Nottingham musician 'overwhelmed' by teeth appeal

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award - despite the characteristic unnecessary quotation marks.

Woodford Halse in 1966

Another film by Edward "Chib" Thorp, the railway-loving undertaker of Leigh on Sea. Click on the image above to view it on the BFI site.

Here accompanied by his wife and dog, he visits the branch line from Banbury to Woodford Halse, which had recently lost its passenger service but still saw a few long-distance passenger workings.

Then he shows us Woodford Halse itself, which had been a major railway junction and home to a locomotive deport and extensive marshalling yards. Thorp here films it in its last days as a station at all.

Now watch Last Train to Woodford Halse.

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Stephen Williams suggests that a progressive alliance could transform British politics.

"The lesson I take from what’s happened in both our main political parties is that you never win an argument by pandering to it, or ignoring it and simply hoping it goes away. You win by taking the argument head on." Read the keynote speech to Reform's 2016 annual dinner by Liz Kendall.

Jonathan Fryer explains why he has written Eccles Cakes - a childhood memoir.

"Bands now look at ticket sales, or engagement on social media as indicators of their reach and impact. And those are the things, rather than hit singles, which traditionally sustain careers." Mark Savage says the singles chart is now almost irrelevant.

Join A London Inheritance on a photographic exploration of the building of the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank after the Second World War.

Paul Talling discovers the source of the River Lea and traces its early course through Luton.

The Uglys: Wake Up My Mind

Steve Gibbons played this song when I heard him open for Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings here in Market Harborough in 2013.

He recorded it with his then band The Uglys in 1965. It was not a hit in the UK, but did very well in the charts in Australia and New Zealand.

The Brumbeat site quotes Gibbons as saying: "I played this huge harmonica on Wake Up My Mind that I'd bought from the market. It sounded just like an accordion."

And that sound makes it not only an early essay in social comment and psychedelia, but also one with a vaguely Continental tinge.

More about Steve Gibbons, a legend of the Birmingham music scene, on:

• Balls: Fight for my Country
• Steve Gibbons Band: Tulane

Labour: Now the two unity candidates are fighting each other

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From tomorrow's Observer:

The Labour party has been engulfed by fresh infighting as the camps of the two potential “unity candidates” set to fight Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership embarked on their own war of words. 

On the eve of a pivotal week for the party, one MP supporting Angela Eagle accused rival Owen Smith of using “sneaky tactics” to manoeuvre himself into being the sole challenger. 

Meanwhile a senior MP supporting Smith claimed there was an overwhelming consensus that only one candidate should emerge, and warned that currently supportive MPs would not give Eagle their nomination if she did not swiftly recognise the situation. 

"Angela needs to be very careful," said the source. "I can understand her position having come out first, but it is not a question of who deserves to be leader; it is about the best possible candidate to beat Jeremy."

On the surface it is funny: deep down it is tragic.

But I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that it will take at least one defeat under a hard left leader to bring the Labour membership to its senses.

And I remember the crap that good Liberal Democrats took from Labour for five years.

So I shall take Lord Bonkers' advice and point at Labour and roar with laughter.

Boris Johnson begins to realise that he has gone too far

A couple of days after the referendum Boris Johnson wrote a column for the Sunday Telegraph saying we could all still have nice things despite the result:

I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be. There will still be intense and intensifying European cooperation and partnership in a huge number of fields: the arts, the sciences, the universities, and on improving the environment. EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU. 

British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down.

The result was that Johnson's new-found supporters were outraged and his lieutenant and strategist Michael Gove deserted him. As a result, he dropped out of the Conservative leadership contest.

On Friday he made a speech at the French Embassy in London and called for "a political, cultural, psychological, and economic union" with France. He was booed by some members of his audience.

Tonight comes news that a dinner for European Union foreign ministers has been cancelled. This, suggests The Sun, is in part because Johnson's European counterparts have no particular wish to break bread with him.

All this must hurt Johnson. He is no Little Englander: he was born in New York to a father who made his living by working in international organisations. Some sources claim he is still a US citizen.

But, by gambling he could court the Leavers, whose views he must surely despise, lose the referendum and gain in the long run, he has spoilt all this for himself and for the nation.

I am reminded of a passage in Auberon Waugh's* first novel The Foxglove Saga. I did read it years ago, but this extract comes from William Cook's anthology of the younger Waugh's writings Kiss Me Chudleigh. Cook suggests it may be a picture of Auberon himself as a boy:

Stoat began to realise that he had gone too far. It had happened several times in his career before, when, without warning, his entire world had seemed to collapse about his ears, leaving him just a shade more lonely, and spiteful, and not a jot wiser than before. 

When his first Nanny, called Freda, to whom he was passionately attached, had suddenly been teased too much about her boyfriends, and had turned and thrashed him savagely, and had given her notice the same evening; when his spaniel puppy, Rollo, had been pushed once too often into the goldfish pond, and had caught a cold and died, and his father had sworn that he would never have another dog; when, at his first prep school, a game of Cops and Robbers had got out of hand, and a boy had nearly lost a finger, and Stoat had been asked to leave.

Like Stoat, Boris Johnson has begun to realise that he had gone too far.


* A word on Auberon Waugh. When I am seeking inspiration for my own comic writing, it is to him and his courage and absurdity that I turn.

Kiss Me Chudleigh is a good representation of his work, except that there is too much of Waugh's fulminations against the working class. Granted his politics are not my politics, but when he wrote like this (and he did frequently) he was not so much hammering at the same theme as hammering away at the same note. And it was not that funny to begin with.

