This rudimentary Marstons ghost sign - and there is an older ghost behind it if you look carefully - can be found in Anstey. Not only is the building behind it no longer a shop, it is now derelict as a private house. Across the road is a modern housing development. I suspect this is on the site of a factory that once provided its customers.
I attended the AGM of Gateshead Lib Dems tonight. I gave my reports as group leader and as media officer. But part way through the meeting, the news of Michael Fallon's resignation as Defense Secretary broke. Back home I watched the coverage on Sky News. Jon Craig reported that most MPs believe there is more to come out. At some point we are going to move on from this badly written political soap
... includes a litter pick in South Tay Street on 24th November :
Embed from Getty Images Michael Fallon has resigned as defence secretary. As far as one can tell, it is because he fears further allegations of sexual impropriety will surface. But that is not what he said in his resignation statement: "I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standards that we require of the Armed Forces that I have the honour to represent."That is nonsense and for two reasons. First, we are not a Central American republic. The defence minister is not a member of the Armed Forces bound by their code: he or she is ...
I still remember the day 18 years ago when I brought my newly born daughter back home from the hospital. She was lying in her wicker basket placed on the floor beside my bed. It was a Friday. I would have been coming home from work and planning an exciting weekend. The sense of loss and fear over a life that was gone and the prospect of a future caring for this defenceless tiny human was overwhelming. It seemed like a pivotal moment in my mother landscape, a break between my past as a non-mother and my future as a ...
'Suitcase' is authored by Nicole Cooley, a professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College—City University of New York. "Suitcase" documents Nicole's experience as the mother of a new baby living in NYC right after 9/11. In those first weeks and months after the attacks, when no one had a language for what had happened, citizens were told to buy gas masks, store antibiotics, save emergency supplies, avoid crowds, not fly on planes. According to Nicole the advice was "dizzying". She describes how she could smell the burning from ...
Incredible how technology changes so quickly. I remember setting up this WordPress blog eight years ago thinking how cutting-edge the platform was. And now blogging (for politics at least) feels so last year. Of course it is important to retain the time and space in life to have reflections that are longer than 140 characters! [...]
Wed 1st
19:45
Connect: 8 things Lib Dem activists should know about the Connect electoral database program
5. Don't share your Lib Dem Connect login. Your Connect login is just for you to use, and what is done with it gets logged and recorded.
As a follow-up to my last post, here's a cine film taken by my father of a family visit to Riber Zoo on 30th August 1969. The castle building appears to be in a state of complete ruin – very different to how it appears now. By today's standards, the zoo seems rather too cramped for the animals. The safety ... The post Cine film of Riber Castle and Zoo, August 1969 appeared first on ten pence piece.
[IMG: Shingle on Sandgate Sea Wall / Esplanade / walkway] Shingle on Sandgate walkway [archive photo from Jan 2016] A number of local residents have mentioned that since Storm Brian, the stretch of the Sandgate beach path from Varne Court to the junction with the Riviera (and the stretch by Coastguard cottages where the path meets Sandgate Explanade) is covered with shingle, making it hazardous for walkers and cyclists. Clearly Shepway Council would have had other things to clear up immediately after the storm, so I left it a few days (until 26 October) before asking for the clearance of ...
This post first appeared on the Radix website. We had what my youngest son used to call an 'insect day' at my eldest son's school on Monday, so we spent the afternoon watching The Death of Stalin, the new Armando Iannucci film. It is rather fabulous, with a extraordinary performances by the main cast as Khruschev, Beria, Molotov and the rest of the gang. The film could equally have carried the title 'The Death of Beria', who is played magnificently by Simon Russell Beale. I found myself haunted by the experience, by its black humour and what Hannah Arendt called ...
We had what my youngest son used to call an 'insect day' at my eldest son's school on Monday, so we spent the afternoon watching The Death of Stalin, the new Armando Iannucci film. It is rather fabulous, with a extraordinary performances by the main cast as Khruschev, Beria, Molotov and the rest of the [...] The post Why the Death of Stalin feels worryingly familiar appeared first on Radix.
[IMG: Planning notices, sllotape and cable ties removed from Sandgate High Street streetlights / lamp posts] [IMG: Old planning notices on lamp post / street light] If a person, or a business, walked down a Shepway street and attached signs to streetlamps and other posts on a regular basis, and didn't take them away again soon afterwards, they could well be prosecuted for flyposting. When Shepway District Council have notices put up near to developments requiring planning permission, they are attached to streetlamps and other posts, and are rarely removed after the notice period expires. They are left to rot, ...
