If your robot-building skills aren't quite up to Battlebots or Robot Wars, then Hebocon might be for you. Described "as a robot sumo-wrestling competition for those who are not technically gifted", the emphasis is on having fun, entertaining the crowd, and "heboiness".
Ten by-elections this week, and great to see that this time there was a full slate of Lib Dem candidates. (If you don't have a candidate, you force people to vote for someone else – which is completely self-defeating in the face of the party's struggle to get more voters to be regular, loyal supporters in the ballot box.) The first result in was from London. A doubling of the Lib Dem vote, still third but, as I've quoted Jonathan Calder on before, the Lib Dems need more decent thirds (i.e. the ability show signs of life even in wards ...
Conservative seat. Cause: Disqualification. LD candidate - Mary Thomas To help, please contact David Whipp on 01282 666777 or davidwhipp@dsl.pipex.com
Labour seat. Cause: Resignation. LD candidate: Eileen Riley Arms To help, please contact Caroline Ogden 020 8488 0308 (carolineogden@hotmail.com)
Labour seat. Cause: Death. LD candidate – Mark Marsh
UKIP seats (sitting as Democratic Independent). Cause: Resignations. LD candidates: John Finnegan and Jordan Luke Williams
Labour seat. Cause: Death. LD candidate- Paul Shaw.
Conservative seat. Cause: Resignation. LD candidate- Stewart David Edge.
Conservative seat. Cause: Resignation. LD candidate- Joanne Maxwell Aylwin.
Labour seat. Cause: Death. LD candidate – Sharan Virk
Conservative seat. Cause: Resignation. LD candidate – Louise Whitehead To help, please contact David Whipp on 01282 666777 or davidwhipp@dsl.pipex.com
Independent seat. Cause: Death. LD candidate – David Coates.
Lib Dem seat. Cause: Resignation. LD candidate: Carole Anne Morgan. To help, please contact Glyn Nightingale on (01642) 315565
Conservative seat. Cause: Resignation. LD candidate- Sylvia Rosemary Jacobs.
The redevelopment of the railway lands to the north of King's Cross races ahead. The gasholders that dominated the approach to St Pancras have been moved and now house flats and a park. On hoardings by them you can find scenes from the Ealing Comedy The Ladykillers, which was filmed round here in 1955. You would do well to find many of those locations now.
In my belated review of Graeme Swann's The Breaks are Off I wrote: Swann was named in the squad for the last test of 1999 as a 20-year-old and then selected for that winter's England tour of South Africa. By his own admission he was not yet good enough to bowl for England, but then his selection seems to have been based largely on his batting in a televised one-day game.By a small miracle you can see that batting, and a little of Swann bowling, in the clip above. Fortunately, he lost that odd prancing approach to the wicket and ...
Embed from Getty Images In 2006 I published an essay - The problem with children today: The Liberal Democrats and children - in a collection edited by Graham Watson. The section on childhood obesity seems relevant today. The problem and the conventional solutions One topical area of concern about children is obesity, and it provides a convenient way into the debate about the travails of childhood in Britain today. In April 2006, the Guardian reported the publication of the National Health Survey for 2004 under the headline "Child obesity has doubled in a decade." Researchers had weighed some 2,000 youngsters ...
MidAmeriCon II, this year's WorldCon now in full swing in Kansas City, has published a retrospective count of the Hugo nominations of the last two years as they would have been if the proposed new EPH system had been implemented. This is to an extent a counterfactual exercise - particularly for last year, when a number of finalists withdrew precisely because of the success of the slates. But no such comparison can ever be perfect. The reported effect of EPH on the final ballot (I'm not looking at the long-lists here) would have been as follows: 2015 Best Novel: Lock ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: Sandor reached and put the interior lights on, and Lucy's surroundings acquired some cheer and new dimensions. Rightward, the corridor to the cabins glared with what had once been white tiles—bare conduits painted white like the walls; and to the left another corridor horizoned up the curve, lined with cabinets and parts storage. Aft of the bridge and beyond the shallowest of arches, another space showed, reflected in the idle screens of vacant stations, bunks in brown, worn plastic, twelve of them, that could be set manually for the pitch at dock. Their commonroom, that ...
The collapse of the pound sterling in the wake of the Brexit vote was widely predicted, but the ramifications are only just beginning to sink in. London's tourist trade is enjoying a boom and so should British exports. But soon consumers in the UK will start feeling the reality of higher prices as we import [...]
