One for the teenagers here as two television science fiction icons meet in a 1964 episode of The Third Man. First we see Jonathan Harris who a year later began to play Dr Smith in Lost in Space. He and his rather camp enmity with the ship's robot were the high point of the show. The two of them were certainly more interesting than the terminally dull Robinson family (even if one of them had been in The Sound of Music). Then we find that the man Harry Lime has sent him to meet is played by Roger Delgado, the ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The Shropshire Star has an article on the Longmynd Adventure Camp, which is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its foundation this year: The young lads from underprivileged backgrounds in Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and the Black Country, had never seen anything like it. Plonked in tents in the shadow of the Long Mynd, they washed in a brook, sang round a camp fire, roamed the countryside, played games, and generally enjoyed the fresh air.I blogged about the camp back in 2010, when I exclaimed over how remarkable it was to find such an establishment just down the lane from the real-life models ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

It's fair to say that Tim Farron's reputation amongst Liberal Democrats, and liberals more widely, took a bit of a battering during the 2017 general election. There were some moments, though...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Second paragraph of third chapter: But expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack. Apart from the sampler submitted as part of this year's Hugo packet, I think the only works by Sanderson that I had previously read were his Hugo-winning novella The Emperor's Soul, which I voted for back in the day, and his Hugo-finalist novella Perfect State, which I didn't vote for. His various overlapping series caused me a lot of head-scratching last year as Hugo administrator; judging by ownership on LibraryThing and Goodreads, which may of course reflect ...

With next Monday ( 27th August ) being a bank holiday, bin collections are put back a day So if your usual collection day is Tuesday, next week it'll be Wednesday etc Next week is a "Green Bin Week" ( ie not recyclable waste) , and there are no "Brown Bin" ( ie garden waste ) collections

Posted by Alisdair Gibbs-Barton on Alisdair Gibbs-Barton

From September 2018 Yate Secondary Academy and Woodlands Primary School will be operating as two individual schools, and each school will have its own local governing body - and they are looking for people to become school governors. Here is their description of the role: "Yate and Woodlands are happy, energetic, welcoming and inclusive schools; Woodlands has a nursery and Yate has a thriving sixth form, and there is a Hearing Impaired Resource Base for students from 3 to 19. Having joined the Greenshaw Learning Trust in September 2017 as an all-through school, rapid improvements in behaviour and the quality ...

Posted by Paul Hulbert on Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington

The most popular post on my Liberal Democrat Newswire Facebook page this week, judged by its reach, was this welcome news about the Home Office u-turning in the face of campaigning over an absurd ruling,

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Every year, the Liberal Democrats turn to the Young Liberals to launch and run one of the party's biggest recruitment events - the Freshers campaign. In this campaign, Young Liberals (formerly Liberal Youth) across the country will descend upon their Students Unions to attend Freshers Fairs and recruit new young and student members. Our largest branches enjoyed hundreds signing up for mailing last year. Local parties are often well-placed to help Young Liberals in this campaign, and certainly well placed to benefit. Parties with strong student societies will tell you that the Young Liberals can be invaluable come election time ...

Posted by Charlie Murphy on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sun 19th
12:45

My Hustings Speech

So, the PPC selection for Bristol South was yesterday and... I beat RON. The hard work starts now! This was the script of my speech. I'm afraid nerves and some technical difficulties with the iPad's teleprompter app means it reads better than it was in delivery. Firstly, thanks to all for coming: I'm sure there's lots of other things you could be doing, even on a dreich Saturday afternoon like this one. Well, the script says dreich, but it looks like it may have improved out there. An especial welcome if you're here from Bristol South. Thanks for your support ...

Posted by Andrew Brown on the widow's world

There's a good article by James Ball and James Greenway in the Spectator this week. They write: Any time we see a politician fail, or an idiotic policy collapse as it passes through parliament - which these days seems like a regular occurrence - we are left with a familiar feeling. That this screw-up is the result of a chancer at work. Someone who has, at the very best, a shallow understanding of the country they're trying to govern. Someone who knew how to come up with a headline-grabbing idea, and how to make it sound convincing and radical - ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
YouGov

