Autumn Conference in Brighton then you need two documents – the Agenda and the Directory. The Agenda sets out all the debates and speeches that will be happening in the Main Auditorium, and that was published last week. But the public business in the Auditorium, whilst the most visible, is only one part of what is on offer at Conference. Layered over and around it are the fringe meetings, exhibition and training sessions. At the exhibition you can chat with members of the many special interest organisations within the party, as well ...
Have you noticed jet fighters flying in the skies over the Gunthorpe area, seemingly practising their manoeuvres? If yes, then you're not the only one! A couple of residents have complained about the noise and questioned the safety of such operations over residential areas. Others have said they do not mind, and understand that the [...]
As Mr Spock might well have said to Capt James T Kirk about the Labour Party today, "it's life Jim but not as we know it!" One of the nice ... Continue reading →
The Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats has urged the Cabinet Secretary John Swinney to take the opportunity to commission a wide reaching and independent review of the named person policy after repeated and growing concerns. The calls comes after the Education Secretary today wrote to all MSPs confirming that the Scottish Government will shortly [...]
Embed from Getty Images Over the weekend Jeremy Corbyn said he would not be prepared to overturn Brexit. He said: I think we've had a referendum, a decision has been made, you have to respect the decision people made. We were given the choice, we after all supported holding a referendum so we must abide by the decision. In comparison Owen Smith has committed himself to offering a second referendum if elected as Labour Leader. Sal Brinton, President of the Liberal Democrats, has has responded to Corbyn's comments: Jeremy Corbyn was virtually invisible during the referendum campaign. He has hauled ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP today said a long-term solution to GP shortages is still required after the Scottish Government announced plans for GP trainee bursaries. 37 bursaries will be made available to doctors willing to work in areas where training posts have remained unfilled in recent years. The Royal College of [...]
The SDP was launched a couple of weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I was a member shortly after that, so I have always had a perspective on the ups and downs of the Labour Party. The battle between hard left socialism and centrist social democracy today is the same one. Of course, Britain has changed dramatically after Thatcherism and Blairism – but it's the same idealogical fight. George Santayana famously said 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' There is little doubt that Labour is currently utterly ineffective as a political force in this country. It ...
This is my latest update on our attempts to be self-sufficient. The goats have had their babies, summer gluts have to be dealt with and we are back onto making butter and cheese.
I am not known for my support of Andy Burnham but this piece in the Echo really does make me wonder how he and indeed other Labour worthies ever came to the conclusion that George Osborne's Northern Powerhouse was anything more than party political froth. Talked about for a handful of years what on earth has been delivered for the 'North' that would not have happened anyway? Any medium to large project you can think of has been linked to the Northern Powerhouse in recent times and just about every council policy document you look at name drops it. ...
Modeling Poses Done Better by Cats Doc Brown - My Proper Tea - YouTube Via @andrewducker, the most British rap of all time: [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Embed from Getty Images The first seven months of 2016 have seen big, consensus-upsetting scores by populist parties across Europe. The election in Italy of two women from Beppe Grillo's "Five Star Movement" to become mayors of Rome and Turin (the present capital and the residence of Italy's founding Savoy dynasty, respectively) in June; the success of Dutch populists (Wilders' PVV and the weblog "GeenStijl") and British populists (UKIP) at two big EU-related national referenda in April and June, and the breakthrough of Germany's racist "Alternative für Deutschland" (AfD) in three German regional elections (biggest score: 24,3% in Saxony-Anhalt) in ...
As it stands, Labour MPs are desperate not to leave their party, even after everything that has happened in the past year. They cling to the hope that Smith will win, somehow. That from there normalcy can slowly but surely be restored. But it is now becoming about more than just Corbyn's leadership – the far-left are digging in deep, changing the party in a way that will be hard to reverse. Just to recap: yesterday there were elections for the six places on the National Executive Committee that represent the CLPs (there are 33 places on the committee in ...