Monday 29th August is a Bank Holiday, and so bin collections will be delayed by a day that week. If, for example, your normal collection day is a Tuesday, that week it will be Wednesday ( 31st August ) That week is a general non-recycled week, ie green bins.,
Theresa May said she would be a more interventionist Prime Minister than her predecessor. She promised to help British industry and do more to tackle inequality. I rather hoped that she meant it. But if today's childhood obesity strategy is anything to go by, they were hollow words. Health inequality scars Britain, with life expectancy [...]
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has urged that all funds received from the UK Government's sugar tax should be used to encourage an active lifestyle. Commenting Mr Cole-Hamilton said: "The proceeds of the sugar tax need to be channelled into an initiative to increase participation in sport and physical activity. "The Scottish [...]
Scottish Liberal Democrat rural affairs spokesperson Mike Rumbles MSP today urged the Scottish Government to give farmers in Scotland the stability they need. Mr Rumbles was speaking as the NFUS wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance Derek Mackay MSP calling on him to guarantee that money received as a result of agriculture spending in [...]
For years now, Neath Port Talbot Council has allowed our streets and our residential areas to look more and more shabby and unkempt.The build-up of rubbish and weeds that choke our streets and lanes makes our communities look and feel decaying and unloved. We used to have regular patrols to deal with problems like litter and weed growth. That seems to have been allowed to drift over recent years. For a county with the second highest principal council tax rate in Wales, that is just not good enough. It is not only bad for the people who live here, it ...
As someone who likes films, but spends relatively little time watching visual media, I'm in an annoying position at the moment. I don't own a TV, because neither I nor my wife are particularly interested in watching broadcast stuff, and ... Continue reading →
This is how Coca-Cola promoted its fizzy sugary drinks last year Today the Government has produced a childhood obesity strategy which is not a strategy or even a wish list of things that can be done. It can best be ... Continue reading →
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37046967 The BBC has the story on its web site – See link above This is a subject I have blogged about many times before especially in relation to youth facilities in Maghull. I don't think anyone reading the article on the BBC web site, which is based on a report by trade union Unison, will be surprised by the findings. However, as I have pointed out before the demise of youth facilities in Maghull has been as much about shifting political priorities than it has been about cuts caused by government austerity measures. Yes the loss of Maghull's Stafford ...
I get the routine. Everyone out there who is any way moderate should back Owen Smith over Corbyn. Just look the other way when Smith says something silly; when he comes across as "Corbyn if Corbyn had any respect for parliamentary democracy whatsoever" and nothing more; but there is a line in the sand and Owen Smith crossed it yesterday for me. Here's the relevant quote: "My view is that, ultimately, all solutions to these international crises do come about through dialogue, so eventually if we are to try to solve this all of the actors do need to be ...
If recent events with the Welsh branch of UKIP Wales were related in a political novel then they would be dismissed as too far-fetched. However, where UKIP is concerned nothing is considered too bizarre As the Western Mail reports, the stand-off in the UKIP Assembly group appears to have come to a head with the decision of Nathan Gill to leave and sit as an independent AM. Despite this, Gill insists that he remains leader of UKIP in Wales and that he will continue to sit as a UKIP MEP in the European Parliament. Even by UKIP standards this piece ...
After inspectors today highlighted problems at Polmont Young Offenders Institution, Scottish Liberal Democrats have urged the prison service to address problems at the facility in time for the transfer of women offenders to the institution this summer. HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland report on HMYOI Polmont found young offenders are spending time in their [...]
Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Tavish Scott MSP today criticised the Scottish Government on its failure to issue new guidance on the Government's curriculum before pupils returned to school. Cabinet Secretary for education, John Swinney had promised to provide teachers with clear guidance on the curriculum before pupils returned to school this week to help close the [...]
From Sheena Wellington of Friends of Wighton : Cappuccino Concerts - admission £5. (Tea and coffee available for small donation). Saturday 20th August at 11am (doors open 10.30am) Double Mod Gold Medallist Wilma Kennedy, one of Scotland's finest Gaelic singers - and, we are proud to say, Wighton Gaelic song tutor - with a programme which includes songs from Albyn's Anthology, which is in the Wighton Collection.
Scottish Liberal Democrats have called on the Scottish Government to adopt a radical new approach to drug misuse and reverse its 20% cut to support services, after new figures showed drug-related deaths increased to their highest ever level in 2015. National statistics published today revealed that there were 706 drug-related deaths in 2015 - 15% [...]
World's biggest banks already plotting mass exodus from London after Brexit Taking back control, eh? (tags: eu ukpolitics ) Brexit trade deals: the gruelling challenge More "Taking back control". (tags: eu ukpolitics ) Will the UN glass ceiling be shattered this time? More on the next Secretary-General. (tags: ) How Big Is A Fart? Somewhere Between A Bottle Of Nail Polish And A Can Of Soda Because you needed to know. (tags: biology )
