Leonor Serraille's debut feature film, Jeune Femme (distributed in some territories as Montparnasse Bienvenue), won plaudits at the Cannes Film Festival and it is indeed a powerful, if not always enjoyable, piece of work. The focus is unrelentingly on Paula, the young woman of the title, 29 or 31 years old, according to her mood. Actress Laetitia Dosch [...]
A passing reference in a Londonist article on King's Cross and St Pancras sends you to the website of Wanstead United Reformed Church. And there you read its remarkable history: Our building has an almost unique history. Built in the parish of St Pancras and known as St Luke's, it was consecrated in May 1861. Only two years later the old Midland Railway wanted to extend its line into London and needed the site of St Luke's for a terminus station - it was the only site available. In Wanstead, a group of Congregationalists wanted to build a church for ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: It wasn't the buildings' fault. The narrowness of the ways between them, mere corridors, was what annoyed. So obviously outmoded. No room for machinery of any sort. Here was Victoria Street, a modern thoroughfare at last. Four lanes for carriages, business facades well set back but of more or less uniform height, meaning electric tramlines could easily be strung overhead between them. Striding rapidly along, an unconscious smile of contentment lurking behind his beard, Jackie saw only enough of his surroundings to avoid crashing into obstacles. He was lost, though continuing automatically on his course ...
What to make of Anthony Newley? The young Tony Robinson wasn't sure, and he played his son on the West End stage: I was awestruck by Tony Newley; he was intense, anguished, and seemed completely detached from the rest of the world. He never spoke to me - that was part of his mystery - but I watched him obsessively from the wings ... Every night I mimicked his words, and gazed agonisingly into the spotlight pulling a heartbroken face, just like he did. Today, when Newley is something of a forgotten figure, it is hard for any of us ...
Reply to this post with "Oh, sod it, go on then" and I will pick three of your icons for you to talk about in your own journal; please then keep the meme going by making this offer on your post. [IMG: [personal profile] ] wolfpurplemoon asked me about: [IMG: [community profile] ] dreamsheep for many, many more. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
We need to talk about tax. The IMF's annual report on the UK economy recommends that taxes should be raised, in order to reduce the deficit further without cutting public investment and services. Philip Hammond, it is reported, would like to do so; but he is opposed by the ideological (and Eurosceptic) right of his own party, and by the influential group of free market think tanks who were cheerleaders for the Brexit campaign. The Taxpayers Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs have repeatedly argued that it's impossible to raise more than 35% of GDP in tax, and that ...
In case you missed it buried in the news elsewhere, two senior posts have just been filled by the Liberal Democrats: Sam Barratt, formerly the party's Head of Strategic Communications, has been promoted to Director of Communications, taking over from Phil Reilly. Milton Keynes may feature less frequently in Lib Dem speeches now. Fiona Cookson has joined Vince Cable's team as Chief of Staff, taking over from Sarah Olney. She was Vince Cable's press secretary during the coalition government and more recently Director of External Affairs at the British Film Institute. Best of luck Sam and Fiona.
I like many things about LinkedIn, but I do not like its content feed. The content is generally great - for professional reading, it's the best source for me - but organising it as you want, let alone tracking your own impact, is fiendishly difficult. This consequently deters me from posting on LinkedIn as much as I otherwise might; I don't have useful metrics for how effective I am being, let alone how I might be more so. The only consistent measures are likes and comments, and this video on the triggering of Article 50 filmed at work got 40 ...
I love Instagram - it's the only network I'm on where the default behaviour is to be kind. Add me - I'm @nwbrux there as I am on Twitter - and I'll probably add you, if I haven't already. This was my most liked picture of the year, taken by Jo Honigmann in 1993, posted by me 24 years later to the day, with 114 likes. This was the most liked photograph actually taken by me this year, on a visit to Strasbourg in May - one of those moments when you just come around the corner and a lovely ...
I used to be able to get statistics for my most successful Tweets from Crowdbooster, but unfortunately it closed down this year. However, Twitter's own metrics are pretty fascinating, giving you a dozen different ways of measuring impact. So here, in chronological order, are my most successful tweets by different measures this year. Back in January, an election was unexpectedly called for the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I started preparing. This tweet got the most URL clicks of the year (872), and also earned me the most new followers (4): Northern Ireland Elections Website has been updated https://t.co/sG5RtreFgt — Nicholas ...
