Current Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month) A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth Short Trips: Snapshots, ed. Joseph Lidster Last books finished Based On The Popular TV Serial, by Paul Smith Occupy Me, by Tricia Sullivan Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Next books The Habit of Loving, by Doris Lessing The Parrot's Theorem, by Denis Guedj The Cabinet of Light, by Daniel O'Mahoney
Embed from Getty Images This British Railways poster for York is by Edward Bawden and dates from around 1954. It shows, against the background of St Mary's Abbey in the city, three scenes from the York Mystery Plays: The Risen Christ, the Adoration and Satan at Hell's Mouth.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 471st weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (26 February – 4 March , 2017), together with a hand-picked seven 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. Which Labour MPs ...
Please try to get to this second "drop-in" event on possible improvements to the physical arrangements in Consett's town centre. You can do your homework on what is being suggested by visiting the consultants' site here to see the three options they are suggesting. I don't think this is a second Masterplan ( you can download and read the first one here . I found it a depressing read 7 years on: £70,000, lots of words, but so little concrete planning).
As some of my readers are aware, I live in the Manchester Gorton constituency. After the sad death of its MP, Sir Gerald Kaufman, last week, there will be a by-election. And I think it's possible - not a certainty, ... Continue reading →
Flip Chart Fairy Tales on the decline of 'dad jobs' and why it matters. Kathryn Fox looks at the careers of two early women Liberal Party agents. "Its hard to imagine how older people who don't have anyone to scoop up all these tasks cope. You really wouldn't design it this way if you had the choice." Janet Morrison on choosing a care home. The golden age of motoring is coming to an end, argues the West Midlands Police Traffic Unit. "During the Victorian era, masturbation - also known as self-pollution, self-abuse, or onanism - was believed to be both ...
[IMG: 7 best] Many thanks to the 13,700 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Lib Dems GAIN a council seat and have a strong hold in Redcar (17 comments) by Caron Lindsay £1 million donation to Lib Dems helps party oppose Brexit (18 comments) by Caron Lindsay Wow! A Liberal Democrat on Question Time tonight (11 comments) by Caron Lindsay Lib Dems react to Government defeat over #righttostay (60 comments) by Caron Lindsay Brexit – it's time to stop looking for someone to blame and take action (45 comments) by Andrew Davidson ...
Photo of Victory Street, Rusholme, by Bill Boaden Yesterday the Liberal Democrats chose an impressive candidate for the Manchester Gorton by-election: Jackie Pearcey. At the end of that post I described the Labour constituency party in Gorton as "faction-ridden". An article by Jennifer Williams in the Manchester Evening News fills in some of the details. Ambitious Labour activists had been confidently expecting Sir Gerald Kaufman to retire for at least two general elections and so were circling the seat like wild turkeys around a dead cat. Jennifer Williams explains what this has lead to: Last year a mammoth falling-out between ...
GOVERNMENT DEFEAT OVER BREXIT BILL screamed the news (and screaming is usually the right adjective for the news these days) after the House of Lords voted for an amendment to the government's article 50 bill. But was it really? No. It says a lot that this is considered a defeat. The House of Lords voted for a minor amendment to the Article 50 trigger bill to ensure that the government
I'm feeling a little off balance at the moment. Last Wednesday I was busy telling the ARIS and webMethods user groups that "numbers don't speak for themselves". I was talking about the creating business cases, but I believe the statement to be true more generally. Numbers only make sense if you can relate them to a specific context. Furthermore, the ... The post Off balance appeared first on ten pence piece.
Embed from Getty Images I give you this series of early morning tweets from the President of the United States of America, as collated by Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in ...
Amidst the controversy raging around the Cycle Superhighway (CSII) scheme one aspect seems to have been largely overlooked - not the least by Transport for London. At a time when TfL is about to reduce the numbers of bus routes using the Finchley Road, it is ensuring by the proposed new road arrangements at Swiss Cottage that the remaining buses will be subject to delay. I have challenged TfL over these delays which they admit will affect northbound buses by an "up to 2 minutes" delay (which in my book means at least twice as much!) So why would anybody ...
Literature does not enjoy the same status in Britain as it does just over the Channel in France, for example. Maybe that partly explains why politicians are far more eager to talk about football in public than about books. Yet a new survey published by the Royal Society for Literature (RSL) this week suggests that [...]
I give you this series of early morning tweets from the President of the United States of America, as collated by Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Is it legal for a sitting President to ... Continue reading Donald Trump is a dangerous and complete joke – but the joke is on the American people
When I heard this on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction last week I assumed it was some forgotten British R&B gem. But if you spot the singers' accent and listen to the lyrics, its real origin is not such a surprise. Because Firebeats Inc. were a Norwegian band. And it comes from their eponymous first LP, of which Record Collector said: The sole 60s album by Norway's Firebeats, Inc is a wet-dream object of desire for freakbeat collectors. Only 500 copies are believed to have been pressed up in 1966, so the LP must have been presupposed to miss the ...
