The New Year's Honours have been published and Baroness Floella Benjamin becomes a Dame for services to charity. The former Play School presenter, now a Lib Dem Peer, spent the weekend after the election on the phone consoling defeated Lib Dem candidates. A friend of mine who received a call from her was absolutely delighted. I've had a look for political service and local government and can't find any other Liberal Democrats, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any. Please let us know in the comments if you find any more. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat ...
[IMG: My afternoon with a lovely Dominatrix] A year ago I finished filming 'Mums Make Porn' which was screened on Channel 4 earlier this year. It became hugely successful and is still being shown around the world. It touched my life in... The post My afternoon with a lovely Dominatrix appeared first on @ambitiousmamas.
Time for a third video from the Monastery of St Antony and St Cuthbert in the Stiperstones, what with it being Christmas and all - though not in the Orthodox calendar.
One thing that we can say for certain is that politics will not be as tense in 2020 as it has been for the past 2 years. For the whole of that period the Parties have been on an almost ... Continue reading →
Second to fifth paragraphs of third chapter of Eric Saward's novelisation:'You were mistaken,' said Grigory. Natasha tugged at the body-bag. 'Unwrap him.' 'Are you sure you want to see this?' 'There is no other way of proving he's actually here.'Second paragraph of third chapter of Jon Preddle's novelisation:Grigory took a hand-scanner from his case and held it over the shrouded body. The scanner sounded a loud beep as it registered a humanoid form.The very last of the Old Who stories to receive official novelisation treatment, Revelation of the Daleks has now been written up by its author, Eric Saward, a ...
January I began the year blogging about a 1993 council by-election on the Isle of Dogs. I said it was an Awful Warning to the mainstream parties about what can happen when they talk up the chances of the far right. Mike Brearley's new book offered some entertaining consecutive entries in its index: Barrington, Ken and Bartók, Béla; Hogg, Quintin and Hogg, Rodney; Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Woakes, Chris. "One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of Fenian emissaries."So Karl Marx once said. I took it as a criticism of Jeremy Corbyn's position ...
As we take time to absorb the prospect of a 5 year far right Tory administration with a hefty majority capable of inflicting massive pain on the ordinary citizen whilst asset stripping remaining public property to assist in the re-election of Trump, it would be good to allocate blame. Firstly to David Cameron for being stupid enough to call the EU Referendum, expecting an easy win but managing, in the process, to create such deep societal divisions that they will take decades to heal, and possibly not in my lifetime. Secondly to Theresa May for being stupid enough to call ...
I'm afraid that my own less than favourable opinions of Jo Swinson were shared by the wider electorate at the December polls, and her own local electorate it seems. Jo was a fine MP, would have made a fairly good middle-ranking minister but was never Prime Minister material, and she should not have invited ridicule by suggesting she was. As a leader she was not inspirational, aspirational, or charismatic. Lightweight with a gender-related chip on her shoulder, calling out sexism where it did not exist was very irritating, preparing the excuses before the failure. Sturgeon didn't have that problem. Clearly ...
I've just received an email from change.org asking me to sign a petition to stop the Government decriminalising the non-payment of the TV License Fee. Clearly they don't know me. If I don't pay my Netflix do they try and give me a criminal record? No, they cut me off. Same with Sky, my water, phone, electricity, gas, broadband and other service providers. They may take civil action to recover outstanding debts but they can't make me a criminal, take away my livelihood, even jail me. The only other service you can use and be criminalised for not paying is ...
The other half of yesterday's trip was to inspect Laeken cemetery in northwestern Brussels. There is a cluster of spectacular monuments close to the church by one or other of the three generations of sculptor who shared the name Ernest Salu; the founder of the line lived from 1846-1923 and started his funerary business in the 1870s; his son lived 1885-1980 and I think must have been responsible for the best of the monuments; and the last Ernest Salu lived 1909-1987, clsoing the business in the 1980s more than a century after his grandfather had started it. The jewel in ...
"Modern medicine is increasingly called upon to address a spiritual, perhaps even economic and political, malaise." Sophie McBain looks at how loneliness became an epidemic. Too many of our town centres have become hollowed-out, windswept deserts, argues Nicholas Boys Smith, but if we make them fit for people they will return Lenore Skenazy on the worst and best Let Grow parenting moments of 2019: "Hard-boiled lawyers made sure no kids could participate in the University of California-Berkeley's campus Easter egg hunt without parents first signing a waiver acknowledging the potential risk of 'catastrophic injuries including paralysis and death'." Johannes E. ...
Thu, 13:04: How to say Merry Christmas in 41 languages, mapped https://t.co/fPe7MFqjrv Thu, 13:41: A tale of two cities - a lunch in Brussels, and a dinner in Belfast. About a month ago I was having lunch on Place... https://t.co/FlncPWQ0pZ Thu, 17:27: RT @ChrisChapman81: Britbox launched its classic Doctor Who archive today and I find myself strangely proud that our Ice Warrior animation... Thu, 17:53: I've been watching the Romance Writers of America drama with horrified fascination. It's not really my genre, but t... https://t.co/QykcJI6wyl Thu, 19:57: I went to the "Superheroes Never Die. Comics and Jewish Memories" exhibition at ...
Fri 27th
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"Superheroes Never Die. Comics and Jewish Memories" exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Belgium
So, I went to the "Superheroes Never Die. Comics and Jewish Memories" exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Belgium yesterday. It was as good as I had hoped, linking the origins of the American comics tradition with the authors' experience of immigration and integration. There is a particularly interesting moment from 1940 when Superman, taking Adolf Hitler captive, threatens him with "a strictly non-Aryan sock on your jaw". It was also a bit chilling to see America's knowledge of Belgium in the first world war reflected in a comic of 1914. There is lots of lovely art. Also, Batman and ...
Air pollution has long been known to have a significant detrimental effect on all our lives, indeed it shortens lives. I decided to have a look in more detail at this matter following Rebecca Hanson bringing the matter to my attention again recently. A good source of information is Sefton Council's own website and in particular the page linked below:- www.sefton.gov.uk/environmental-protection/air-quality.aspx If you follow the links with the one above there's a wealth of information and detail to plough through. As a cyclist I probably notice and am more obviously impacted on by diesel particulates as I'm often sat within ...
What is it about Boris Johnson and bridges? His obsession with white elephant projects is starting to get out of hand. His support for an airport in the middle of the River Thames (also known as Boris Island) is one example - a project that was never going to fly. Johnson's privatised garden bridge across the Thames was described as an 'absurd vanity project for our age' and cost taxpayers £43 million before it was finally abandoned. While we should be grateful that the 22 mile bridge he proposed across the English Channel did not get past a few headlines. ...
On Thursday 2nd January at 11am and until 1pm, there will be a 5k fun run around the paths of the University of Dundee Botanic Garden to get yourself in shape for the New Year. The event caters for all ages and ambitions, just walk or break the record! Your reward, as well as a good time, will include seasonal refreshments in the education centre at the end of the run. We recommend you register for free here to ensure catering is adequate on the day. The event is weather dependent and up-to-the-minute guidance is available on the Friends of ...