Working out which are your top Facebook posts is pretty tricky - required massive cutting and pasting, and then some number crunching, and even then I'm not sure of the results. However there is no doubt which of my 2017 Facebook posts got the most likes and the most comments, posted just after I got into work on April 26: The second most liked post was a video from about a month later (video below, post is here): I'm trying to get Facebook to reveal how many comments each post gets, but it seems to get shy after a certain ...
The post A farewell to 2017: January to June appeared first on ten pence piece.
The Queen has in her Christmas speech welcomed new members into the royal family in 2018. Prince Harry will soon have a mother-in-law who is African American and the young couple's future children will be of mixed race heritage. The society pages lap up the fairy-tale love story and we all cheer ourselves on how liberal we have become as a nation. Vogue Magazine has a new editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, and we can't help but notice the change in the complexion of many of the supermodels that grace the glossy pages. Sir Mo Farrah has not only been knighted but ...
April Gillian Mawson's guest post on World War II evacuees proved very popular. "If they were setting out to lend support to the idea that European cause was a cause for metropolitan types who laugh at the rest of us while eating their artisan quinoa, they could not have made a better job of it." No, I did not like the New European article on Skegness. Sir Edward Garnier, who turned out to be the retiring MP for Harborough, was a Remainer. His successor won't even tell us how he voted in the referendum. I was quoted in the Bath ...
Local Party Organisers have a hard balancing act to maintain: running seemingly every aspect of election campaigns in their local area whilst also overseeing the long-term development of the local party. It's no wonder sometimes it can seem like an impossible task! In preparing to recruit for a new Local Party Organiser (LPO) for North Norfolk and Great Yarmouth Liberal Democrats, I tried to think from scratch about the sorts of skills we were looking for. One of the first things we concluded was that we couldn't expect to find everything in one person. So, having returned an executive with ...
Between them, these two accounts provide an excellent regular flow of messages to enjoy and to share to help promote the Liberal Democrats and our policy on Europe. First up, former Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Green. He's remarkably indefatigable at finding new Liberal Democrat party members on Twitter and welcoming them. So why not follow Matthew too and join in welcoming new members too? It's a really simple but effective way to make the party stronger and larger. Second, the brilliant Remainer Now, which shares stories from Leave voters who now want Britain to stay in the EU. So again, ...
The consultation on boundaries for the new Parliamentary constituencies came to an end earlier this month. The previous proposals would have taken a wrecking ball to Gateshead and the borough would have been split between 6 (or was it 7? - I have lost count) constituencies. The new proposals create a Gateshead West constituency (covering the old town of Gateshead, Whickham and Birtley), a revised
I am intrigued by this article in yesterday's Guardian which records that about 1,000 files have gone missing from the National Archives after being removed by civil servants. Officially, the archives describe them as "misplaced while on loan to a government department". The paper says that the files, each containing dozens of pages, cover subjects such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the British colonial administration in Palestine, tests on polio vaccines and territorial disputes between the UK and Argentina. They add that it is unclear whether duplicates exist: The loss of so many documents of such significance has understandably ...
Wed, 16:07: Alphabets survey https://t.co/CkuwhSONOs Wed, 20:48: My Internet Mea Culpa https://t.co/a7zDgcZhqI "I was wrong. We all were." Thu, 08:17: RT @bbcdoctorwho: Doctor Who returns in the Fall... (also known as Autumn) #DoctorWho https://t.co/8PkI6SJUyI Thu, 10:45: A History Of The Silmarils In The Fifth Age https://t.co/6FzkkjH5ap Brilliant. Tolkien meets Pulp Fiction. And Santa Claus.
I read Insidious Intent (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #10) by Val McDermid - here's my review on GoodreadsActually a review this time, albeit only one sentence. Monopoly: How the Original Game Was Made to Condemn Monopolies & the Abuses of Capitalism weekly_food_challenge | Challenge #26: Festive LeftoversThis week's challenge is go! Scientists have found a drug that can repair cavities and regrow teethWhy you should give money directly and unconditionally to homeless peoplemiss_s_b | A thing that Christmas Day's Doctor Who reminded me of (now updated with an Interesting Link from [IMG: [personal profile] ] andrewducker - contains some ...
Nothing political, historical or digital really about this video clip. Just lots of awesomeness courtesy of Alan McSmith.
