St Mary the Virgin, a 20th-century church near Wellingborough railway station, is famous for the interior by its architect Sir Ninian Comper. I have tried to visit it a couple of times but found it locked. John Betjeman had more luck when he made this for Shell in 1960, but if ever a film cried out for colour stock... Click on the still above to watch it on the British Film Institute site.
For four long days, the world held its breath as the US presidential election was on a knife edge. Opinion polls had proved to be wildly askew. But did that really mean that Donald Trump would hold on to the White House for four more years? For a while it looked as though that might [...]
Peter Geoghegan looks at how a cartel of MPs associated with the European Research Group took over the Conservative Party and broke British politics. "The story ends with no satisfactory conclusion. But we have to ask what might have been done to help Graham and the other victims and to bring Smyth to some form of justice. The key person who seems missing in action is of course Justin Welby." Stephen Parsons on the case of John Smyth QC (Mary Whitehouse's favourite lawyer) who used the Church of England to facilitate his sadistic abuse. "The type of 'placemaking' achieved by ...
Our Headline of the Day proves that there is always a local angle. Congratulations to The Clare Echo and thanks to the reader who nominated it. If you read the story you will see it refers to the Trump International Golf Links and Hotel Ireland at Doonbeg.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster. When I went to bed at 4:30 am on Wednesday I was so utterly miserable and depressed. It was looking like Trump might actually have won a second term with all the suffering and irreversible damage to the planet and division that would entail. But, since then, it's been looking like it was increasingly a matter of time until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the victors. That moment happened just before 4:30 pm this afternoon. I turned on the telly after an afternoon of delivering leaflets and dog walking just as ...
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden (Photo: Palmer report) After a nervous first night and three days of counting, it would appear that the US election was not quite as close as we initially thought. Joe Biden appears to have a pretty convincing lead in terms of the Electoral College vote, and is over 4 million votes ahead in the popular vote. Initial concerns that the Democrats had not managed to mobilise their vote proved to be as groundless as Donald Trump's claims of widespread voting fraud. Yes, it's all over bar the crying, tantrums, protests, theats, conspiracy theories, lawsuits and ...
It's a bit difficult to concentrate this evening! (For people coming across this blog post years from now, we just heard that Joe Biden won th election. Today is Saturday, the election was on Tuesday.) But to my normal Saturday busioness. Blade Runner won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1983. The other finalists were all cinema films; I have seen two - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which came second, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which came third - but not the other two - The Dark Crystal, which came fourth and Mad Max 2: The Road ...
I suspect that like me you have had at least half an eye on the Tv and radio. I've been out delivering for a couple of hours and came straight back straight to the TV. "Surely", I thought "it must ... Continue reading →
Author of excellent pamphlet The Generous Society Tom King was my guest for the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts.
The other day I blogged about one Derbyshire town's way of coping with the stresses of the first Covid lockdown: the Belper Moo. Now lockdown's back, the Moo is too. BBC News has interviewed its organiser Jasper Ward: "Once the weather really turns there is every chance that some people behind closed doors won't interact with another person that day or step out the house, so if nothing else, it gives them a reason to open a window and let off some steam or connect with a neighbour for a few seconds." He adds: "You can't see people but last ...
Apologies to Wendy Chamberlain. I managed to hit the send button before adding her photo to the last post. So here she is.
Normally at conferences I would be armed with an array of cameras, snapping away at anything that moved. Today, I simply sat in front of the laptop to attend North East Lib Dem regional conference with my phone, taking an occasional photo of our speakers. It rather takes the fun out of taking conference photos but here they are for today - Wendy Chamberlain, party president Mark Pack and Leader
The title of Eric Frank Russell's science-fiction novel Wasp comes from the idea that one wasp in a speeding car can annoy the driver to the extent of causing a crash and hence damage out of all proportion to the wasp's size and strength.
At the time of writing there has still not been a result in the US election but a Biden victory is looking more and more certain. The question now, is what will really change from an international point of view? Well for a start, Biden has pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement, in addition to bringing about a package of measures that would represent the most ambitious climate plan of any US president to date: A rejoining of the Paris Agreement under a possible Biden administration would send "a very significant signal" to the rest of world, Pete Betts, the ...
Another day and another online meeting. This one is the North East regional conference. We are in training sessions at the moment. Later we will have speeches from Wendy Chamberlain MP and Ed Davey MP.
Fri, 12:37: War between Armenia and Azerbaijan faces decisive moment https://t.co/ezmMyHwPbY Fri, 12:56: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious Graphic Novel Trailer https://t.co/MdjjXpCz2P I've already bought and read the two individual issues - it's great stuff. https://t.co/md77muFHwv https://t.co/epThP2FXEe Fri, 13:19: Opinion: Alastair Campbell What Johnson and Corbyn have in common - Powerful and humble from @campbellclaret. https://t.co/UTQN2OBHUy Fri, 14:49: RIP Geoffrey Palmer, who appeared in three Doctor Who stories in 1970, 1972 and 2007, and got killed off in all three before even meeting the Doctor. https://t.co/BpIGLwGdBT Fri, 15:13: Olympos, by Dan Simmons Crumbs, what a disappointment. Rambling, self-indulgent and most ...
Today is an important day in Scotland. The law giving children equal protection from assault becomes law. It's always seemed very strange to me that if I were to slap a 6 foot 4 adult, I'd find myself on an assault charge, but it would be fine for me to slap a 3 foot 2 child. It's a pretty gross abuse of power and people can retain the memories of these incidents for years after. They cast a very long shadow. It's an important step because it sets out very clearly that hitting anyone to make them submit to your ...
There's a band of volunteer litter pickers in the community I live in and they go out regularly to try to keep Lydiate clean. They don't ask for recognition and unless you see them doing their bit you might think our reasonably litter free community is being kept clean by 'the council'. Some impressive lengths of roads are litter picked by the volunteers and sadly they are always kept busy because a certain section of our society seems to think that chucking litter, bottles, dog poo bags etc. is a positive contribution to local life. They love throwing litter out ...
From Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education :
