When a young, inarticulate Yorkshire hill-farmer's son, Johnny, gets particularly stressed out, as more responsibility falls on his shoulders after his father's debilitating stroke, he drowns his sorrow in drink and quick, emotionless sexual release with blond youths. But then along comes a handsome, dark-haired Romanian temporary farmhand — initially humiliated and insulted as a [...]
Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been finishing the draft of The Basilisk Murders, which I sent to beta readers for feedback a couple of days ago, and a Faction Paradox short story for an anthology. I'm also ... Continue reading →
A film that you expect to find funny but ends up making you feel rather sad. Click on the still above to view it on the British Film Institute site. Worthern is a large rural parish lying between the Stiperstones and the Welsh border. In 1980 it was determined to do its bit in the event of nuclear attack. The good news is that The Stables Inn at Hopesgate is still going strong and that this film has a nice shot of the Stiperstones ridge at the start. The really good news is that no nuclear attack took place in ...
[IMG: York] Vince Cable challenges the Tory fallacy that migrants are taking British jobs and driving down wages: "By implication, unskilled jobs should be reserved for British workers. But it isn't clear where, with record levels of employment, the reserve army of unemployed, unskilled Britons is currently billeted." "In 1964, a young town planner working for York City Council wrote a booklet that was to have a profound impact on York and other historic towns and cities across the country." Stephen Lewis meets Joan Hargreaves. William Grimes contributes an obituary of Jeannie Rousseau de Clarens, an amateur spy who passed ...
Second paragraph of third story ("The Man with the Knives" / "Der Mann mit den Messern"):`It makes me sick,' said Jupp quietly. `I've been working on the logical assumption that people who've paid for their tickets really want to see a show where life and limb are at stake — like at the Roman circuses — they want to be convinced of at least the possibility of bloodshed, know what I mean?' He picked up the knife and tossed it neatly against the top crossbar of the window, with such force that the panes rattled and threatened to fall out ...
They all wanted a change from what they were doing. They wanted to be more useful. "I'd like to leave something better behind me than richer shareholders and richer partners." These are comments from a recent article by Financial Times ex-columnist Lucy Kellaway. She has recently given up her job to go to work as a maths [...] The post The distressingly empty world of work appeared first on Radix.
One of the things that I don't do enough of in my life is canoeing. Which is to say that I've been perhaps once or twice. Over twenty years ago. But I absolutely loved it and have been kicking myself ... Continue reading →
Fri 8th
16:13
There is no "natural end" to the current Tory government - the Left should stop indugling in this fa...
One of the Corbynista strap lines is that we'll have a Labour government very soon as there is a "natural end" to the current Tory government. That is rubbish and here's why. First off, the Fixed Term Parliament Act changed more than people realised, at least from a constitutional perspective. It means that in extremis, a government can limp along as a zombie government, technically until the next general election if it wishes to – although in practice, I will admit this is unlikely. The political pressure would be too great to avoid if the Tories really couldn't govern at ...
In a pungent post Ian Dent describes the UK government's apparent plans to control immigration once we've left the EU as "a programme for comprehensive economic self-harm in order to satisfy the most mean-spirited elements of the national personality." That "another world is possible" is revealed in an article on the Canadian approach to immigration in the September issue of Prospect. According to the article, by a Steve Bloomfield, Canada's policy of welcoming immigrants goes back a long way. Novelist John Ralston Saul is quoted as saying that when his family first arrived in the 1840s "they were given 100 ...
Friday: People think voting systems and constitutions are "boring". But it's our unfair and antique voting system that has got us where we've got. It goes back a long long loooog way. Maybe to the 2015 election that took Liberal voices out of our politics. Or to the Coalition years where Hard Labour and Conservatory combined to scupper reform of voting and Lords. Or to the Coalition agreement when people lost their faith in the Liberal Democrats. Or to Lord Blairimort. Or even to the SDP who tried to break the mould but got broken by the voting system instead. ...
There are temporary traffic lights on the narrow bridge on Nibley Lane between Badminton Road and Westerleigh Road. Concrete barriers have been put in place where the fence has collapsed, so the road is now only one vehicle wide at that point. The fence - which had previously been damaged by vehicles crashing into it - appears to belong to Network Rail, so we have no information about how long the traffic lights will be there. Nibley Lane is a popular rush-hour cut through, so delays are likely at peak times (though it makes that blind bridge safer)
There is a Monday Lunch Club at St Nicholas Family Centre, Abbotswood, Yate aimed particularly at older members of the community every Monday, starting 11th September (excluding Bank Holidays) at 12 noon for 12.30 pm. Soup and a roll with dessert only £3.50, which can't be bad! Contact details - Tel: 01454 324712 Email: st.nicholas.abbotswood@hotmail.co.uk Website www.stnix.co.uk Also on Mondays at St Nix: Friendship Club 10.00 to 11.30 am (£3) Chair based activities and games with tea and biscuits among friends This is 4U 2.30—3.30 pm (free) Play table games, chat and make new friends St Nicholas uses Green Community ...
