Lib Dem Rutland plans cycle-path from Oakham to Rutland Water

Rutland County Council is consulting residents on plans for a new cycling route connecting Oakham town centre with Rutland Water..

The council, which is run by a minority Liberal Democrat administration, says the scheme would improve accessibility for residents and visitors, support tourism and local businesses, and reduce reliance on cars.

Oliver Hemsley, the council's portfolio holder for environment and transport, told BBC News:

Rutland Water is one of the county's most valued destinations for both residents and visitors, and these proposals are about making it easier and safer for people to travel there by bike or on foot.

There's more information on the council's website. 

Lord Bonkers has asked me to point out that the chances of being devoured by the Rutland Water Monster while visiting have been greatly exaggerated by an irresponsible media.

The Joy of Six 1463

Schuyler Mitchell talks to Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor and expert on Fascism, who has fled the US with his family after being targeted because of his work: "The next day, we managed to leave – but not before being searched and interrogated by federal officers, despite facing no charges whatsoever. I’m not suspected of any crimes. I’m just a professor."

"Ofcom has repeatedly allowed GB News to broadcast biased news. Ofwat allows water companies to jack up prices enormously whilst pouring shit into our rivers and sometimes not even delivering water. And Ofgem allows electricity companies to charge some of the highest domestic and industrial electricity prices in the world." Chris Dillow on regulatory capture – the tendency of big corporations to take control of the regulators supposed to police them.

JP Spencer looks the success of the Manchester Mill news website and the potential of its model across Britain: "With the decline of many news titles, it is welcome that local democracy is getting the attention and scrutiny it deserves. ... As a big believer in the power of local decision making, we are going to need new forms of media to report on key decisions and other issues that will keep the public informed and grease the wheels of democracy."

"They didn’t poll residents about whether they felt 'interested but concerned' about automobiles. They showed them the future and made them want it. Today’s planning profession has inverted that approach. Instead of selling a vision, we survey people about their willingness to adopt one. People self-identify based on current conditions, reflecting limited beliefs about what’s possible. ... The results are predictable." Andy Boenau says campaigners should aim make freedom of mobility so compelling that people demand it.

"These files make it clear that Our Friends in the North's path to transmission would make a drama in and of itself. It had taken more than a decade for it to be successfully adapted by Peter Flannery from his own Royal Shakespeare Company play of the early 1980s." Paul Hayes digs into the BBC's archives to uncover the production history of the award-winning political drama.

Hyungwon Kang explains how 5th-century Roman glassware came to be found in high-status burials in Korea.

Disturbing moment binman punches naked cyclist off bike during charity ride 'by mistake'

The Daily Star wins our Headline of the Day Award.

As the judges remark, it's come to something when a naked Englishman can't go for a bicycle ride without being punched by a mistaken binman.

Thanks to a reader for alerting me to this story.

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"The Cabinet Office, Lord Gove and Ciga Healthcare were approached for comment but did not respond by time of publication." Byline Times has news of another alleged scandal in government procurement during the Covid pandemic.

Max Sullivan on his experiences of introducing on-street bicycle hangars in the London Borough of Westminster: "Make decisions on merit. Objections that don't have merit can be listened to, but not indulged, if you want to move faster. Officers need to have the confidence in the need for the scheme (lack of space to park a bike is a major barrier to cycling) to give their politicians good advice. Politicians must be prepared to respectfully disagree with their residents, to deliver for their other residents. Who are many in number, waiting for somewhere safe to keep a bike."

"A spooky convergence is happening in media. Everything that is not already television is turning into television." Derek Thompson explains his theory.

James Coverley draws an important lesson from the death of the Roman Emperor Domitian: "Caesar, of course, was betrayed by someone close to him. Mussolini ended up hanging from a streetlamp. You can only bully people into liking you for so long until someone, one day, realises that you’re the problem and that your grip on power is, actually, paper-thin and depends on the illusion of fear."

Koraljka Suton takes us deep into David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001): "Some of these narrative threads appear superfluous at first glance because we seemingly never get back to them. Others take us down rabbit holes that leave us feeling dazed, confused and disoriented. But all of them have their rightful place in Lynch’s surrealist picture that stubbornly defies genre categorization."

