I'm currently working on a second edition of Monkee Music, my book on the Monkees, which should be out by the end of the month. Obviously backers at $5 or higher will get their free copies, but I thought I'd ... Continue reading →
At Foxton near Market Harborough the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal descends a hillside by means of two flights of five staircase locks. The locks are currently drained for maintenance and this weekend you can visit them and walk in areas that are usually under deep water. You can, for instance, see the paddles that are raised to let water into the locks from the side pounds used at Foxton. I went today and took these photographs in the rain. I also learnt that rather being cut into the hillside, the locks were largely built on the surface ...
A hard border would be a disaster for Northern Ireland, argues Naomi Long. Chris Grey offers a new angle on the Brexit debacle: "The whole situation is beginning to resemble the plot of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, with Jack being the Brexit Ultras, the mythical Beast being the EU, Ralph being, perhaps, Theresa May, and the Conch being the Referendum result. Remainers play the role of Simon, whilst the British people have to be cast as poor old Piggy. Alas, there seems as yet to be no one to take the part of the adult who arrives to ...
A very welcome move from not-quite-still-new Liberal Democrat Chief Executive, Nick Harvey: The Liberal Democrats are seeking a superbly organised project manager to undertake initial planning, detailed development, and ultimately to manage the delivery and execution of, our overarching operational plan for the party's General Election campaign - whenever it might be called. This position is at the administrative nerve-centre of Liberal Democrat HQ, reporting directly to the Chief Executive and liaising closely with LDHQ Directors, the Chair of Campaigns and the party Leader. The successful candidate will have a proven track record in complex project management, personal experience of ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42991304 The BBC has the story on its web site – see link above Yes I know I scratched my head too! Trinity Mirror who publish Labour Party supporting newspapers like the Daily Mirror and Liverpool Echo are going to publish the Daily Express which often seems off to the Bluekip far right. Our Trump/Brexit world gets stranger by the day.
Sat 10th
16:42
Lib Dem Southport Conference, places to go for food, drink and visit for interest starting with brea...
The tide comes in at Southport surrounding the longest iron pier in Britain The Lib Dem Conference is coming to Southport in March so I thought it might be helpful to if I did a guide to our town. In later posts I will go into more detail about some of the things that should be part of any visit to the town like the British Lawnmower Museum, excellent bookshops like my favourite Broadhurst's , the best places for afternoon tea (top choice Lillibet's), pubs and breweries, restaurants, Southport shrimps ,fish and chip shops, our brilliant municipal gardens, RSPB nature ...
Those nice people at Your Liberal Britain put on Launchpad North in Sheffield today. Billed as an event for party members to share policy ideas and have campaign training, it was well attended and had some VIP visitors. Here is Vince Cable's Q & A:
Sorry for the lack of posts in the last few days — I've been working on moving my ebooks over from Smashwords to Draft2Digital, because Draft2Digital is better in every single way, both for writers and for readers (I'm going ... Continue reading →
Second paragraph of third chapter:Grooming-talk starts with greeting-talk. Weather-speak is needed in this context partly because greetings and introductions are such an awkward business for the English. The problem has become particularly acute since the decline of 'How do you do?' as the standard, all-purpose greeting. The 'How do you do?' greeting - where the correct response is not to answer the question, but to repeat it back, 'How do you do?', like an echo or a well-trained parrot13 - is still in use in upper-class and upper-middle circles, but the rest are left floundering, never knowing quite what to ...
Two years ago, former Manchester Withington Lib Dem MP was elected as a Councillor in Manchester. Since then he has valiantly provided the only opposition to the under-achieving Labour Council. Seriously, this lot are as good an argument for PR as you are ever going to find. They have a huge sense of entitlement to power and they really don't like opposition which John has been providing in generous and disproportionate amounts. John is great but it would be amazing if he could have some support in the Council chamber. Standing in the Withington ward this May are April Preston ...