At Bury's recent 'Budget Council' Meeting the proposals from the majority Labour Group were voted through, which is a Council Tax increase from 1 April 2016 of 4.94%. Your Bury Liberal Democrat councillors voted against this budget. The increase is made up of a basic increase of 1.94%, plus a further 3% 'social care levy'. [...]
On 5th March 1770 outside the customs house on King's Street, Boston, Private Hugh White was talking to some off-duty comrades when a passing Bostonian made a crack about the British soldier's commanding officer – prompting Pvt White to clock the civilian across the side of the head. The off-duty soldiers made themselves scarce, leaving the private to deal with the fast-growing ring of angry Bostonians that soon surrounded him. White backed up against the custom house door - gun raised out of fear of what might happen next. The growing crowd heckled him, daring him to shoot. Up the ...
Being part of the EU does not make us less British. It's just a safe place to be in a threatening and darkening world On Friday we held a meeting in the Friends Meeting House to look at the legal ... Continue reading →
I have done it myself, ordered something on Amazon and then inadvertently clicked on same day delivery only to find that I am not subscribed to their internet TV channel. Fortunately, I realised what I had done and managed to unsubscribe straight away. Others are not so lucky. So I welcome the possibility that next week's Budget might lead to a change in the law to stop consumers accidentally signing up to recurring monthly subscriptions. The Independent says that research by Citizens Advice estimates that around two million consumers every year have problems cancelling subscriptions, whilst 40 per cent of ...
This country deserves better than to be ruled as it is by an Alice-in-Wonderland government, feebly countered by a Humpty-Dumpty official opposition. I am angry that, as a result, in my neighbouring Copeland constituency our Liberal Democrat candidate Rebecca Hanson was sidelined by the clash of these tottering Titans. Of course she did well to double our share of the vote and beat the hollow UKIP, but not nearly as well as such an excellent standard-bearer deserved. Instead the representative of this uncaring, and ultimately incompetent government of ours went to Westminster. The Liberal Democrat campaign in Copeland was focused. ...
An Arriva bus at The Meadows stop in Maghull Merseytravel have posted a revised timetable, effective from 23rd April, for the Arriva 300 bus route on their website. Here's a link to it:- The timings will change (so check out the new April timetable if you are a regular user) and evening journeys have been introduced between Liverpool and Lydiate supported/subsidised by Merseytravel. In a world full of bad news, not least about our declining bus services, here's a bit of good news. BUT could this well be a case of a 'use it or lose it' situation? With ...
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The death of rock and roll, part 1,368: The Donald, Foo Fighters first album, and exceeding expectat...
On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain died. It was a really weird moment to live through if you were in the right age range group at the time – I was in the perfect place to experience this, at twenty-one, when it took place. There was a great deal of speculation at the time as to what would happen to rock and roll after his suicide; in a way, looking back on it now that it is more than twenty years past, it was sort of the death of it all. I sometimes wonder whether Kurt would have gone through ...
Bubbling along, often little reported in the media*, has been a police investigation into whether Conservative MPs broke the law on election expenses at the general election. Not only does the investigation go to the very top of the party, involving one of Theresa May's closest aides, it also involves more than enough MPs to wipe out the Conservative majority in the House of Commons. The Electoral Commission has already had to go to court to force the Conservatives to hand over evidence. Now the The Times reports: Senior [Conservative] figures fear that the results of up to half a ...
From the City Council : Dundee City Council proposes to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating works for the SSE cable renewal scheme. The Order is expected to be in force for 20 weeks from 6 March 2017. Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months. The effect of the Order is to prohibit temporarily all vehicular traffic in (1) Fleuchar Street from Eassons Angle to Blyth Street, (2) Blinshall Street from Lochee Road to Douglas Street and (3) Scott Street from City Road to ...
Ludlow and the surrounding villages have an elderly population with a significant prevalence of dementia. Our countryside and heritage, and restaurants and pubs also attract a high proportion of older visitors. With age, regrettably, comes a higher prevalence of dementia. On Tuesday, 7 March, we will be hosting a public meeting to look at working towards Ludlow becoming a dementia friendly community. The meeting will be at 5.30pm in the Women's Centre off Church Street, by the Rose and Crown. Our community in Ludlow is older than average. Here, 28% of residents are aged 65 or over, compared to 23% ...
Fury as government confirms plan to axe housing benefit for young people Tories continue war on the poor. (tags: ukpolitics ) Do the Koreas Speak the Same Language? Mostly but not entirely. (tags: languages korea ) NI Assembly: imminent prospect of Brexit causes shift in attitudes My analysis for the Irish Times. (tags: northernireland )
Why isn't China a democracy? And why do many Chinese people not want it to become one? In the West where (openly) questioning the merits of 'government of the people, by the people, for the people' is a taboo, we don't often consider such questions. When we do, we tend to focus on the purported [...]