I broke my sequence of films that won the Oscar for Best Picture to leap forward to 1951 and an old favourite. An American in Paris beat four other films - Decision Before Dawn, A Place in the Sun, Quo Vadis and A Streetcar Named Desire; I must admit that Quo Vadis is the only other one that I was really aware of. IMDB rates the Disney Alice in Wonderland as the top film of 1951, with A Streetcar Named Desire second and An American in Paris eighth. I think the only films from that year that I have seen ...
Kingsgate Park in Yate has been nominated as Fields in Trust's UK's Best Park, and it's now up to the public to vote! Voting is open until this Friday, 3rd November. Please vote here: www.fieldsintrust.org/bestpark/southwest Thank you to Yate Town Council and Friends of Kingsgate Park for keeping our park tidy, vibrant and a key asset that's enjoyed by all the community.
Wed 1st
12:13
This is what my problem with the government spending half a billion preparing for Brexit is
On Twitter this morning, I mentioned that I had a problem with the government spending half a billion pounds (which is what Davis revealed yesterday in terms of what the government is planning to spend in preparation for Brexit) on a procedure that was supposed to give us £350 million a week back. I got some responses from Brexiteers along the lines of "shame your maths are so poor". Their point was that half a billion quid isn't much to spend in order to save circa 18 billion a year. Here is my retort to this line of thinking. My ...
Published in LibDemVoice 1st Nov 2017 I have been struggling for a while to work out Theresa May's mentality. I have read, as we all have, something of her origins - the vicar's daughter who ran through a field of wheat. I am aware of her time at the Home Office where she adopted regressive policies in a pusillanimously oppressive way. I am aware of her stance on the referendum - I find it interesting now that people describe her as a remainer, when it seems to me that the most important thing about her stance at the time was ...
I have been struggling for a while to work out Theresa May's mentality. I have read, as we all have, something of her origins - the vicar's daughter who ran through a field of wheat. I am aware of her time at the Home Office where she adopted regressive policies in a pusillanimously oppressive way. I am aware of her stance on the referendum - I find it interesting now that people describe her as a remainer, when it seems to me that the most important thing about her stance at the time was its invisibility. Then a single word ...
Tue, 12:00: RT @faisalislam: DEXEU finally releases the list of 58 industry sectors for which it has done unpublished Brexit impact studies: https://t.... Tue, 12:56: Did you know that the only people who refer to their customers as "users" are drug dealers and technologists https://t.co/7DdlvOU8XD True. Tue, 16:05: RT @GucciTurtIe: twitter, facebook, tumblr, instagram, and linkedin https://t.co/MaVrPOeDYQ Tue, 18:34: The Queen of Etruria and Pope Pius VII https://t.co/7C2jgXgKxV Tue, 20:48: 'I don't appear to be living in the same Britain as much of the rest of the country' https://t.co/cqHBZWi7xF Robert Peston to his father. Tue, 20:59: RT @JenniferMerode: Puigdemont says ...
ALDC are currently hiring for a new Fundraising and Sponsorship Officer, a Full-time role, based in Manchester. SO1-SO2 (£25,951 to £30,153) This is an exciting opportunity to work with the leading campaigning organisation within the Liberal Democrats. We are looking for someone who can help us deliver on our ambitious plans to grow our organisation through increasing our income from fundraising, sponsorship, grants and commercial activities. We are looking for someone who has experience of working in these areas who can bring their own ideas to help us grow our income. A Job Description and a Person Specification are included ...
Instagram photo: Daughter and I are ready for Halloween Instagram photo: Daughter is a mad scientist and I am her creation Instagram photo: It's so exciting here that the dead are rising Instagram photo: We've got a fog machine and everything the History of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch 50 years old! happy birthday, sketch I know backwards :) Halloween Pups I don't usually link to Twitter Moments, but the We Rate Dogs Halloween Special is just so glorious. Lookit the adorable beasties in their costumes!!! Vulnerable women 'still locked up in Yarl's Wood immigration centre' Why the hell we haven't ...
