I filmed this the very moment the Christmas lights were switched on in Whickham yesterday.
We had a packed out event in Whickham yesterday when the Christmas tree lights were switched on in Church Green. I was there as a steward. I reckon over 500 people attended, mainly kids from the local schools. A great time was had by all.
Another Fortean report from Nationwide, the BBC early-evening magazine programme that offered an incomparable portrait of Britain in the Seventies: Llyn Dulyn ("Black Lake" in Welsh) lies nestled in the Carneddau range of mountains in Snowdonia. A quiet, eerie place, it's steeped not only in an ancient folklore of evil spirits and witches, but also a more modern variety of ghost story. It was the site of multiple airplane crashes during WWII, and became infamous across North Wales. In this clip, the locals speak in hushed tones to reporter John Swinfield of collecting debris from the plane wrecks, catching strange-looking ...
In nearly sixty years of studying and teaching economics I have always felt attitudes to the UK's annual budget to be over-hyped. In earlier time MPs honoured it by wearing top hats, chancellors of the exchequer stimulated themselves with mysterious drinks, Disraeli's budget speech lasted five hours but this wasn't a record as he took a break in the middle, Gladstone once managed four hours non-stop. Rachel Reeves's budget probably wins the record for the longest and most misleading deluge of pre-event speculation around (deliberately leaked?) predictions. These annual budgets have very little effect on the quality of the day ...
"His central idea, as he has written before, is that people should own their data. Personal data is any data that can be linked to us, such as our purchasing habits, health information and political opinions."Alex Zarifis on Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the future of the internet. Sarah Lyons on the ubiquity of violence towards women: "The one man present was in total shock, he had never heard women talk so candidly like this before, the way we talk amongst ourselves, and he genuinely could not comprehend how much violence we had all collectively endured He left that night visibly ...
Ed Davey has described Rachel Reeves' budget as a failure. He said: This was a botched Budget delivered by a Chancellor who has diagnosed the disease, but refuses to administer the cure. This Government has chosen to reject the single biggest thing it could do to turbocharge economic growth and repair the £90 billion Brexit black hole. Labour was elected on a promise of tackling the cost of living crisis and growing the economy – and this is the second budget where it's failed to do either. For millions of people struggling with higher bills, all this budget really offers ...
So that's what Lord Bonkers was up to on Bournemouth Beach! I did wonder. We all wish the Liberal Democrat team well, but having seen one of Lord Bonkers' early net practices with them, I'm tempted to put a fiver on the Andorrans. Tuesday Perhaps you saw me on the sands at Bournemouth, making notes as some of our leading lights played cricket? I am, of course, always on the look out for new talents I can invite to turn out for my own XI, but this time there was more to it than that. For we Liberal Democrats have ...
On Sunday a friend and former colleague in Gaza called Mamdouh wrote to me, "By the grace of God, we've just prepared a delicious meal of falafel using all the traditional fresh ingredients – chickpeas, garlic, parsley and green pepper. It was a truly delightful experience, especially since it's been a year a half since we last enjoyed falafel made from authentic ingredients rather than canned ones." His photos and a video show Mamdouh using a hand-mincer to prepare the falafel mix. Mamdouh was a librarian in one of Gaza's universities. In the past two years he's lost his livelihood, ...
[IMG: Cover of Liberator 432 showing two horses in middle of road signed Lib Dem strategy, both saying they are not frightened.] Liberator 432 is out. You can download Liberator 432 for free here. and remember you can sign up here to be emailed when each issue comes out: In this issue we have what we think is the first full account in English of how social liberal party D66 won in the Netherlands, and how Roz Savage MP's solo ocean rowing experiences informed her views on the environment. Also, find out in Radical Bulletin what went wrong with party ...
I don't know if you feel the same, but it seems to me that this is the longest run-up to a Budget that I can remember. We've been talking about it forever. At times the Government's communications around Rachel Reeves' second budget have made the Omnishambles Budget of 2012 look competent. First we were raising income tax rates then we weren't, the Black Hole in the country's finances has been of varying sizes and suddenly there now seems to be billions down the back of the sofa to stave off a break in the manifesto promise. I don't mind paying ...
I was 16 when The Who re-released Substitute in 1976. I went out and bought it because it was so much better than anything else in the charts at the time.
The Guardian reports on a devastating review, which found that repeated failures by Tory ministers and top welfare officials pushed hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt and distress, and led to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being wasted. They say that the independent review of carer's allowance benefit overpayments identified "systemic issues" at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and said carers could not be blamed for falling foul of unclear and confusing benefit rules: The review was triggered after a Guardian investigation revealed how carers had been hit with draconian penalties of as ...
The phone box on Magdalen Green was unfortunately vandalised with blue paint recently. We raised this with BT and received the following helpful response : "Thank you for taking the time to report this BT payphone. I have now arranged for the kiosk to be cleaned."