Merseyrail Class 508 EMU at Maghull Station In case you did not know:- Northern Line: From Wednesday 27 December 2017 to Sunday 7 January 2018 rail replacement buses will run between Ormskirk and Maghull stations due to preparation works for the new Maghull North station. Passengers are advised that to reach their destination station at their normal time, they will need to catch the rail replacement bus at their origin station 20 minutes earlier than their usual train. Above from Merseytravel's publicity With thanks to John Dodd for the lead to this posting
[IMG: Borderlands and Crossroads] "The maternal body is a primal landscape, a space of belonging whose influence reverberates throughout a lifetime, regardless of where our wanderings take us". 'Borderlands and Crossroads' is one of the most magnificent books that... The post Borderlands and Crossroads appeared first on FeministMama @ambitiousmamas.
The Guardian has the story on its web site – see link above Frankly I'm not surprised by this poll, Labour's positioning on this most crucial of matters is not one that a supposedly progressive party should be taking and their more enlightened supporters know it. I know many decent Labour Party members who are keeping their heads down hoping that JC/Momentum will come to their senses on stop backing Teresa May's mad Brexit. I also appreciate that within the Labour Party loyalty to the party is absolute so that's why few will challenge the ruling JC/Momentum sect's view ...
The present Merseyrail rolling stock (Class 507/8 EMU's) at Southport Station. The Liverpool Echo has the story on its web site – see link above Now don't get my daughter Jen started on Merseyrail, despite its published performance figures being good she, like Alison McGovern MP, remains unimpressed and that's putting it politely. The Public Performance Measure (PPM) is clearly a big factor in how Merseyrail and indeed other rail franchise operators run their trains. Fines lurk in this process too so none of the companies want to have them imposed on them. But the big question here is ...
With the coming change to the smaller black bins, many local residents are worried about disposing of children's nappies and incontinence waste. Most household waste can be recycled, but if you have a young child or children in disposable nappies, the black bin can fill up quickly. To help families to manage nappy waste South Glos provide a nappy bag collection service. The one-use purple bags can be put out next to your black bin on collection day, leaving more space for normal non-recyclable household waste inside the bin. Visit www.southglos.gov.uk/nappies for more information. Bags left next to the bin ...
As the mother of three girls, I am constantly aware of the sexism they face. It is endemic in society. Last week, having tea with the family, my 12-year-old daughter asks for another drink, and the waiter says, 'Right away, young man.' It happens to her constantly - she has a very short haircut, but that's all. On holiday in San Francisco last year, the same child was allowed to (dangerously) hold on to the bars of a streetcar, half hanging out the door, having the time of her life, with the staff encouraging her, "That's right, boy!". If they ...
Our task in 2018 is to give back to Liverpool the hope and confidence it had in Capital of Culture year 2008 10 years ago, our City was preparing to launch the 2008 European Capital of Culture year. Few knew ... Continue reading →
The cold snap delivered snow up to 20cm deep in South Shropshire towns, deeper in many rural areas. Schools closed. Parents took time off work. Kids skidded and sledded around. On Gallows Bank, children had great fun and it was free. Let it snow, let it snow... There is another side to this. Snow, and the ice that follows it, traps vulnerable and older people in their homes. Buses can't access many side roads. Many of the pavements in Ludlow were lethal on Wednesday and Thursday after packed snow partially thawed and refroze. Shropshire Council's gritting crews worked themselves into ...
Ahead of the UK - Poland summit in Warsaw tomorrow, the Liberal Democrats have called on Theresa May to support the EU's efforts to reinstate the rule of law and liberal democracy in Poland. David Cameron capitulated to demands by his own backbench Eurosceptic Conservative MPs to leave the mainstream EPP European grouping in 2009 and form a new right wing European parliamentary grouping with the Polish PiS party, which is now responsible for undermining democratic and judicial institutions in Poland. Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Tom Brake said: "It was a massive mistake for the Tories to get into bed ...
Commenting on reports that Liam Fox has struck a secrecy deal with the US over Brexit trade talks, Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson, said: "It is vitally important that the public are kept informed of what is being agreed between the UK and the most powerful country in the world. With a protectionist Donald Trump at the helm, this could be the biggest and worstest deal ever. "We must know if our environmental standards are being flogged off, our food standards are going to hold up, or our public services are being sold to the highest bidder. "The British ...
Responding to the news that Jeremy Corbyn has strictly ruled out giving the public a say on the final Brexit deal, Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson, said: "The Labour leadership have constantly played a game of smoke and mirrors over their Brexit position. But here they are nailing their colours to the mast in support of hard Brexit. "The party of opposition have again shirked their responsibility to oppose Theresa May's government. "The public need to be given a say on the final Brexit deal. With Labour and the Tories marching together over the cliff, the people must be ...