Look, you guys, I get it. Changing the clocks is a faff, and you would all like to stay on BST all year round because you like lighter evenings, and all that other crap that clock change fetishists come out with. I think you're mad, because darkness is lovely, but I understand where you are coming from. Here's an idea for you. If you want to bugger about with the hours you go to work and/or school, campaign for standard work and/or school hours to change. Campaign for there to be summer hours and winter hours, if you like. But ...
For five nights from 6th November, Nibley Lane between Badminton Road and Westerleigh Road will be closed between 9.00 pm and 6.30 am for roadworks.
Optimism amongst small and medium-sized manufacturing firms has fallen for the first time in over a year, according to the CBI's latest quarterly survey published today. Vince Cable, unsurprisingly, talked about the need for that exit from brexit referendum. Small businesses in the manufacturing sector appear to be losing faith in the Government's ability to negotiate a Brexit deal that serves their interests. Lacking anything resembling a strategy, the Conservatives' willingness to entertain the foolishness of no deal is killing business confidence by the day. The promise that a weaker pound would boost manufacturing exports has largely failed to materialise; ...
A committee set up in December last year by the Speaker of the Lords, Norman Fowler to look into the reform of the second chamber has reported and it is the usual fudge and half-measures that will do nothing to enhance our democracy. The Guardian tells us that the committee has concluded that the House of Lords should be reduced in size by a quarter to no more than 600 members, with new peers limited to 15-year terms. The Lords has more than 700 members, excluding bishops, making it the world's second largest legislative body after China's People's Congress. And ...
The acquisition by Dundee City Council of the Miller's Wynd Car Park - from the University of Dundee - has provided much-needed additional free 2 hour parking in this area of Perth Road. However, residents have pointed out the poor maintenance of the car park - the foliage is very tired, for example - see below :I contacted the City Council about this and the Head of Roads and Transportation has advised : "We will ensure it is clean and tidy in terms of litter and dumped materials such as the pallets. However we will need to speak with colleagues ...
Shropshire Council has published its draft plans for development in Shropshire up to 2036. This is an old-fashioned plan based on hopes and dreams rather than the realities of being a rural county. It looks north to an HS2 hub at Crewe, hoping to spill development associated with that railway junction into Shropshire. It looks east to Wolverhampton. It is desperate to extend the West Midlands conurbation beyond Telford across the green belt into the fields that make our county so attractive. This draft planning policy is far too dependent on what happens outside the county. It will live or ...
The generally widening gap between the rich and the poor (the haves and the have nothings) in the UK has been a worrying issue for many years now, but just take a moment to read the document accessible via the link below from the Institute for Fiscal Studies:- www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9539 I think you'll agree that this is a matter which is deeply worrying and one that is seemingly out of control; its a gulf between the richest and poorest in our society not a gap. And no amount of comforting ourselves by be being mid-range in the international comparators of such ...
To reinvigorate our economy and end the productivity crisis, our industrial strategy needs direction - and a rethink on the role science and technology can play For a long time, industrial strategy was something that belonged in the 1970s, along with British Leyland and cars with square steering wheels. But after the decade of stagnation that followed the 2007 financial crisis, the idea that our economy might need some strategic direction no longer seems far-fetched. Later this month, the government is expected to publish its industrial strategy white paper. Ahead of that, the Industrial Strategy Commission - an independent initiative ...
Non-fiction: 6 (YTD 44) What Made Now In Northern Ireland, ed. Maurna Crozier 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies (not finished) (tempted to put this in the fiction category) Memoir of the Queen of Etruria, Written by Herself / an Authentic Narrative of the Seizure and Removal of Pope Pius VII, with Genuine Memoirs of His Journey Written by One of His Attendants An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU27, by Michael Emerson, Matthias Busse, Mattia Di Salvo, Daniel Gros, and Jacques Pelkmans Running Through Corridors ...
Following a National Audit Office report on the cannibalisation of Royal Navy ships, Liberal Democrat Defence spokesperson Ming Campbell demanded assurances that this would not put Britain's nuclear deterrent at risk. Ming Campbell said: "That the cannibalisation of ships and submarines has increased by half in the last five years is alarming. "The defence budget is coming apart at the seams with even the future of the Royal Navy at stake and necessary naval vessels such as HMS Bulwark reportedly being offered for sale. "We need to be assured that cannibalisation is not undermining the effectiveness and credibility of the ...