Faisal Rana, a Labour councillor in Rochdale, has been cautioned by the police after admitting voting twice in May's elections for the location council. Cllr Rana has properties in two different wards and joined the electoral register at both addresses. The wards are in different Parliamentary constituencies but both within Rochdale council. Faisal Rana cast votes in both wards at the Rochdale council elections earlier this year. It is legal to be registered in more than one place, such as students who can register both at home and at university if they have gone away for university. But it is ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Merseybeat Nostalgia remembers: The Bluegenes as they where known in the early years, formed in 1957 and, like most Liverpool groups, started out playing skiffle. They progressed from playing dance halls and church halls to the Cavern Club combining skiffle with trad-jazz. In 1961, Cavern DJ BobWooler, compiled a Top 10 list of the best Liverpool groups, he placed The Beatles at No.1 but beneath his list he added 'excluding the Bluegenes, they are beyond comparison, in a class of their own'.Today the Swingng Blue Jeans are mostly remembered for their two big British hits: Hippy Hippy Shake from 1963 ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
Sun 19th
11:00

My tweets

Sat, 12:56: This is very entertaining, but I think it is too good to be true! https://t.co/V7WNcsr126 Sat, 16:05: RT @StuartHumphryes: Beautiful, evocative and moving: This is the earliest known original colour film of London, taken in 1924 - only 5 yea... Sat, 16:06: Nobody's Children, by Kate Orman, Jonathan Blum and Philip Purser-Hallard https://t.co/VNzoDapWKI Sat, 19:01: Very puzzled by proposed #WSFS constitutional amendment D7 at #WSFS_BM. https://t.co/vvlw30GDtt Sat, 19:25: Hooray! @GregHullender - this was our amendment to relax the word limits for Best Novel/Best Novella from 35k-45k t... https://t.co/O6b9fKhRkz Sat, 22:21: RT @JolyonMaugham: This is what Boris Johnson did. ...

Sun 19th
10:37

Swalwell Community Fair

I was in Swalwell yesterday with two of my goats (Coal and Perky) to promote the community fair where I also was selling our preserves and eggs. The goats are always popular with the (human) kids! A good, steady flow of customers and lots of chats with residents about a whole range of local issues.

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

Ben Whitlock, International Officer, Young Liberals, writes a guest post about exciting news for the Young Liberals.

Posted by guestcontributor on Mark Pack

Caught up with former leader and North East Fife MP @scotlibdems @LibDemLords Menzies Campbell at today's @peoplesvote_uk rally #ExitFromBrexit pic.twitter.com/upoehb02HB — Wendy Chamberlain (@wendyc4861) August 18, 2018 * Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

Posted by Paul Walter on Liberal Democrat Voice

There may well be elements amongst the Labour leadership who understand the damage the anti-Semitism row is doing to their party and are trying to find a way to back out of the mess that they are in. However, if that is the case then their colleagues are doing them no favours. The Independent reports that anti-Semitism training at this year's Labour conference is at risk of being scrapped after Jewish members accused party leaders of trying to "censor" the sessions. They say that the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) has led courses at the last two conferences, but has withdrawn ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

Maghull's closed public toilets at the Square Shopping Centre. The Mirror has an interesting a sad story to tell about the demise of public toilets across the nation – see link below:- I remember only too well trying to save the public toilets at Maghull Square Shopping Centre, toilets that in the 1980's had been award winners in the Loo of the Year Awards. Of course by the time they closed they were a shadow of that former glory having been vandalised and unmaintained. Indeed, by the time they closed few people would use them anyway due to their ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Sunset as seen from the end of Southport Pier The Liverpool Echo has come up with a bucket list for Southport and it's on the newspaper's web site – see link below:- Come to Sunny Southport and do the Echo bucket list!

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

South Beach Library will be closed for the day on Monday 20th August I have not had the reason confirmed , but with the already reduced opening hours it is a bit disappointing Renewals etc can still be done online ....

Posted by Alisdair Gibbs-Barton on Alisdair Gibbs-Barton
eUKhost

 

The council customer service point in Ludlow Library is open four days a week. But plans are afoot to reduce its opening to two days a week, Tuesday and Friday. This will mean that vulnerable people will find it harder to access support and get referrals to the food bank. Age Concern told the Shropshire Star that the countywide cuts will be a serious blow for the elderly. Shrewsbury will though get a gold-plated service, far better than Ludlow and other rural towns. Other cuts to community support are on the way. Shropshire Council is no longer interested in supporting ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington
Sun 19th
00:23

Christopher Robin **

Disney bought the rights to A A Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh for a reported $350 million dollars (richly endowing some of the late author's beneficiaries, including the Royal Literary Fund, Westminster School and the Garrick Club, in the process). That means Disney can basically do what they like with the characters of the children's books until the [...]

Posted by jonathanfryer on Jonathan Fryer