Following the dreadful way she was treated by Tory MPs at PMQs on Wednesday, Layla Moran has written for the Independent in some detail about the Tories' failures on free childcare which led to her question to Theresa May. She outlined the basic facts: The news that parents would get 30 hours a week of free childcare for all three and four year olds came as a relief, as it offered the chance for women to return to work, as a structured and cost-friendly option was being put on the table for them. This was an extension of policies the ...
This is, of course, a scene from North Korea. It could however, be equally a picture from Liverpool today! E-mails to councillors intercepted by staff; officers told not to answer questions from opposition councillors by leading Labour politicians; disciplinary action ... Continue reading →
(429) https://twitter.com/i/web/status/905882377658015744 Instagram photo: "Holly, I LOVE you. I REALLY love you. OMG is that ice cream? I hadn't noticed!"... [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Thu, 12:56: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the World's Oldest Continuously Run Libraries https://t.co/EJSIyBPXVV Wow. Thu, 18:42: The Shining Man, by Cavan Scott https://t.co/P5eyEIWHnd Fri, 07:51: RT @faisalislam: Full EU GDP stats just released by @EU_Eurostat - show that in Q2 as Q1, UK economy slowest growing in EU, joint with Port... Fri, 10:45: Hostile environment 2.0: Post-Brexit migration plans are all too familiarp https://t.co/OXU0Dzd1U2 Awful. Fri, 11:20: RT @MSmithsonPB: . @contradevian The Brexit devaluation is now bigger in scale than Wilson's 1967 devaluation. In international terms we ar...
'Ce n'est pas la conscience des hommes qui détermine leur être; c'est inversement leur être social qui détermine leur conscience'. Marx Roughly translated: 'you are who you are because of your life experience, not the other way round'. It may seem strange to begin an article on LDW's elections with a quotation from Marx, but it is apt and points to why LDW exists within the party. LDW next year anticipates launching its 'Decade for Women'. A decade that will seek to change how women in decision making are perceived, vastly increase the number of the party's women MPs, Council ...
Alex Cole-Hamilton was one of the MSPs calling for the rollout of Universal Credit to be halted during a debate in the Scottish Parliament today. Only the Conservatives defended the continued rollout. We know that people are having to wait up to 6 weeks for any money at all. MSPs had some real horror stories to report which you can see in the full record of the debate here. Alex's speech was very well crafted – and it was candid, too. He both acknowledged and distanced himself from the Liberal Democrat role in the coalition government's welfare reform. However, he ...
The Liberal Democrats have demanded that Theresa May "started acting like a prime minister" after open briefing broke out against rival Brexit positions in her own government, as reported on the front page of The Times. Liberal Democrat MP and former cabinet minister Alistair Carmichael said: "The prime minister cannot allow members of her government to undermine the Chancellor. She must call in the guilty parties to urgently explain themselves after they went beyond government policy by seeking to bounce the prime minister and the Chancellor into an even more extreme Brexit than the one they were planning. "That an ...
Fri 8th
09:00
Station Road Area, Yate - Waiting Restrictions Review - have your say before 15 September
South Glos Council is consulting on waiting restrictions around Station Road. All day parking is taking place in roads off Station Road by people working in local offices and commuters using Yate Railway station who do not want to pay for car parking in the station car park. South Glos say that the demand for on-street parking and associated obstructive parking is causing access and visibility difficulties for local residents. The idea is to provide waiting restrictions to deter all day and often obstructive parking in Cranleigh Court Road (shops layby), Folly Bridge Close, Longs Drive, Moorland Road, and Station ...
It is not just Anne Marie Waters amongst the UKIP leadership who are playing fast and loose with the far-right. The Guardian reports that Nigel Farage will appear at a rally held by Germany's far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) inside a renaissance fortress in Berlin on Friday. They have been told by AfD MEP Beatrix von Storch, who is hosting the event, that Farage, who represents South East England in the European Parliament, will appear at the Spandau Citadel in the west of the German capital to talk about "developments in the European Union, Brexit, direct democracy" and "how ...
Some ten years ago, at my request, the City Council provided a handrail down the east side of the pavement of Pennycook Lane - at Pennycook Court sheltered housing - given the steep gradient of the pavement there and the number of elderly pedestrians - see right : Residents recently pointed out that it would be helpful if a short extension was added to the south end of the rail to take the rail right down to the flat pavement of Perth Road. I asked the City Council if this could be provided and I am pleased to say this ...
Commenting on the leak of the EU's Brexit position papers, Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson, said: "This leak demolishes another of the Leave campaign's fantastical claims - that Brexit would have no impact on the Irish border. "As long as the Government push for a hard Brexit, no end of 'blue skies thinking' will find an innovative, frictionless solution to the border issue. "The only solution is to keep the UK in the Single Market and the Customs Union. This will ensure that prosperity and peace in Northern Ireland is maintained."
