When I got to Stokesay Castle... Yes, it's time for me to start sharing my snaps from my recent visit to Shropshire. You will find I have taken the precaution of locking the doors. When I got to Stokesay Castle I found the interior was given over to vaguely medieval activities for children. They were presided over by a Muslim woman and youth. A sword battle ensued. When the youth called out "Kill them!" to his team, and then put his hand over his mouth as if he had gone too far, I responded "That's the spirit!" in my best ...
This 1971 film starred David Hemmings as a master at a pubic school who comes to believe that the boys murdered the previous occupant of his job. The screenplay was written by Simon Raven. But it originated in 1958 as a play for radio by Giles Cooper. And BBC Radio 4 Extra has just rebroadcast that radio play. Whoever wrote the webpage for it on the BBC site had the film on the brain, because Hemmings is quite wrongly listed among the cast. Anyway, you have a month to listen to it on the BBC iPlayer - and I suggest ...
Ian Jack and Neal Ascherson are two of my favourite journalists. This is because they are able to bring a historical perspective to the day's events. Many other celebrated commentators just offer hot takes on those events centered on the interests of the metropolitan professional class. Ascherson has a piece in the current London Review of Books on Heligoland, a tiny island off the North Sea coast of Germany that was a British colony for almost the whole of the 19th century. As he says: Few Britons now know where the place is. Still fewer know that it was once ...
With the passing of the great musician, BBC4 have recently reshown"Glenn Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy". It is a very interesting portrait of the man. It also gives us a fascinating insight into Glenn Campbell's partnership with song writer Jimmy Webb. The evolution of Galveston is particularly interesting. Jimmy Webb wrote it as a slow anti-war ... Continue reading Galveston – The fascinating evolution of a pop classic
A fantastic, if now somewhat dated despite being only five years old, letter about the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
The Guardian reports that detectives are carrying out an investigation of "scale and significance" into allegations the Conservative party's use of a call centre in Wales may have broken the law. They say that secret footage had suggested the Tories may have breached election law by allegedly using a call centre to directly contact voters in marginal seats. The party has insisted it did nothing wrong and said the call centre was hired to carry out legal market research and direct marketing: South Wales police wrote to the Labour MP Wayne David this week explaining that members of its economic ...
Sat 26th
13:22
Not getting behind Gove as leader was the biggest mistake the Tory Right will ever make
Many a pundit has asked: why have Brexiteers been so grumpy during a period when the country voted for what they had campaigned for decades to brig about, and during which we appear to be headed for Brexit without question? In other words, why have they been such sore winners? I think a big part of it is that, if only subconsciously, they realise that in the wake of the vote to Leave they soon made an error of epoch defining proportions. On the morning of June 24th, 2016, as you all recall, David Cameron quit as prime minister. There ...
New Labour MP for Durham North West, Laura Pidcock, is on course to be the Parliamentary Joke of the Year with her recent attack on the suggestion that class warriors such as herself should be mixing socially with "the enemy" (AKA Conservative MPs). "The idea that they're not the enemy is simply delusional," she said in an interview. "Whatever type they are, I have absolutely no intention of
Fri, 13:09: RT @quarsan: He's put 'innovative jam' on the agenda. https://t.co/R7OIk8fRxs Fri, 13:38: Kudos to Kathy! https://t.co/XDwMYodO8G Fri, 16:05: Britain must welcome international students https://t.co/3mIvsZ3HRs Osborne on form again. Fri, 16:25: RT @BCNI2018: Our secondary consultation begins on 5 Sept. Your opportunity to comment on responses to our Provisional Proposals. https://t... Fri, 17:03: Mushrooms in the woods. @ Loughbrickland https://t.co/yHP6qrPd7X Fri, 18:38: RT @aljwhite: An important component of dramatic tragedy is a brutal plot twist https://t.co/iU5rw5fZHE Fri, 19:38: Again, excellent critique. https://t.co/AUSWXjy2JB Fri, 22:20: RT @JenniferMerode: An EU diplomat brought up @SunPolitics Davis Barnier story with me. Spontaneously. Never ...
