Exciting news from the Tudor and Stuart correspondent of The Sun: The centrepiece of Henry VIII's lost crown has been found under a tree by an amateur treasure hunter. Kevin Duckett ended a 400-year-old mystery when he dug up the solid gold figurine in a Northamptonshire field. The 2½in-high, inch-wide piece, one of five on the Tudor crown, is now at the British Museum and could be worth £2million. Experts say the find is one of the most significant by an amateur. The field in question is between Market Harborough and Dingley, only just over the Northamptonshire border. Henry's crown ...
[IMG: How are you breaking up the bleak winter?] Lockdown life was so much easier to tolerate when the days were longer and the sun was coming out as a wake-up call rather than,... The post How are you breaking up the bleak winter? appeared first on Ambitiousmamas.
Again, first things first: the Belgian numbers are slightly better than ten days ago, and a little better again than twenty or thirty days ago. Considering that the famously infectious British strain has thoroughly overtaken the country, it could be a lot worse (as it is in the UK). There seems to have been an extraordinary flap on Friday evening about an EU proposal, quickly withdrawn, to limit provision of vaccines to Northern Ireland. To be honest, I have not formed an opinion about this yet, as I have been taking the weekend off, a bit ground down by aches ...
Sun 31st
19:09
Ultrafast gigabyte broadband to come to Ludlow but telegraph poles are needed in some areas
Ludlow is to be upgraded over the next couple of years to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). That replaces the copper cable between the green cabinet and your house or business (FFTC) with fibre all the way. That will increase potential broadband speeds from 30Mb to 40Mb to up to 1Gb. The entire town should have ultrafast gigabyte broadband within two years. It will not just be faster. It will be more reliable. But there are some drawbacks. Some streets do not have telecoms ducting. The current plan is to erect telegraph poles in these areas and run cables overhead. ...
Non-fiction 4 Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen Endgames: Political Cartoons and Other Stuff, 2015-2020, by Martyn Turner Watling Street, by John Higgs T.K. Whitaker, by Anne Chambers Non-genre 2 The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore Gallimaufry, by Colin Baker (mostly non-sfnal) [IMG: 51RWOnHTgxL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_[1].jpg] [IMG: 1907959025.01._SX350_SY500_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg] SF 10 A Day in the Life, by Hank Stine The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern Into the Ashes, by Lee Murray Midnight Blue-Light Special, by Seanan McGuire The Lowest Heaven, eds Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin The Food of the Gods: And How It Came to Earth, by H. G. ...
Long neglected by globetrotters as too off-the-beaten-track, too difficult or too weird, the five Central Asian republics have recently emerged from their seclusion. Kazakhstan has promoted itself as a dynamic and relatively prosperous economy open to Western investors — and has shrewdly abolished visas for British and some other European visitors. Uzbekistan has had a [...]
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Every year at Scottish Spring Conference we present our awards to those people who have excelled at a various aspects of Lib Dem life. The awards are as follows: The Ray Michie Quaich for best contribution to membership recruitment and retention. The SLDW Quaich for the Liberal Democrat who has done the most to advance diversity within Scotland in the past year. The John Morrison award presented by the Office Bearers for outstanding leadership/dedication/success in local government. The Sheila Tennant award presented by LYS for an outstanding contribution from a LYS member. If you have anyone in mind who should ...
Sun 31st
13:21Covid Watch: There are reasons to be cheerful but careful as infection rates fall and locally nation...
In the last week we have seen clear confirmation that infection rates have fallen here in south west Shropshire and across the county. We are not out of danger yet. Infection rates in south east Shropshire around Bridgnorth are high and those in north east Shropshire around Hinstock and Hodnet are among the highest in the country. We can be hopeful that the third lockdown and the growing pace of vaccination are now turning the tide. I am always cautious interpreting the data because of problems in reporting test results and the ability of this virus to resurge when it ...
