Today sees the release of a new box set — Imagine: The Ultimate Collection. This is a new issue of John Lennon's most popular (though not his most critically acclaimed) album, and I thought it would present a reasonable opportunity ... Continue reading →
Three John Muir Award participants get involved in a two-year nest box survey at Darnford Brook on the Long Mynd in Shropshire. All very Malcolm Saville.
This Sunday evening, a new Doctor lands on BBC1. If you're coming to the Doctor and Doctor Who for the first time, this is the perfect jumping-in point. It should give you everything you need, and the easiest way to find out what the series is about is to watch it. But if you're thinking, 'It's been going more than fifty years. How do I cope with all of that?' then don't worry. It's only as complicated as you want to make it. There's really very little you need to know about the Doctor - and here's a simple start... ...
There is life in English chess after all. The Olympiad (the biennial world team competition) finished in Batumi, Georgia, today and the men's team finished fifth. This is their best result since 1996. (The women's team finished 29th.) Leonard Barden writes of the men's team in the Guardian: The team, well captained by John Nunn, rode their luck at times and were blessed by favourable pairings but were also resilient, technically prepared in depth and professional in their match strategy. David Howell's 7.5/10 on third board was the outstanding individual performance as the 27-year-old from Seaford advanced to 2699 on ...
Last Saturday I attended the Lighting Up Whickham pie and pea supper. A large amount of peas and pies were left over so some of this came back to my house. Another two days of pie and pea suppers followed. On Tuesday evening, I attended the meeting of Sunniside History Society where there was, ahem, a pie a pea supper. I feel I have overdosed on them.
Northern Rail Class 319 electric unit at Liverpool Lime Street Station The Liverpool Echo has the story on it web page – see link below For this to happen on such a busy day in Liverpool may well be surprising but in reality its not as Northern have been in a terrible mess for longer than many of us can remember. Is there any wonder some of their passengers call them Northern Fail? Whatever the reason for today's cancellations they fit a pattern that has become far too familiar and it really makes you wonder how on earth the ...
Why did the Turkish President's visit to Germany on 28 and 29 September leave us with a diffuse feeling of unease? There is nothing wrong with the fact that the all-powerful leader of the Middle East's leading economy is in consultation with the Chancellor who presides over the destiny of Europe's leading economy. The two [...] The post Turkish Islamic-nationalism on the rise in Germany appeared first on Radix.
This footpath has been getting overgrown throughout the summer and I've had two calls at my door asking if I can get Sefton Council to cut back the offending brambles and indeed to litter pick the path. Having discussed the matter with Lydiate's Independent Borough Councillor Pat O'Hanlon I know she has been on the case too and thankfully Sefton Council has now taken action to cut back plant growth. Trouble is that exposed all the litter along the path but 20 minutes with a sack and a litter picking stick this afternoon and its looking a lot better now. ...
Over the next 10 days, there will be a number of opportunities for party members to express their views about Vince's ideas about party reform. These are: To set up a registered supporters' scheme and give those supporters the right to vote in leadership elections To allow non MPs to stand for Leader To allow people to stand for election as soon as they join the party, subject to approval. There has already been one session in London and another takes place tomorrow. Other events take place in Edinburgh, York, Birmingham, Lancaster, Tiverton, Wokingham and Aberystwyth. You can find full ...
Fri 5th
13:30
Vulnerable people are being oppressed on our doorstep - by the British and French Governments
I've come back from the greatest emotional rollercoaster I've ever dealt with. I spent three weeks in Northern France volunteering with an educational charity working in the refugee camps surrounding the channel ports. It's incredibly hard to believe but in Western Europe, merely a stone's throw from the British coast, thousands of people are barely managing to survive, deprived of their basic rights, harassed by a supposedly progressive government and all for the crime of fleeing the most harrowing situations on the planet and trying to build a better life. And worse of all we're paying for it. Yes, really. ...
All of the analysis of conference season seems to come down to two main points. One: that Labour conference was buzzing while Tory conference was stale. Two: that Theresa May managed to clear the low bar set for her and is thus safe until the end of March next year. The first one is at the very least a massive exaggeration; I'm not really sure about the second one there either. The way that the political media reports on the Labour Party at present is heavily coloured by the fact that they got the 2017 general election so wrong. Back ...
