Here is Sir Geoffrey, bowling in his cap, taking two Australian wickets in a 1979 World Cup group game. Ian Botham does rather release the pressure at the other end, but look out for a characteristically brilliant piece of fielding by Derek Randall.
Sat 27th
21:47
Lib Dems accuse Conservative leader of Leicestershire County Council of misleading the public
Embed from Getty Images The Leicester Mercury reports that the Liberal Democrat group on Leicestershire County Council have made lodged an official complaint over statements made by the Conservative council leader Nick Ruston and cabinet member Richard Blunt. At the council's last meeting Lib Dem and Labour councillors proposed motions to give better protection to residents opposing unsuitable waste processing plants or fracking developments. The Lib Dem complaint is that Cllrs Rushton and Blunt said that such safeguards could be introduced later in the process when they cannot. Bill Boulter, doyen of the Lib Dem group on the county, told ...
Current Watership Down, by Richard Adams (finishing up at a chapter a day) Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 4, ed. Usman T. Malik Brother and Sister, by Joanna Trollope Last books finished The Sea and Summer, by George Turner Planet of Judgement, by Joe Haldeman Les Lumières de l'Amalou, by Christophe Gibelin and Claire Wendling The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Vol 3: This Mortal Mountain Last week's audios You Are the Doctor, by John Dorney Come Die With Me, by Jamie Anderson The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel, by Christopher Cooper Dead to the ...
Many happy returns to Liberal Democrat Voice, which is 10 years old today, By my calculation, that means its first post went up on 27 August 2006. On 14 September 2006 I wrote: Welcome and congratulations to Liberal Democrat Voice, which already seems to be establishing itself as the place for Lib Dem discussion on the net. Natural selection operates pretty ruthlessly there, so it is obviously doing a lot right. I recommend in particular Alex Wilcock's dissection of Trust in People: Make Britain Free, Fair and Green and the debate in the comments on Rob Fenwick's posting on the ...
Several significant changes to the Hugo rules were ratified by this year's WSFS meeting. Although discussion has tended to focus on the new tallying system dubbed EPH (short for E Pluribus Hugo) by its creators, two of the other amendments can also be retrospectively applied to past voting results - specifically, that there will now be (at least) six finalists in each category rather than five; and that the 5% cutoff for finalists no longer applies. Some commentators, looking just at EPH (to take two fairly representative cases, Jed Hartman and Cheryl Morgan), have expressed disappointment that the consequential changes ...
I normally like to do these posts on the night, but circumstances prevented me this year. Next year will likely be a different matter... Results are listed here, full details here; and analysis of the effect EPH would have had on the ballot (absent any other changes) here. Headlines: All four written fiction categories went to women who had never won a Hugo before, three of them WoC Women also won both Best Editor categories and Best Professional Artist An unusually high number of first-count victories:Best Short Story (Cat Pictures Please) Best Related Work (No Award) Best Graphic Story (Sandman: ...
Have you recovered from Worldcon? Good. I was travelling all weekend, and then back at work last week, so even if the statistics had been out earlier I couldn't have easily processed them. This is the first of three posts about what I take from the figures, in this case concentrating on the 1941 Retro Hugos. Official results are here, full stats here. Headlines: Closest result was "Robbie" beating "Requiem" by 24 for Best Short Story; followed by Slan beating Gray Lensman by 28 for Best Novel. Closest result of any count was Hannes Bok beating Margaret Brundage by 7 ...
Embed from Getty Images At this moment, exactly 10 years ago, LDV was born. (Simon) Hughes, the headline said, was certain to be challenged for the party presidency. As it happened, he wasn't, but wonky crystal ball or not, it was the start of a journey which, to date, has seen 24,290 posts and 340,000 comments published. We've had 22 members of the editorial team over the years, keeping the site going 365 days a year. They work incredibly hard and I'm very grateful for the diverse and varied content and views that they bring to the site. Ryan, our ...
Crowdfunding For Good From JustGiving Just Giving page for a group raising money to pay the fines of women fined under the #BurkiniBan Asylum Denied: The Grim Irony of Proof of Sexuality Edicts Newsnight piece on the burkini ban "I'll tell you which other organisation tells women what they can and cannot wear at the barrel of a gun, and that is Daesh" Finland tests giving every citizen a universal basic income | Business News | News | The Independent FAO @pseudomonas @nickjbarlow @georgewpotter @stealthmunchkin and many others Burkini ban suspended: French court declares rule forbidding swimwear worn by Muslim ...
