Members of the Stephenson Locomotive Society cling to the brake van on the last day of the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Light Railway, 20 March 1960. The line had a complicated history. As the Colonel Stephen Society website records: With bus competition daily passenger services ceased in 1933 and the Great Depression of that decade caused a severe decline in revenue. By 1940 partial closure loomed but the line was taken over by the Army for servicing a network of munitions stores and in this guise the Railway survived in army use till 1960 Colonel Holman Stephens was involved with the ...
The tickbox phenomenon, which I have been writing about for most of this year, seems finally to have reached its apotheosis with the appointment of the queen of tickbox, Dido Harding, to run the government's test and trace service. Now I have never met her, I'm afraid - I'm sure she is delightful - but as a former chief executive of one of the most useless phone companies known to mankind, she personifies tickbox: the fantasy, shared mainly by the richest and most powerful people in the world, that data and algorithms can describe the world accurately. Because of this ...
Embed from Getty ImagesFriday's Red Box email from The Times carries advice for Ed Davey from former Liberal Democrat leaders - some of it revealing about those former leaders. So Ming Campbell tells Ed to lock himself away in a bunker from the start: As I found when I became leader, people who will have never bothered you before will be wearing holes in your carpet attempting to advise you. Instead, find a couple of people whose advice you really respect and value. Take advice from them. Don't have an open house on advisers. And Nick Clegg, who reduced the ...
Rocky won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1976, and won just two others, Best Director and Best Film Editing. All the President's Men and Network both won four. I don't think (though will check later) that any other Best Picture winner was beaten by two other films in the total number of statuettes it brought home. All the President's Men, Network, Bound for Glory and Taxi Driver were also nominated for Best Picture. I have only seen the first of these. I have seen eleven other films released in 1976, which is (so far) a record for me: Carrie, ...
Tony Greaves was first elected to Colne Borough Council in 1971, defeating the incumbent Conservative, Cllr Parkinson.
One of the most pervasive myths about the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde is that prison destroyed him and that his remaining couple of years of life after release were a sorry saga of penury and ill health, leading to an early death in Paris. But as Oscar said himself, truth is never pure and rarely [...]
Fri, 12:46: Conservative MPs on the right side of the argument!!!! https://t.co/THoFmOYQkq Fri, 12:56: RT @FionaLeverick: So today I joined a meeting with a High Court judge and Scottish Law Commission with my Zoom name as Gruntasnorus Poo Fa... Fri, 16:05: Leadership for Global Security: Can Germany be an Honest Broker? https://t.co/uO1pBklFPf My @APCOWorldwide colleagues @JuditArenas @DrSchwark @LeaAPavlovic on the role of Germany in global politics. Fri, 19:39: RT @dwnews: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's reaction when asked whether she could confirm that @realDonaldTrump "charmed her." https://t.... Sat, 07:26: RT @TheUndefeated: T'Challa in Black Panther Jackie Robinson in 42 James Brown ...
Sat 29th
10:55
What do you make of the Lib Dem leadership hustings? Take part in my latest mini-survey
Thanks to lockdown I'm not getting the chance to meet Liberal Democrat members and supporters at events in the way I'd usually do.
The biggest part of my workload as a Councillor is dealing with litter and fly-tipping. It can get very frustrating, especially when week-in, week-out the same areas suffer from the same offender and the council dutifully removes the material without taking any further action. It is no wonder that some people think that there is no need going to the tip, when they can just dump stuff on the pavement without consequences, and have it taken away for them. But what is the alternative? Leave the area looking like a rubbish dump? That is nothing something I want or will ...
We all know losing can be disappointing. As someone who was heavily involved in the Vote Layla campaign, it might not come as a shock that I was disappointed in the result of the leadership election. It goes without saying that I will rally behind our new leader, but I will make no bones about it: addressing the biggest issue facing our party for the last 10 years will be considerably harder. The issue we face is a mass exodus of members that are disillusioned and disenfranchised, particularly younger members. When campaigning in the leadership election, I encountered countless people ...
With Ed Davey's ascension to the leadership of the Liberal Democrats comes the question of what the party's exact position on Brexit should be from here on out. Clearly, the Lib Dems are not in any danger of becoming some pro-Brexit outfit; yet there is still some doubt as to what the yellows should do with this subject. Everyone in and around the Lib Dems feels burned by the revoke policy and some wonder whether it's time to just stop talking about Brexit altogether. I think doing so would be a mistake. The Lib Dems need easy to understand points ...
Sat 29th
08:30
Whoniversary 29 August: Peter Miles, Lenny Henry, Terrance Dicks, The Reign of Terror #2
i) births and deaths: 29 August 1928: birth of Peter Miles, who played Dr Lawrence, the obstructive director of the Wenley Moor nuclear research facility, in Doctor Who and the Silurians (Third Doctor, 1970); Professor Whittaker, the inventor of time travel, in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (Third Doctor, 1974); and most memorably Davros's sidekick Nyder in Genesis of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor, 1975). 29 August 1933: birth of Clifford Earl, who played the station sergeant in the (lost) Christmas episode of the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan (First Doctor, 1965), and Major Branwell in The Invasion (Second ...
Olga Potts, former Mayor of Blyth and councillor since Blyth Town Council since it began, passed away on 16th August. She had had a short battle with cancer. Olga was one of "the good guys", loyally Labour during elections, but just a councillor outside election time. If she agreed with a point, or disagreed, she's say so - no matter who said it. I remember some fiery battles in council with councillors of all parties, not because they were Lib Dem or Independent councillors, but because she disagreed with their view. But the best were when she disagreed with her ...
Road Report for West End Ward - Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August 2020 Perth Road (at Hazel Avenue) - temporary traffic lights from Thursday 26 August for up to one week for gas main repair. Report for West End Ward - Week Commencing Monday 31 August 2020 Blackness Road (at Urquhart Street) - temporary traffic lights on Monday 31 August for Scottish Water investigation work. Lochee Road (at Polepark Road) - overnight (7.00pm - 2.00am) temporary traffic lights on Monday 31 August for Scottish Water investigation work. Perth Road (at Rockfield Street) - temporary traffic lights on Friday 4 ...
