There are great hopes that the railway line between Cambridge and Bedford will be reopened as part of the East West Rail project. This film shows the line in 1967. We follow a train from Cambridge to the old Bedford St Johns station. Missing out the stretch to Bletchley, which remains open to passengers, we then see a few shots of the train reaching Oxford. That stretch of the line remains open to freight. This line was not recommended for closure by Beeching and had recently received investment in the form of a flyover across the King's Cross main line ...
Another set of interesting links for you all... The Lib Dems are, for once, doing something to oppose Brexit *other* than call for a second referendum. They're supporting an amendment to ensure that the "meaningful vote" of Parliament on the ... Continue reading →
The sacked health minister Philip Dunne was booed and heckled at a local meeting recently, for hiding behind his ministerial role as a pretext for abandoning constituents (of whom I'm one) to the ravages of NHS cuts. His callous comments on Monday, undermining the NHS beds crisis by suggesting sick patients can sit on seats in A&E, came as no surprise to me."Let them eat cake" was an old joke in 1789 and history has unfairly attached it to the traduced Marie Antoinette. But Philip Dunne really did say that. The paragraph above comes from a powerful Guardian article by ...
Sat 13th
21:00
Brian Paddick writes...We need to reassure people that Liberal Democrats remain the most accepting o...
I write as a gay Christian about the tightrope between freedom of speech and religion and prejudice and discrimination. One of the fundamental principles of Liberalism is to allow people to do as they wish provided it does not harm other people. When it comes to religion, what appears to be a simple enough principle becomes complicated. Many religions, including Christianity, require its followers to proclaim "the good news" of their particular religion to non-believers. There are interpretations of many religions that say intimacy between same sex couples is wrong, indeed that any sex outside of a marriage between a ...
Last year I read an account of the Straw Bear Festival in Whittlesey that described the bear as seeming to draw the winter sun along behind him. I had to see that for myself. But there was no sun today - just a damp, Fenland cold that enters the bones. I shouldn't be surprised if I have caught the ague. Yet I am pleased I went to Whittlesey (the festival website prefers the older spelling Whittlesea), which is a small town near Peterborough. I saw the straw bear dance and caper, led by his keeper and followed by musicians playing ...
Every winter we see the same headlines about patients waiting long hours to be seen, sometimes kept on trolleys in corridors or in ambulances backed up outside A&E. All governments, Labour, Coalition and Conservative respond by saying that they have already allocated more money and planning for winter pressures is better than before. But this [...]
A bit over a year ago I blogged about my experiences with Duolingo, the language-learning app. At that point I had been trying it only with Irish and Dutch; the system gives you sentences to translate and other exercises, some of which are rather amusing. Dutch The Dutch course in particular displays a bit of a fixation. It would occasionally also lapse into conteporary post-Brexit politics: And tautology: And surrealism. Though on Valentine's Day, it was a bit more relevant. Irish Meanwhile on the day of the Assembly election in March, the Irish course, whether by accident or design, had ...
For today's #subsat text-based feed I'm going to recommend The Overtake: https://theovertake.com/feed/ ( [IMG: [syndicated profile] ] the_overtake_feed on DW) It's a news site based in Yorkshire, but it doesn't really follow the news cycle or race to cover things other outlets have covered, it does proper investigative journalism and thoughtful, thought-provoking pieces. I wouldn't say it's the only source of news you need, but I would say it's an essential part of my news matrix For the podcast, Clarkesworld, in which Kate Baker reads sci-fi and/or fantasy http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/?feed=rss2 I tend to find that most podcasts I try don't get ...
Just a brief one here, but... I'm not going to be nominating much for the Hugos this year, as I only read about sixty books or so last year, not enough to make a proper judgment. I'll probably stick in ... Continue reading →
Buckets of caveats and lorry loads of caution should be applied to the results of individual polls. But there's a little clump of positive news for pro-European Liberal Democrats which might add up to something more substantive as 2018 progresses.