America's Republican Party is at a political crossroads. Does it ditch or back Donald Trump? Kevin McCarthy, Leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, knows which direction he prefers. He recently flew to Florida to visit Mar a Lago to kow tow to ex-president Donald Trump. The fact is that most of the Republican members of the lower house represent rural constituencies whose voters continue to declare their loyalty to The Donald. These Congressmen and women are up for re-election in one year and nine months. On top of that, Trump has let slip the rumour that ...
A headline in The Observer claims: Success of vaccine rollout pushes Tories ahead of Labour in the polls In that one short, confident assertion, the headline both gets the truth wrong and shows how the media struggles to report voting intention polls properly. Before dissecting the headline, it is worth noting (again) that headlines are not usually written by the journalist in the by-line. So what's the problem with the headline? It asserts that the Conservatives have moved ahead of Labour in the polls, and that this is a new thing. Hence "pushes Tories ahead". Yet the story is based ...
There are two articles in the Byline Times from a couple of days ago, highlighting once more, very expensive government contracts being awarded to Tory donors and colleagues. The first of these is a claim that a firm that has donated more than £240,000 to the Conservative Party has won Government deals worth £2.5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic: Since April 2020, ANS Group has been awarded four contracts for the supply of IT "cloud" services to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England. ANS Group appears to be providing services to host and maintain the ...
Sat, 13:19: RT @FabianZuleeg: Seems clear that no one covered themselves in glory on the vaccine dispute (& EU should have definitely handled it differ... Sat, 14:59: Shutterbug Follies, by Jason Little About a girl who discovers disturbing things while working in a photography shop. New York nicely portrayed. Plot, however, cliched and improbable. Still, good fun. #nwbooks https://t.co/SJV8RWM4MZ https://t.co/g2gZwqK6kJ https://t.co/AtfuUbExaB Sat, 15:25: The Book of Proper Names, by Am�lie Nothomb Combines depth with utter silliness. Sparse but sympathetic study of a girl adopted by her aunt. She is cured of anorexia, falls in love , and shoots the author. ...
The 31st January 2020 began, as it often does, with urgent Council business. I was visiting the Network Rail Operating Centre in York, with other Council leaders from North Yorkshire and Leeds, to discuss rail investment in our region with the Secretary of State for Transport. Immediately after the visit, I noticed a missed call from Sharon Sholtz, the Council's Director of Public Health, which at the time was unexpected. On ringing back, I arranged to immediately walk into the Council's offices to be briefed on what would soon to become a pandemic that would change our lives. It is ...
Just when you think you can't get any more ashamed of the Home Office, they do something that takes your breath away. Since last September, they have been effectively detaining seekers of sanctuary in two former military barracks in conditions which are less than humane. The Napier site in Kent and the Penally site at Tenby in Wales have housed accommodated hundreds of people in stark conditions. The detainees are supposed to be free to come and go but this does not seem to be how it operates in practice. At a time when we are being told to socially ...
i) births and deaths 31 January 1918: birth of John Crockett, who directed "The Wall of Lies", the fourth episode of the story we now call Marco Polo (First Doctor, 1964), and the whole of the story we now call The Aztecs (also First Doctor, 1964) 31 January 2003: death of William Marlowe, who played prisoner Harry Mailer in The Mind of Evil (Third Doctor, 1971) and Nerva crewman Lester in Revenge of the Cybermen (Fourth Doctor, 1976). i) broadcast anniversaries 31 January 1970: broadcast of first episode of Doctor Who and the Silurians; first appearance of Bessie. The Wenley ...
From Bailie Fraser Macpherson (West End) and Councillor Craig Duncan (Broughty Ferry) : RESTRICTIONS REVIEW On Tuesday 2nd February the Scottish Government will announce decisions made on the next phase of the restrictions. This will include whether schools will reopen in the middle of February. It has already been decided to keep schools closed until March in other parts of the UK. COVID VACCINE UPDATE Across Scotland the schedule is: • Groups 1 and 2 - from now until the first week in February. • Group 3 and 4 - February - middle of February. • Group 5 - February ...
