Six of the Best 65

Mark Reckons that the Sheffield Forgemasters "cut" is no such thing.

I can't find a link, but it seems that while I was on holiday Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of Unite, invited Liberal Democrat members to tear up their membership cards. Andrew Reeves' Running Blog declines this invitation in a forthright manner.

The Critical Liberal offers Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrats' new deputy leader, some advice: "I’ve had a lot of sympathy with things he’s said in the past. I will probably have a lot of sympathy with anything he says in the future. However, if he decides that he is going to be the voice of the grassroots he needs to pick his battles very carefully, otherwise he will seem like a little boy throwing his toys out of the pram whenever he doesn’t get his own way." Liberal England adds: What the party needs is a deputy leader, not a leader in exile.

Farhad Manjoo, writing on Slate, suggests that Starbucks is smart to stop charging for internet access. At least in the States it is. I don't know how Labour's Digital Economy Act will affect it here. I was struck by Manjoo's opening: "Whatever you think of its coffee, Starbucks has always been a nice place to get some work done." I love the idea of writing in Starbucks - write a blog post, file a column - but the reality is that the place is full of pushchairs and kids running about. You pay for a little bit of Seattle but you just don't get it. Or is that just the Market Harborough branch?

The Glasgow Herald, in the person of Teddy Jamieson, looks forward to the After the Wave season at the Edinburgh Film Festival. "It wants to suggest that the 1970s was a more radical, more interesting period than memory allows."

Yesterday I was looking around St Laurence's, Ludlow, and came across the extraordinary memorial to Theosophilus Salwey - that's my picture of it above. PhotoReflect has also been to see it and describes it for us too: "The rather podgy putto (cherub) sits on a pedestal praying for the soul of Theophilus. To its left is an open book signifying that he was an open, honest man of learning during his lifetime. Next to it is his coat of arms, a reminder of his high status in society. Linking these two are acanthus leaves, a symbol of immortality in Classical civilization. To the right of the pedestal is a prominent skull, marked as aged by its scattered teeth, along with a few large bones. These, of course, signify death. They are balanced on a pile of closed books - a metaphor, surely, for a life that has ended. Then there is a snake with a bird-like head about to bite some fruit."