You may well wonder what on earth a headline featuring Nigel Farage, David Bowie and singing is all about. But just watch through until 1 minute 6 seconds and you will see what I mean.
[IMG: Trump mistakes American Embassy for a retail store] My late father, bless his soul, would have a cutting remark to describe people he didn't like. 'Shop people' he called them when I was growing up in Asia. This snobbery and prejudice was... The post Trump mistakes American Embassy for a retail store appeared first on FeministMama @ambitiousmamas.
Sat 13th
11:07
Credit where credit's due: an under-appreciated reason why Britain voted for Brexit - and a possible...
This morning, Theresa May tweeted this. She must have got up pretty early on a Saturday morning to make that nice infographic. Who'd be prime minister, eh? From today we're banning hidden charges for paying with your credit or debit card – a move that will help millions of people avoid rip-off fees when spending ... Continue reading Credit where credit's due: an under-appreciated reason why Britain voted for Brexit – and a possible solution
Fri, 12:56: The 5 Most Impressive Questions to Ask an Interviewer https://t.co/3QYEGr4OEF Briliant advice. Nobody ever asks me these questions. Fri, 15:38: RT @apcoworldwide: The revised #EU Directive on Payments goes live tomorrow. Our @AnnalauraGallo explains that questions remain: https://t.... Fri, 16:05: GRANDPA: Oh, the world's not so crazy, Mr Kolenkhov. Just the people *in* it. Life's pretty simple if you just rela... https://t.co/sUjyqO3OCe Fri, 16:30: RT @APCOBXLInsider: The revised #EU Directive on #Payments goes live tomorrow. Our @AnnalauraGallo discusses the questions that remain. #PS... Fri, 18:14: Who Killed Kennedy, by James Stevens and David Bishop https://t.co/zBc6dNH8rN Fri, 19:12: RT ...
There are some who would suggest that his contribution and that of his party to the European Parliament does not justify the full £101,808 a year salary, but Nigel Farage and his fellow UKIP-refuseniks have been elected and they are accountable to their electorate not the likes of me and other pro-Europeans. However, as the Guardian reports, Farage has finally got his comeuppance after a European parliament investigation alleged he had misspent public funds intended for staffing his office. As a result, he has been docked half his monthly salary. The paper says that the former UKIP leader, who recently ...
Sat 13th
09:20
Lydiate – The long haul to try to address sporting deficiencies at Sandy Lane Playing Field
The Clerk of Lydiate Parish Council, her staff and I met with a representative of Liverpool County FA on 11th January to try to move forward the process of identifying how the Parish Council can upgrade facilities at this playing field. I have mentioned before the poor state of the tennis courts and the need for them to be brought up to the standard of a Multi Use Games Area (MUGA). My previous postings refer and within the one below is a report on the matter from the November '17 Parish Council meeting:- The meeting on the 11th was ...
Since the start of the year there have been 5 by-elections, with 5 more to come in the rest of January. It's been a quieter start to the year after some stunning gains at the end of 2017, so hopefully we'll begin to build up some momentum in the run-up to May in short time. Hertsmere BC, Borehamwood Cowley - 4th January 2018 – Labour gain from Conservative Lab 709 [59.8%; +3.4%] Con 381 [32.2%; -11.5%] UKIP 57 [4.8%; +4.8%] LD Paul Robinson 20 [1.7%; +1.7%] Green 18 [1.5%; +1.5%] Starting off with last week, a big thank you to ...
West Port :
Ukip's former leader and MEP Nigel Farage is being fined half of his monthly salary from the European Parliament after auditors concluded that European funds had been misused: The former Ukip leader ... will lose €40,000 (£35,500) in total, the Guardian has learned, after European parliament auditors concluded he had misspent that amount of EU funds. Financial controllers have been investigating the role of Christopher Adams, who was hired by Farage to work in the European parliament as his assistant. Auditors suspended Adams' contract last year, because they were not convinced he was working for Farage on European parliamentary matters. ...