"A few clubs have boreholes, able to provide clean water on their wickets which then filters back into the aquifer in a virtuous circle. This was interesting and unexpected, revealing how certain clubs can benefit from their local geology, whereas others rely on ageing infrastructure and water companies." Dan Looney recently walked the Kennet & Avon Canal from Reading to Bath, then onwards via the River Avon to Bristol, visiting 11 cricket grounds along the way to see how they are adapting to climate change.

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John Oxley says it will be hard to assemble a successful new party to the left of Labour: "Building an effective left populist bloc requires having both electoral breadth (so you are a threat in multiple seats) and depth (so you might win some of them). ... It's presently hard to see how any of the existing groups do this. They have too many incompatibilities between their support and are focused on too narrow a niche – how to pull together affluent progressives in the south and poor, second-generation migrants in the Midlands and North?"

"My report calls on TfL – and outlines proposals – to ensure our streets are properly inclusive, safe and convenient for everyone to use. At a time when practical measures to reduce danger are all too often framed as 'anti-driver' rather than as helpful interventions to ensure everyone gets home safely from work or school or a trip to the shops, TfL must address the polarisation of debate about measures to reduce danger on our streets." Caroline Russell, the Green AM, launches Changing the Narrative: Ending the Acceptance of Road Death in London. 

New research suggests individual people can be tracked with a unique "fingerprint" based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals, reports Thomas Claburn.

Kev Nixon on the decline of the working-class musician: "Recent research from the Sutton Trust reveals a stark truth: younger adults from working-class backgrounds are four times less likely to work in creative industries compared to their middle-class peers. In music, nearly half of the UK’s top-selling artists went to private school. The door to the music industry is not just closing for working-class talent – it’s been slammed shut."

"In Gogmagog, the Buried Gods (1957), the archaeologist and Anglo-Saxon specialist T C Lethbridge described his excavations in search of a lost chalk giant cut into the hillside at Wandlebury Ring in the Gog Magog Hills south of Cambridge. His methods were controversial and the archaeological establishment of the time turned against him. His book is a heartfelt response to that criticism and a statement of conviction in his own work." Michael Smith uncovers an old controversy in archaeology.

Michael Hann goes in search of the one-hit wonders of 1980s package-holiday pop.

Nigel Farage and Reform UK declare war on evil pixies

Reform UK pledged to remove all low-traffic neighbourhoods from the council areas it took control of on 1 May. It turns out that none of these areas has any.

What with this and Reform councillors' refusal to attend non-existent training courses, I'm reminded of Sir Mortimer Chris and his campaign against the evil pixies that were the cause of unemployment in Britain.

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"Years of historic underinvestment in favour of profit has run the business into the ground. It now finds itself on the brink of collapse despite a financial lifeline that it ought not to have been awarded, when a court last month allowed the company to take on another three billion pounds of debt." Thames Water is failing, Ofwat is toothless and the public is paying the price, says Luke Taylor.

Tim Bale explores the motives that led David Cameron to call the EU referendum and the subsequent impact Brexit has had on the Conservative Party.

Laura Laker asks why the BBC published 22 negative articles on a 300m bike lane in Somerset.

"Following the Second World War, considering where and how children could play was an intrinsic part of the narrative of rebuilding the country. 'Attitudes towards play fitted within the political and social context at the time,' she writes, 'representing the freedom societies had fought for and optimism for the future'." Julia Thrift reviews All to Play for by Dinah Bornat, which makes the case that child-friendly design creates housing that benefits everyone.

Philippe Auclair on the Premier League's closed circle of promotion and relegation and the illusion of competitiveness - it's in French, but your browser will translate if for you: "Ipswich est toujours assis dans l'antichambre, mais son entrée est imminente. Il suffira pour cela que les Tractor Boys perdent à Newcastle ce weekend, ce qui n'étonnerait pas grand monde, ou que West Ham ramène un point de Brighton."

