There's a happy sequel to a recent Headline of the Day. Reggie the black swan, who was removed from Stratford-upon-Avon because he was "terrorising" other birds and tourists, has found a new home - and love - in Devon. BBC News reports: Donald Phillips, from the Dawlish Waterfowl Centre, said Reggie had "settled in very well" and had already found a mate. He explained: "I'd put him into the enclosure with two females and he just walked up to them and they sort of followed him around and there was no aggression at all ... he was just as good ...
Today it was the turn of Ryton ward in Gateshead to host a Lib Dem action day. We ensured a good presence on the Main Road near the Coop. We had a stall handing out our literature including the latest Focus which has just arrived from the printers. The horn meter was in full swing as lots of people tooted us as they drove past. And it was refreshing to see no one signal us by raising two fingers!
On Saturday 4th October, Gateshead Lib Dems had an action day in Lamesley ward. I managed to sit on the photos for a week so here they are.And most importantly, the lunch:
Sat 11th
17:40
"Our group has not lived up to voters' expectations": former Reform councillor Nicole Brooke
Nicole Brooke was elected a Reform councillor in Northumberland in May, but is now out of the party. She's been telling the local paper her side of the story: Since May, Reform UK's performance at the council has been disappointing. From motions that attracted widespread ridicule to misguided attacks on respected organisations like the RNLI, and statements in the chamber that veered into conspiratorial territory – our group has not lived up to voters' expectations ... Reform UK is the only group in the county currently moving backwards - and the responsibility for that falls squarely at the feet of ...
Backlisted has devoted a second podcast to David Seabrook's book on Kent, All the Devils Are Here. Iain Sinclair wrote about it for the London Review of Books when it was first published in 2003: His book, the first to do justice to the transcendent weirdness of this boot of land that isn't London, should be treasured. By living so long in the immediate past, by digging and listening and making the phone-calls, Seabrook has hallucinated an alternate English history. Margate Sands as the pivotal moment for Modernism, nothing connected to nothing. The Mystery of Edwin Drood not so much ...
[IMG: Mathew Hulbert and Carl Cashman resplendent in yellow] A working class, northern, Council group leader, with a Liverpudlian accent is not exactly a description of your average Liberal Democrat. Which is exactly why I wanted to conduct the first long form interview with our party's leader in Liverpool, the man dubbed by the national press as 'the sexiest politician in Britain,' Councillor Carl Cashman. So recently I caught the train up to the great city of Liverpool and spent a few hours with Carl. I ask him about his vision for the city should he become City Council leader ...
MAGA is not happy. Their leader. Their idol. Donald J.Trump is not this year's recipient of what the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary History calls "the most prestigious prize in the world"—the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, he never was going to be the name on the lips of announcing committee chairperson Jorgen Frydnes. At least not this week. Nominations for this year's prize closed in January even before Trump was inaugurated. But a little thing like a 124 year-old procedural rule was unlikely to stop a man who is running roughshod over a tried and tested 242-year-old constitution. There is, ...
Community based adult learning takes place in community settings across the city, is for anyone over the age of 16 who has left school and tends to focus on informal learning, social activities and adult education provision. The activities in this new directory of community based adult learning are categorised into four main levels: Stage 1: Engagement (unstructured, drop-in, variable support)Stage 2: Starter (SCQF 2-3, high support)Stage 3: Mid-level (SCQF 4-6, medium support)Stage 4: Upper-Level (SCQF 7+, low support) The directory can be accessed at http://tiny.cc/adult-learning For more information about Community based adult learning in Dundee please contact cld@dundeecity.gov.uk
Following on from my post two weeks ago about Margam Castle, this week I am focussing on the remarkable Orangery nearby. This building was used by the old West Glamorgan County Council for formal dinners and other occasions, but my first experience of it was shortly after I was elected as a Welsh Assembly member in 1999, when Prince Charles hosted a formal (and largely inedible) dinner there. Since then I have been back on a number of occasions, as an AM, as Lord Mayor of Swansea and also for a wedding reception. On each occasion the catering far exceeded ...