It might be a bank holiday weekend (not in Scotland, though), and the sun might even be shining, but Liberal Democrats all over the country are working hard. Poplar and Limehouse candidate Elaine Bagshaw is running a Train and Campaign today where members can learn the latest in campaigning techniques. The Tower Hamlets team has been knocking on doors most nights since the General Election and are doing great things. In North London, Bradley Hillier Smith, who has written for us about his trips to Calais and Dunkirk to help refugees, is holding an event outside Waitress in Finchley until ...
I have written already on the racist legacy of the Brexit campaign, now the United Nations has chipped in with a statement by the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that it is "seriously concerned" that British politicians whipped up hatred and then "failed to condemn" racist abuse during the campaign. The Independent points out that immediately following the referendum hate crimes surged by 42 per cent in England and Wales, with a total of 3,076 incidents recorded across the country between 16 and 30 June. They add that police figures show that many areas that voted strongly ...
If you live in or around the Manor Drive area of Gunthorpe, you'll no doubt have heard or seen about the recent fire that occurred down Norwood Lane, after fly-tipping items caught fire. The issue of fly-tipping along this stretch of road is not a new one. In fact it made the headlines in a [...]
Last night, it was a great pleasure to attend the 2016 Sheila Tennant Awards evening, that took place in Dundee West Church. Sheila was a very old friend of mine, who passed away in 2013. It was typical of Sheila's generosity that she left a substantial legacy to Dundee West Church, her own parish church, and the church is using a generous part of the legacy for the awards to benefit local good causes and projects. The Awards night - the second year of the awards - was again excellent - the photo below shows the Harris Academy Pipe Band ...
I posted about this worrying matter not so long ago. My original posting is available via the link below:- Since then I have been watching what goes on via my almost daily travels through this most complicated of junctions. Two things are now clear in my mind. * The junction is simply too complicated especially for those who do not use it regularly. Getting and staying in the right lane for your chosen destination is clearly an issue with much lane switching going on. Some of that lane switching is highly dangerous as it is often last minute, with ...
Sat 27th
08:18
What would have been worse? A Labour conference with a GMB picket or no conference at all?
A group of political friends and I were discussing this yesterday, all of us spread across the party political spectrum. Since, the Labour Party has actually found a security company to do their conference for them. But it was still a fun chat, basically falling into two broad scenarios, which were: Labour conference going ahead with Showsec and sucking up the fact that GMB, the third largest union in the land, would picket Labour Party conference as a result. We managed to come up with an amazing amount of sub-scenarios that would go along with this one. Imagine if Corbyn ...
Tuesday: "Brexit means Brexit," says Prime Minister Theresa May. But what does Brexit means Brexit really mean? You might as well say Wiff Waff means Wiff Waff, for all the facts it tells us. The dilemma... or trilemma or quadlemma... that faces Mrs May is: how does she satisfy all the different Leaver's different reasons? And of course she can't. They're utterly irreconcilable. The real choice facing the Prime Minister is whether she faces down that section of the voters who will scream betrayal most loudly or she accepts trashing the economy to satisfy people who voted for magic unicorns. ...
25 myths and facts about Ukraine and Ukrainians In case you were wondering. (tags: ukraine ) Trump campaign CEO once charged in domestic violence case Jeepers. (tags: Uspolitics ) You may think the world is falling apart. Steven Pinker is here to tell you it isn't. For once, he has a point. (tags: politics War ) Burkini ban suspended: French court declares rule forbidding swimwear worn by Muslim women 'clearly illegal' Hooray! (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality france ) The draft of a possible Cyprus settlement? Getting to yes! (tags: Cyprus )
I've just finished and sent out our latest eFocus for the Whickham area. This is edition 102 and covers proposals to close Whickham Library, news about the Whickham Festival, an update on the A1, the selection by local Lib Dems of a certain Jonathan Wallace as candidate for Blaydon constituency and a bit about Labour's dithering on whether or not to be in the North East devolution settlement. You