"In Brazil there is no plot against Sam. On the contrary, he’s a well-connected man from a wealthy family; people in authority go out of their way to help him. The regime ends up targeting him because of a series of completely random mix-ups, starting with a fly getting caught in a typewriter and changing the subject of an arrest warrant from a 'Mr Tuttle' to a 'Mr Buttle'. Buttle gets tortured to death, Sam has to take his widow a check as an apology, at which point he runs into Jill - and things spiral from there." Noah Berlatsky argues that Terry Gilliam was more prescient than George Orwell.

Cycle speedway: the sport that flourished on bombsites

Back to the bombsites. Thanks to Talking Pictures TV, who showed this film the other day, I have discovered a sport that was invented on them in the years after the war. It's cycle speedway.

The Cycle Speedway History says:

The sport of Motor Cycle Speedway was allegedly introduced to this Country in 1928, and it is from these humble beginnings that the sport of Cycle Speedway emerged, with a form of racing taking place before the second World War. However, it was not until the end of this war that the sport emerged in a controlled and recorded manner, and the "Skid Kids" were truly born. 

In 1946 Control Boards and Local Leagues were formed throughout the Country, these being run by interested adults, many of whom had their own sons and daughters in the teams. The tracks themselves were built on cleared bomb sites, where previous devastation and despair were replaced by the sounds of enjoyment and laughter. Bricks and timber from the bombed houses were used to mark the inner and outer perimeter of the tracks, whilst mother's knicker elastic was used as the starting tape, this being pulled across the start line to the outside of the track, so as not to give the inner gates that extra advantage. 

Once the sport got on it's feet, a number of go-ahead Councils began to donate corners of recreation grounds on which tracks could be built, some even financing this venture, from the building of the track, to the supply of all the equipment required.

One of the early Cycle Speedway Control Boards was that of London, and when the National Association of Boys Clubs joined forces, their numbers topped the three thousand mark.

A very early magazine for the sport was called "Cycle Speedway Monthly", which covered the whole Country, and sold well over 4,000 copies per edition.

In 1950 a national association was established for the sport, and by 1958 there was a British Cycle Speedway Federation. The two bodies proved to be rivals until they merged to form the Cycle Speedway Council in 1971.

I can't recall coming across the sport before, but the British Cycling site assures us that:

Cycle speedway is accessible, affordable, family-oriented and taking place in clubs throughout the country.

The history of the cinder track in Welland Park, Market Harborough

When I posted a USAAF aerial photograph of Market Harborough during the war, I noted the large oval in Welland Park and asked if it was a long-vanished cycle track.

The answer to my question is yes. There was a cinder track laid out in the park and both runners and cyclists has plans for it, but they appear to have come to nothing.

Here's the Market Harborough Advertiser and Midland Mail for 9 February 1934 reporting on a meeting of the urban district council:

The Welland Park Scheme

The Clerk said the Surveyor and he attended the Ministry and from what happened there he thought there was a chance of getting the application for the Welland Park through, and he thought it would be as well to pass a resolution that the matter go forward. 

The Surveyor (Mr. Barlow) said he had prepared plans and estimates which he described. The plans included a cinder running track (five laps to the mile). This would not expensive be an job as it could be made largely with clinkers from the destructor. 

The ministry in question was the Ministry of Health and 'the destructor' would have been apparatus used to burn domestic refuse collected by the council.

Then on 4 June 1937 the same newspaper's Sports Gossip column by R.H.O. reported:

I hear that several enthusiastic sportsmen would very much like to see an Amateur Athletic Club formed in Market Harborough. They are willing, providing there is sufficient interest in the project, to set about getting a club formed right away. 

With an officially recognised A.A.A. track in the Welland Park there would be no difficulties regarding facilities for holding trials and training. Already the Urban Council has been approached with a view to having the track banked and widened and there seems no reason why a club should not be run on successful lines. 

We have rivalry in cricket and football between the factories in the town  - why not include running, walking and cycling? Personally. I am pretty certain that we have some really useful athletes in Market Harborough. 

I have been asked not to divulge any names this week, but it can be taken from me that the sportsmen interested in the project are willing to spare no effort to get a club going. They are anxious to get the feeling of the youth of the town, and anyone wishing to give them support should drop a line to this office. A meeting is to be called shortly.