I have recently finished reading The Mandibles, the latest novel by Lionel Shriver, whom I chiefly know through her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, which I haven't actually read. The new book is set in the US in the future (2029 to 2047), and the core of the book's meaning is in economics ... Continue reading The Mandibles: Lionel Shriver's liberal dystopia is a must-read →
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP today said that the Health Secretary seems wholly incapable of giving straightforward answers to basic questions over plans for NHS health board reforms. The SNP's 2016 election manifesto called for a review of the number, structure and regulation of health boards. In answers to parliamentary questions from [...]
See how your rubbish is turned into electricity! Join Recycle for Greater Manchester (R4GM) for a tour of the Thermal Recovery facility on Raikes Lane, Bolton. The facility turns grey bin waste into enough electricity to power up to 14,000 homes. On the tour you'll get to see inside a furnace which reaches temperatures of over 850°C, a 200 foot chimney repaired by local steeplejack and TV personality; Fred Dibnah AND a generator which spins 6,900 times a minute! There will be fun interactive recycling activities in our purpose built education centre, free lunch and lots of giveaways to help ...
The Liberal Democrats in Bury have chosen candidates in case Prime Minister Teresa May call's an early general election. Lib Dem Group Leader in Bury Cllr Tim Pickstone said: "Under normal circumstances the next General Election will be in 2020, but given the very significant changes following the EU Referendum, and the chaos in some other political parties, there is always a chance that the PM will seek a fresh mandate. Other parties like Labour and Ukip are distracted with their own leadership elections and providing no real opposition to the Government. We are determined to be ready should an ...
One of the crime related issues that you most often raise with us and the police is reports of anti-social vehicle use around our communities – for example the use of 'off road' bikes or quad bikes around residential areas. The Prestwich Police team has taken up the challenge to reduce this issue and raise awareness with the public. This has included getting resources together to erect 18 new 'Section 59' warning signs across particular 'hot spots' affects by this issue. There will be a Motorbike Awareness event to be held at Tesco Prestwich car park this Saturday 13th August ...
[IMG: SDP_Logo] With all the talk at the moment of a potential Labour split, I thought it might be useful to take a look back at the history of the last major split in the party by reading Crewe and King's history of the SDP, specifically the early sections on the formation of the party. I#m not going to recount the full history, but I think there were two interesting points in the SDP's formation that tend to get overlooked in discussion of any potential current split. First of all, the crisis that led to the foundation of the SDP ...
Just when we thought that the Labour Party could not get any more chaotic the inevitabe happened and their leadership contest was thrown into disarray by a court ruling that reinstated the voting rights of 130,000 members. As the Guardian reports, a high court judgment, issued on Monday morning, struck down the six-month cut-off point imposed by the NEC for members to vote in the leadership contest, with Mr Justice Hickinbottom saying it was a breach of contract against the five new members who brought the case. However, the Labour NEC has vowed to continue the fight. They issued a ...
Just to let people know about two summer holiday activities in the Bury area:. 'Buried Treasure' is a treasure trail aimed at primary school age children in local parks right across Bury. All you have to do is follow the trail usually about a mile and half, along the way are seven clues 'too difficult' for grown ups (leave it to the youngsters!) and then after a good walk in the outdoors you enter the clues on the website. If you are very lucky you could win a family holiday, so if you want to get involved go to www.burydtreasure.org.uk. ...
Commenting following reports that Police Scotland officers have been forced to buy their own hand sanitiser and bin bags due to budget cuts, Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Liam McArthur MSP said: "Police bosses rejected claims that rank and file officers had to purchase their own kit. Now it seems that the scale of the [...]
The Courier, Evening Telegraph and Wave 102 recently highlighted my criticism of what I consider the 'laissez faire and poor response' I received from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) following my raising with the department the continuing short-changing of thousands of Dundee TV viewers who have a second rate level of TV services since the digital TV switch over in Tayside in 2010. I have long been critical of government handling of the conversion to digital which has meant that all people whose TV reception comes from a relay transmitter rather than a main regional transmitter cannot ...
Excitement, hatred and belonging: why terrorists do it Interesting book, interesting review. (tags: waronterror northernireland ) Can New York Be Saved in the Era of Global Warming? Maybe; but maybe not... (tags: newyork climatechange )
