From 2004 to 2013 a comedy drama series called "Shameless" ran on British TV (not to be confused with an American series with the same title.) It was set in a fictional working (and non-working) class housing estate near Manchester and illustrated how the characters, those at the bottom of the pile, shamelessly gamed the system in order to survive. I didn't watch much of it but what I saw of seemed to be written with sympathy of the characters' plights and their ingenuity in surviving an inadequate social security system. In spite of living hand to mouth in terms ...
To start with, a stunning visualisation of the last year. It loses a bit by treating France (and Belarus and Serbia) as single blocs, but it shows the three waves clearly. Stunning summary of the last year of living with covid. pic.twitter.com/KZ5kaNX9Ks — James McInerney (@jomcinerney) April 10, 2021 The Belgian infection numbers have turned the corner and are starting to drop again, hospitalisations are teetering, the ICU numbers are flattening and sadly the death rate, the most lagging of the indicators, is still spiking. But most important, vaccination rates are soaring. Robin de Nooij's daily updates on vaccination rates ...
(Here's my short story which was longlisted for the 2021 Fish Flash Fiction Prize) THE GREAT OAK The storm took forty trees from the golf course, its nine holes carved from a corner in the grounds of the crumbling estate in a forlorn attempt to eke out some revenue. The golf club dragged in a... Continue reading The Great Oak
One of the consequences of the sad death of Prince Phillip on Friday is that it pushed the increasing unrest in Northern Ireland off the main news channels. This is unfortunate, because not only does the world and the UK Government in particular, need to be focussing on finding a solution to the problems faced there, but the appalling consequences of an unsustainable and unthinking Brexit agreement needs to be highlighted at every opportunity. In yesterday's Guardian, Jonathan Freedland nails the problem. He makes it clear that the origins of the current violence are many and complex but his conclusion ...
I am, I admit, a bit remote from local politics in Suffolk for a slew of reasons too tedious to mention here. However, that does offer me some time to look at the contests with the slightly jaundiced eye of an outside observer. So, what's happening? We'll start with Bosmere, Ros's old division, which was lost to the Conservatives in 2017, and again in the 2018 by-election which followed the death of Ann Whybrow. And this time sees a repeat of the by-election contest, which Kay Oakes won by just twenty-one votes over Steve Phillips. It would be fair to ...
Sat, 12:56: Mummies on the move: Egypt holds grand parade to transfer antiquities to new museum https://t.co/cenqP36VT3 Wow. This happened last weekend. Sat, 14:48: RT @robfordmancs: Election trivia 2019 continues - in one Welsh seat no fewer than 7 different parties (including an independent) have won... Sat, 14:55: I found this choice quite tough (though apparently other voters did not). Planet of the Spiders is over-rated - six episodes are way too long for the plot. And Keys of Marinus is under-rated - an early, if flawed, implementation of today's new-situation-each-week format. https://t.co/c1a3F0K04M Sat, 16:05: Brussels-Prague night train looks to ...
The new (ish) cyclist unfriendly Alt Junction in Maghull Maghull is very flat so you'd expect it to be perfect to cycle around and yet the busy A59/Northway cuts Maghull in half. I've always said it's akin to the Town's own Berlin Wall when it comes to cycling and even to some extent walking. I have of course blogged about this matter many times before and called upon Sefton Council to improve the lot of cyclists wanting to cross and cycle safely along Maghull's great divide. Here's a link to a previous posting of mine on this matter:- I ...
Northern Ireland was a key part of Britain's Brexit referendum. Remainers claimed that withdrawal from the EU risked undermining the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and a return to The Troubles which raged through the province for 30 years. "Fear Factor" retorted the Brexiteers. "It won't happen." But after a week of sectarian violence it looks as if there was something to fear. The Troubles began in 1968 because the Protestant-controlled Stormont government insisted on anti-Catholic legislation. The Catholics saw their only hope in unification with the Republic of Ireland in the South. The Good Friday Agreement kept the dream alive ...
Doves, says Wikipedia, are an alt rock band from Manchester. Black and White Town was a 2005 single taken from their album Some Cities and reached number 6 in the UK singles chart. It has also been widely used by BBC Sport - this video was directed by Lynne Ramsay and shot on the Summerston estate in Glasgow. This all sounds authoritative, but I just heard it on Radio 6 Music and liked it. But then another Doves song has already been a Sunday music video.
i) births and deaths 11 April 1940: birth of Sheila Dunn, who played Blossom Lefavre in The Daleks' Master Plan (First Doctor, 1965), the computer voice of the Electromatic company in The Invasion (Second Doctor, 1968), and Petra Williams in Inferno (Third Doctor, 1970). She was married to Douglas Camfield, who directed all three of those stories. 11 April 2005: death of John Bennett, who played General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) and (shamefully in yellowface) Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977). 11 April 2010: death of Richard Shaw, who played Governor Lobos in The ...
A really useful online course on introduction to mindfulness is taking place this Thursday - 15th April. To book a place, please contact Laura on sacredspacemindfulness@outlook.com - many thanks :
Racism in the police and criminal justice system cannot be tolerated. This video sets out my views. View it here. The post Zero Tolerance On Racism first appeared on David Watts.