But on 2 July R.H.O. had to report:

With enquiries still coming in it is no exaggeration to state that within a few weeks the newly-formed Market Harborough and District Athletic and Cycling Club, will be able to boast of a membership of something like 70.

Members of the temporary committee of the Club inspected the track in the Welland Park this week. The track in its present condition is not very suitable for athletics. and could be very much improved. 

The main path leading from the Farndon-road entrance of the Park, which cuts through the track at two points, needs diverting and on top of this the track not wide enough.

And if you study the photo in my earlier post you will see the path doing just that.

I can find no report suggesting that any improvements were carried out, and then came war. On 7 March 1941 the newspaper reported a meeting of the council's water and markets committee. The committee's chairman and the chairman of the council had inspected Welland Park:

They recommended that all the area inside the running track be ploughed and used for growing potatoes, and it was recommended that this be done, and that the seed potatoes be purchased without delay.

The report was adopted.

There was to be no post-war renaissance of the track. On 10 December 1948 the paper's In and About Harborough column recorded:

It was news to me - as it may be to you - that there is (or perhaps was) a cycle racing track in Welland Park, Market Harborough. 

According to some of the cyclists who were attending Welland Valley Wheelers' annual dinner at Harborough on Saturday, the track was laid out. but was used only once - for the Coronation sports rather over ten years ago. 

They think the track could be restored and banked with very little expense - cinders and other waste could be used they sav - and that it could be put back into commission if a path in the park were slightly diverted.

For the last reference I can find to the track came only a week later, in a long letter about the town's sporting facilities by Benny Foster:

When the Welland Park was laid out, a running and cycle track was included, now sadly overrun by weeds, and to all intents and purposes merely a footpath.

Benny Foster, incidentally, was not just a writer of letters to his local paper. He became manager of the British international cycling team and brought the world cycling championships to Leicester in 1970.

The track may have come to nothing, but I want to end by paying tribute to foresight of the old urban district council in providing such a park for the town. When I came to Harborough in 1973, there were still parkkeepers employed there and two putting courses.

The photo at the top shows the bandstand and tearooms in the park, which now houses a café again after many years. When the sun shines you can see what an attractive example of Thirties architecture it is.

The ventilation shaft for Oxendon Tunnels

You can find this ventilation shaft in a field just to the edge of Great Oxendon village. It served the twin Oxendon tunnels on the Market Harborough to Northampton railway line.

That line closed in 1981 (I was on the last train), and today you can walk and cycle through one of the tunnels on the Brampton Valley Way.

I was also taken with an old metal gate post that stands by the shaft.

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Campaigners are urging the government to give poor families cash and not food vouchers, reports Vincent Wood.

"Trump disguised what he was doing by operating in plain sight, talking openly about his intent. He normalized his actions so people would accept them. I’ve been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them." Fiona Hill believes in calling Trump's coup a coup.

Simon Wilson argues that it is not worth trying to recycle plastics.

Karen Liebreich on the othering of cyclists: "For some years people on bikes have been perceived as members of a different, lesser species, not deserving of the basic consideration or courtesy one would usually extend to an equal."

"In the early 1970s British television began to spread the idea that accessing and expressing your feelings was a good thing. Most documentaries still just observed people - or used them to make political or social points. But a number of factual programmes became channels for the new psychotherapeutic ideas." Adam Curtis offers a history of television and hugging.

John Lewis-Stempel names Richard Jefferies among five things that inspired his book The Running Hare.

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"The United Kingdom’s spiralling COVID-19 infection and death rates can best be understood as reflecting a tragic, and distinctly English, set of failures and delusions. The exceptionalism widely championed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other Brexiteers is proving fatal." Mary Fitzgerald and Peter Geoghegan tell it like it is.

The biggest myth about the Red Wall is that it was all about Brexit and that the Red Wall seats, which had voted Leave in the 2016 Referendum, fell to the Conservatives because of Boris Johnson’s repeated mantra that he would 'get Brexit done'." Joyce Quin looks at the myths and realities of the Tories' new seats.