The next Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Dodington Community Engagement Forum is being held at 7pm on Thursday 15 February at St Nicholas Church, Chargrove, Abbotswood, Yate BS37 4LG. The meeting will include a drop in event "Your Community Cares" at 6.30 pm before the main meeting at where you can speak to representatives from the Police, Neighbourhood Watch, Next Link (domestic abuse), DH&I (drug and alcohol service) and the Anti-Social Behaviour Team. For more information see www.southglos.gov.uk/cef
ALTER will address this question in our conference fringe at Southport next month to be held on Friday, 9th March at the Ramada Plaza, from 20:15 to 21:30 in the Promenade room. Leading the discussion will be two LVT experts and experienced Liberal Democrat campaigners – Michael Meadowcroft and Tony Vickers. All mainstream parties are now beginning to address the Land problem in the context of an ever worsening housing crisis. The Chancellor announced a raft of measures in the last budget including the Letwin review that is to be informed by a number of consultations. Among these consultations, the ...
Fri, 12:56: Belfast Central Station to be renamed "Lanyon Place" https://t.co/xPAt3TdHfA @brheading explains why it's called "Central" when it isn't. Fri, 13:27: EU issues Brexit ultimatum on Ireland https://t.co/QYAkYc3BHO Fri, 18:47: Patrick Troughton: The Biography of the Second Doctor Who, by Michael Troughton https://t.co/z1a4mJIq77 Sat, 10:01: RT @bbcdoctorwho: Many happy returns to Peter Purves, who played First Doctor companion, Steven! 🎁 #DoctorWho https://t.co/GjD8II8FK6 Sat, 10:45: Donald Trump Shouldn't Talk to the Feds. And Neither Should You. https://t.co/RREg1d1yM1 Interesting perspective from @popehat.
'Fight like a girl': Meet the female kickboxer empowering Saudi women 12 pads a month, no tampons: Is that enough for Arizona's incarcerated women? "if [menstrual] blood stained a prisoner's pants, she would be given a ticket for being out of dress code, which could result in her losing visitation rights, phone calls and the ability to purchase store items — including tampons and pads" Jesus. What a hellscape. miss_s_b | Friday Five I posted Friday Five to my dreamwidth blog (429) Instagram photo: ♡ Jennie Rigg on Instagram: "♡" Instagram photo: ♡ If you like what you see ...
This week is Children's Mental Health Awareness Week and a new Mind You website for children and young people (www.mindyou.org.uk) has been launched to promote mental health and emotional wellbeing in South Gloucestershire. It has separate sections for children, young people, parents and carers and professionals and was designed with input from local children and young people. It suggests practical ways to improve their wellbeing and guidance on where to go if they need more support.
When I was a Welsh Assembly Member my office dealt with a number of people who had been wrongly assessed for Personal Independence Payment or Employment and Support Allowance. In many cases they had gone in to assessments without understanding how the system works and had given an optimistic account of their capabilities, in others the assessor had got the wrong end of the stick or had outright lied about what s/he had been told. For those reasons my office had a 100% success rate on appeals. And it is little wonder that since 2013 there have been 170,000 PIP ...
Sat 10th
09:47
LibLink: Nick Clegg - British cross-border supply chains will be strangled by hard Brexit red tape
Embed from Getty Images Writing in the i newspaper, Nick Clegg says that any chance of Soft Brexit has been killed off by Theresa May. Instead, MPs will be faced with the choice of a hard Brexit or no Brexit. Nick Clegg hits the nail on the head when he describes how modern cross-border supply chains will be destroyed by a hard Brexit: It cannot be said enough: the Brexit this Government is determined to impose on this country cannot under any circumstances avoid the introduction of extensive new barriers, costs and frictions to trade with our largest trading partners. ...
Tom Scott was going to tell a science fiction story about faceswapping, and mass blackmail. Then the news broke about unethical faceswapping videos, and software designed and marketed for creating them: and he realised the future had arrived faster than he thought.
People who know me will realise how hard I have fought over the years to try to protect the character of the community around Maghull & Lydiate and indeed across wider Sefton Borough from what I see as inappropriate development. Building on high grade agricultural land has long been an issue with me and it's why I have opposed much of the land development that has recently been given the green light by Sefton Council. The other day I drove past the building site off Green Lane/South Meade in Maghull where houses are presently being constructed. When I was a ...
The latest Adult Learning newsletter for the city has been published - covering the winter months - and you can download it here. It is good to see the adult learning offering at the Mitchell Street Centre being publicised, something I was in touch during the autumn with council officers about promoting the great offering. I am also pleased to see the work of Harris Education and Recreation Association featured.
It's interesting how different people choose their own routine before going to bed at night. For some, it's a glass of whisky, for others reading a few pages of a novel. But for me there is one thing above all that settles me, preparing me for a good night's sleep — a good murder mystery. [...]