We're (still) not being alarmist enough about climate change What does the SDP's story tell us about now? Anyone thinking of forming a new centre party - or movement - needs to read this. Wetherspoon's Strike: Why Staff Are Taking Action For First Time If you like what you see here (or even if you don't) please consider dropping me a tip: [IMG: Paypal Donate Button] [IMG: Buy Me an uncaffeinated beverage (because I'm allergic to coffee) at ko-fi.com] [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
It's World Homelessness Day next Wednesday. To mark the occasion and highlight the plight of young people forced to sleep on the streets, Lib Dem peers Alison Suttie and Olly Grender will be sleeping out overnight. They are raising money for De Paul, a charity which helps young people who are affected by homelessness. Already they have raised more than £1000 for De Paul. On their Just Giving page, they explain why they are doing this: This will be our third year of sleeping out just once a year for this charity. Depaul UK is a fantastic youth homelessness charity ...
The Global Vehicle Target is the new standard for testing autonomous driving and crash test systems as Tom Scott explains.
One hundred years ago today, the Canadian art dealer and literary figure Robert Baldwin Ross — Robbie to his friends — died in London at the age of 49. He had made the British capital his home, though he was born in France and had plans to move to Australia to establish a gallery. His [...]
Fri, 10:45: Brexiters misunderstand the European project https://t.co/I5XFzGBWLf Martin Wolf: "It is legitimate to believe the... https://t.co/A0NaOvsQ3z Fri, 11:02: RT @NobelPrize: BREAKING NEWS: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadi... Fri, 11:05: RT @christopherhope: Extraordinary obituary in today's @Telegraph https://t.co/UBX65ORrer Fri, 11:36: RT @eoinmauricedaly: Is she ... in charge now? https://t.co/4KaiMWNMCb
Fri 5th
10:25LibLink: Jo Swinson: Like me, Jacinda Ardern took her baby to work and was met with ignorance
Last week Jacinda Ardern proved that when you are a mother, people will criticise you whatever you do. The moral of that story is that you should make the decisions that suit your family. Jo Swinson wrote for the Guardian about her and Jacinda's experiences and how they show we still have a long way to go to deal with discrimination in the workplace. She highlighted the chorus of disapproval that she and Jacinda had been put through: Yet along with the warm headlines came the inevitable snarky comments from the political world, and the constant judgment by others that ...
Cold War Memory Lane is being resurfaced with a fresh alphabet soup of nuclear weapons, treaty breaches, renewed bellicosity, cyber attacks and even assassination. Putin's Russia has been branded a "pariah state" by British defence Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Washington's Permanent Representative to NATO has threatened to "take out" the latest generation of Russian intermediate-range nuclear weapons. Of course, we are not back in 1945.Then a prostrate Western Europe was in danger of being overrun by a Soviet war machine whose authoritarian government made no secret of its aim of overthrowing capitalism and the democratic structures that ...
He may have said that he wants the UK to remain within the EU and that he supports a People's Vote to enable that to happen, but one cannot help but feel that the new Plaid Cymru Leader remains ambivalent towards Brexit, and is secretly hoping that we leave so that he can advance his Independence agenda. This latest interview with Adam Price certainly reinforces that impression, as he tells the BBC that if there is a "hard" Irish border and the UK leaves the EU single market and customs union "the appetite for Scottish independence and Irish unity" would ...
Responding to today's Court of Appeal ruling against the Government, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey has called for refugee policy to be moved out of the Home Office and into the Department for International Development. The court ruled that child refugees refused entry to the UK had been given "patently inadequate" reasons for their refusals. Ed Davey said: "Are there no depths to which the Home Office will not stoop under this Conservative Government? Now we learn that they've been turning away vulnerable child refugees without giving them reasons, and preventing them from appealing. "The Home Office's rotten ...
Back in 1994 or thereabouts, we failed to gain a labour seat in a by-election by a handful of votes. 17 stuck in my mind, but Paul Holmes tells me it's 34. 17 extra voters. Tonight, we won that Moor ward seat by a few more votes – a gain from Labour. Happy @ChesterfieldLD team after a great campaign to get @LibDems Tony Rogers elected in Moor Ward, winning the seat from Labour. @ALDC pic.twitter.com/IkdCDTBV0D — Andrew Hollyer (@AndyHollyer) October 4, 2018 The result in full: L Dem 532 47% (Tony Rogers) Lab 445 39% (Ron Mihaly who also lost ...