Silviya Barrett makes the case for more and better public transport, walking and cycling for a successful, green recovery.

"There was little room for debate: if the first course of ECT did not work, I was expected to use another, and if necessary another." Pat Bracken on electroconvulsive therapy, depression and psychiatry.

James Wallace asks if English cricket has a class ceiling.

The Gentle Author bids farewell to Doorkins Magnificat, who was the incumbent cat at Southwark Cathedral until her recent death.

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"We aren’t puritans. We aren’t miserable. We aren’t automatons. We are liberals. So why oh why is the party resorting to wringing its collective hands about 'unhealthy' Eat Out to Help Out discounts?" Judging by the reaction on Twitter, Max Wilkinson speaks for many party members.

Peter Franklin calls on the chancellor to repair the public finances after Covid-19 by introducing a form of land value taxation: "If Rishi Sunak introduces it, we’d be facing a truly remarkable moment in British politics: the first step toward a seemingly impossible political philosophy - Tory Georgism."

"A holistic approach is needed to get more people on their bikes, one that makes cycling desirable, accessible and fun. To truly make it safe, cycling in the capital needs to take priority over driving." Caz Nicklin says that if the prime minister wants to get us all on our bikes, he needs to look at what’s been stopping us for so long.

John Boughton looks at the history of council housing in Oxford, which includes a wall built to separate a private estate from the council houses next door.

Alwyn Turner looks at the strange fame of the Italian heavyweight boxer Primo Carnera.

"To get a sense of what it is like, think of an artists’ community in a near-desert of shingle, consisting of houses built from driftwood and old train carriages, all on a storm-battered headland in Kent, with a globally unique ecosystem, a tiny steam railway, and of course those two gigantic nuclear plants dominating the view to the south." Niall Gooch takes us to Dungeness.

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Eli Zaretsky examines the mass psychology of Brexit: "The best description I know of this mentality, Fintan O’Toole’s Heroic Failure, characterises it as 'the transformation of a screw-up into a demonstration of character'. Examples include the Charge of the Light Brigade, Sir John Franklin’s doomed attempt to find the Northwest Passage in the 1840s, and Dunkirk. In each case, the British character is seen to rise above self-inflicted disaster through studied indifference, and thereby to manifest its inner superiority."

Mark Bergen on how YouTube executives ignored warnings and allowed toxic videos to run rampant.

The novels of J.G. Farrell seems suddenly topical again, argues Simon Matthews, echoing Eli Zaretsky and Fintan O'Toole.

It’s time to rescue Latin from the Jacob Rees-Moggs of this world, says Charlotte Higgins.

Adrienne Lafrance shows how the bicycle paved the way for women's rights.

"Terry Gilliam‘s third feature is a hard slap to a child’s imagination. Packed with a lot of the same mythological story beats found in George Lucas’ sci-fi fable but layered with a nasty reality that promises death as much as it does adventure." Film School Rejects watches Time Bandits again.

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"Never has it been more important for the decent to stand up to the intemperate, to ignore the promptings of fatigue and pride. Designing your own comfort zone is for losers. Stand and fight." Matthew d’Ancona makes the case against a new centre party.

Christopher Kissane reviews David Edgerton's 'The Rise and Fall of the British Nation' for the Irish Times: "Our neighbours to the east feel the hand of history on their shoulders. Britain’s Brexit future stands on a foundation of faith in a particular past. A 'unique' and stable 'island story', we are told, sets Britain apart. This is, of course, nationalist delusion."

David Roberts on how the Dutch created a casual cycling culture.

The class war in space? Steve Fielding has been watching Once in a New Moon, a strange 1934 British film in which a village is whisked off into space by a passing rogue star. The villagers respond by combining their scarce resources to ensure fair shares for all, but this experiment in communism is soon abandoned.

There is a secret island in the Mersey with abbey ruins and a 24-hour ferry service. Alistair Houghton has been there.

Curious British Telly searches for the remains of The Gnomes of Dulwich, a lost 1969 BBC2 situation comedy.