No James Cameron, Sarah Connor in Terminator isn't feminist James Cameron is an idiot Twitter RT @andiosho: Think I'll skip series 4 of Broadchurch. Police announce 'significant' investigation into Tory election call centre Oh dear. What a shame. Hey everyone, just so you know none of the profits from Primark's pride products are going to LGBT+ charities What a surprise Twitter RT @BBCNews: The Libyan Army band gives a unique rendition of God Save The Queen for Boris Johnson. You'll want the sound on f... St Albans family with newborn will be "torn apart" after visa application refusal Pregnant mother ...
Site for the new Maghull North Railway Station. Photo taken looking north from School Lane road bridge. The former Moss Side Hospital site is to the right and Mersey Avenue to the left. This is a question that I know is in the minds of local people, indeed I have been asked as a Lydiate councillor whether I know the answer to it. It also came up as part of a wider discussion at the last Lydiate Parish Council meeting. I thought it was time to see how far Merseytravel had got with their thinking/planning regarding this matter. I recall ...
I was sat in Subway with Nathan shitting myself. I'd been thinking about telling Nathan about everything with Jacob after two years, having left high school. We'd met up after I'd finished college for the day and fancied some food. We sat in a far corner and I plucked up the courage to hint. I asked Nathan if he would care if I were gay or bi? Obviously I was subtler than that. Well, I hope I had been. He said he wouldn't care either way because it wouldn't change who I was. I mean he acknowledged that he wouldn't ...
On 22nd August 2017, at the Northern Rail Summit at Leeds, Yorkshire Rail Engineers High Speed UK, presented to Andy Burnham their plans for a High Speed Rail System, linking Sheffield-Manchester-Leeds to the proposed Liverpool to Hull Cross Rail for the North. Our Community action group co-sponsored this proposal, along with a submission to Transport for the North. We call on fellow Liberal Democrats to back the North's demand for High Speed Three and Northern Electrifaction to get proritity over the the ill-concieved HS2 plans in a strategic review. Our HS3 Route would make Sheffield a High Speed hub and ...
Who speaks for the poor? Of all of the words spoken, written and broadcast in our public discourse this week, a fifty minute oration stands head and shoulders above the rest. It was a speech made by the anchor of ITN's Channel 4 News, Jon Snow; who I certainly believe is probably the best journalist active in the UK media today. He was in Edinburgh to give the 2017 MacTaggart Lecture at the city's annual Television Festival. Mr Snow's theme was that a media elite...just like elites in politics, the law and so on, but arguably more important due to ...
Kirsty, left, with her mother, Dr Janet Chelliah This is a particularly poignant blog post for me. Kirsty is my niece. A much loved darling. Dr Chelliah is my only sister and we have a very close relationship. The words "She has Leukaemia, Babes..." still echoes in my head, even though it has been a year since I first heard those words from my husband, Neil. My daughter Kirsty, who was 15, had just celebrated her birthday a few days before. It was a Friday at 6pm when I heard those words. I was just walking out of work having ...
I've previously written about my dislike of that venerable clichéd demand for "government to send a strong signal". Government isn't a bloody semaphore team, thank you very much. Unlikely though it is that my blog post alone (plus natty diagram) cowed the political classes into giving up semaphoring addiction, the phrase does seem to crop up rather less often now. But we have not arrived in a happy new cliché free world. Instead, the one that now has taken its place as the object of my political ire is "ideological" or more precisely, "ideological" used as if it were a ...
Yesterday afternoon, I had a really useful site visit with council environment officers regarding the overgrown and unsightly sloped areas in Pentland Avenue and Scott Street - at the west end of each : West end of Scott Street Slope in Pentland Avenue It was agreed at the site visit that the overgrown area in Scott Street will be strimmed back in the near future. With regard to Pentland Avenue's slope which is a real challenge to maintain given its significant gradient, it has been agreed to plant lupins or a similar plant next season which will improve the look ...