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"We ought to recognise that all three parties have collaborated in the myth that decent public services could be provided without higher and more progressive taxation." William Wallace tells us it's time to talk about tax.

Amy Zimmerman on how Roseanne Barr abandoned reason and embraced the alt-right.

Peter Walker explains why forcing cyclists to wear helmets will not save lives.

"As Dostoyevsky implored through his novels and reporting, it is not only our task to support the innocent or wrongly convicted but also to recognise the humanity of the guilty and the shared sense of responsibility that we have for one another." Jennifer Wilson says the great Russian novelist predicted the ‘true crime’ craze.

"The perception is that he is difficult, obscure and intense, severe and mystical, charismatic and strange, driven and tragic, with his charisma and difficulty bound up with his character and his life." Ian Ground considers the legacy of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Mr Barlow listens to a Michael Nyman lecture: 'Music which has influenced me, but which I have never heard.'

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"Our new manifesto offers some serious proposals to address some fundamental causes of racial unfairness in society. This shows that Lib Dems are keen to walk the walk on equality." Lester Holloway looks at the party manifesto's proposals for making Britain a more racially equal society.

A Discursive of Tunbridge Wells podcast discusses involuntary treatment in the mental health system.

Katharine Schwab on the rediscovery of Britain's miles of lost cycleways.

Claire Cock-Starkey wins Name of the Day and examines the 18th-century fashion for hiring ornamental hermits. (They live on at Bonkers Hall, of course.)

Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks was released 50 years ago, The BBC Radio 4 series Soul Music celebrates the anniversary by listening to the poignant, thoughtful and life-changing memories of those who love it.

"The West Ferry Printing Works has always been quite mysterious, when it was open, you seldom saw anyone go in or come out. The dark mirrored glass made it difficult to see inside. It seemed just the place where a Bond villain would hang out." Isle of Dogs Life on the short life of Rupert Murdoch's printing works.

Cyclist nearly hit by egg in Kettering

Thanks to the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, we have our Headline of the Day.

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To understand Jeremy Corbyn look first at Vladimir Derer (who he?) says Sam Pallis.

"Older voters ... tend to be risk averse as regards political change. However, in this instance they had a rare chance to vote to return to the UK of yesteryear, which in some cases certainly provoked nostalgia not only for what the UK looked like before 1973 but also what they themselves looked like." Elliott Green on how the power of nostalgia helped Leave win the referendum.

"Burning trees for electricity is a bad idea," argues Bill McKibben.

Jack Thurston on how disused railways are being turned into long-distance cycling and walking routes.

Chris Stonor looks at cricket and mental health. "Suicide is particularly poignant given the prominent cricketing casualties. They include Mark Saxelby, David Bairstow, Peter Roebuck and Harold Gimblett."

Meanwhile, Backwatersman is encouraged to see spin bowling in the ascendancy at Northampton.

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Eric Avebury, the Liberal Democrat peer, writes movingly on the campaign to legalise assisted dying and his very personal interest in the subject.

The Telegraph has a chief executive, but what it needed was an editor, says Peter Preston.

"A recent panel for Smith College alumnae aimed at 'challenging the ideological echo chamber' elicited this ominous 'trigger/content warning” when a transcript appeared in the campus newspaper: 'Racism/racial slurs, ableist slurs, antisemitic language, anti-Muslim/Islamophobic language, anti-immigrant language, sexist/misogynistic slurs, references to race-based violence, references to antisemitic violence.'" Wendy Kaminer on the progressive ideas behind the lack of free speech on American campuses.

Good sense on cycling safety from Scotland: "My name is Alexander and I am 10 years old. I live in the countryside and the roads around my home are single track with passing places. I would like something to slow cars down because when I go on my bike and I hear cars coming they don’t slow down even though there is not much room. I usually stop and get off my bike and stand on the grass verge but they still don’t slow down."

Ian Sample fears noise pollution is making us oblivious to the sound of nature.

"If London’s roads had been 'futureproofed' in the 1970s to cope with anticipated demand today, some of the capital’s most popular neighbourhoods simply wouldn't exist today." 853 on the campaign against the Silvertown Tunnel.