In praise of eyesores: The Bull's Head, Tur Langton:

I seem to have reached the stage where I am revisiting local villages that I have already photographed for this blog. Today it was the turn of Tur Langton.

When I was there in 2010 the Bull's Head, though empty, still stood. You can see it in the photograph above.

It had closed around the turn of the century - a reminded that it is not so long since a village of any size could support two pubs.

Now it has gone, replaced by a chaste terrace with, I believe, some larger houses behind. The terrace is in the photo below.

But at least someone from the Markta site got inside the derelict pub before it was demolished,

The Bull's Head turns out to have an interesting history.

If you know your Michael Wood's Story of England, you will recall the Gartree, an oak tree situated to the north of the Roman Gartree Road and west of the ancient ridgeway running north to south, between Shangton and Illston-on-the-Hill.

Gartree is also one of the hundreds of Leicestershire. And, records This Was Leicestershire, it was at the tree that the hundred court met between at least 1458 and 1750.

After that, it relocated to the Bull's Head, the nearest convenient inn to the ancient meeting place.

Anyway, what I have learnt in my travels is that ever you see a building described as an 'eyesore' you should go and photograph it. It will have an interesting story and one day some well-meaning person will pull it down.

Cleobury Mortimer, Highley and the Isle of Man in the late 1930s

More Shropshire goodness from the BFI's Britain on Film collection.

Click on the image above to view this film by Freddy Morrison of Cleobury Mortimer.

It combines shots of village life and people, including Cleobury's wonky spire, with footage of trips to Highley and the Isle of Man.

Look for coal miners and what was then a new road bridge in the former, and the TT races and horse-drawn trams in the latter.

Enjoy to the telephone number Cleobury Mortimer 6.

Lib Dems choose Michael Mullaney to fight Bosworth again

Amid the carnage of 7 May 2015, Michael Mullaney's holding on to second place for the Liberal Democrats in the Leicestershire constituency of Bosworth counted as a considerable achievement.

Tonight he was again selected by Bosworth Lib Dems as their candidate.

If this parliament runs until 2020, the next election will be fought on new boundaries. But there are those who believe an early general election looks the logical choice for Theresa May.

Escaped wallaby causes mayhem on rail network says train operator

BT will be pleased to have won my Headline of the Day Award.

The judges enjoyed the note of scepticism.

Saddington canal tunnel

Opened in 1797, Saddington tunnel is on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal.

It is reputed to be haunted by Anna, a headless female ghost.

As at Husbands Bosworth, you can still follow the path that the horses that drew the narrow boats used to take over the hill.

An early general election looks the logical choice for Theresa May

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A major Whitehall reorganisation.

Accomplished plotters like George Osborne and Michael Gove sent to the backbenches.

Potential disasters like Boris Johnson and Liam Fox brought in.

Others  - Andrea Leadsom, Priti Patel - given cabinet positions they will hate.

You cannot accuse Theresa May of lacking ambition, with Brexit on the books and a likely economic downturn on the way, it all sounds too much for a prime minister with a majority of only 12.

The logic of that, I suppose, is that we should expect a general election in the autumn or the spring of next year.

Without it, Theresa May may find she has overestimated the strength of her position.

Two Shropshire village schools to close

The Shropshire Star reports that Hope Church of England Primary School and St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Westbury are set to close. Under the plans, pupils will be transferred to an amalgamated site at Worthen Church of England Primary School.

Heather Kidd, the excellent Liberal Democrat councillor for the area, sees no alternative because young families cannot afford to move to the area.

But it is hard not to gasp as the casuistry of the Conservative cabinet member for education on Shropshire Council:

“It is very important to understand that this is not a decision to close the schools, but a decision to consult on the amalgamation of the three schools, requiring the closure of two of the sites and enlarging the provision on the third site to accommodate the displaced pupils."

As I asked when the school at nearby Stiperstones was threatened:

Aren't Tories meant to have romantic feelings about things like village schools?

The photographs here show the school at Hope.

Boris Johnson and the collapse of British power

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So Boris Johnson is the new foreign secretary.

Our relations with other countries are now in the hands of a man who, only a couple of weeks ago, destroyed his own chances of becoming the Conservatives' leader with one undiplomatic newspaper column.

And he has previous.

In 2004 Johnson was ordered by his leader Michael Howard to go to Liverpool and apologise to the people of the city after he marked the murder of Ken Bigley by running an article in the Spectator that said of them:

"They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it."

In 2006 he had to apologise to the people of Papua New Guinea after likening to his colleagues in the Tory party:

"For 10 years we in the Tory Party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing."

In 2007 he described Portsmouth as

"a place that is arguably too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs."

And in 2008 he apologised for a column he had written in 2002 that referred to black people as "piccaninnies" and talked about their "watermelon smiles". During that same mayoral campaign he was also embarrassed by some of the racist columns by Taki that he had published in the Spectator.

The appointment of Boris Johnson is a confirmation that Britain is no longer a world power.

What international relations are left to us will be handled by David Davis, who is a grown up, as we attempt to withdraw from the European Union.

Johnson will merely go around the world exuding what he imagines to be upper-class charm. He will go down well with the sort of people who enjoy Richard Curtis films.

When the foreign secretary gig falls through - and I would not put money on its lasting too long - he will probably turn to playing the English butler in a situation comedy on American television.

The Bishop's Castle elephant found on film

As a regular visitor to Bishop's Castle I have from time to time come across the story that there used to be an elephant stabled at the town's Castle Hotel.

I have never quite believed it, but thanks to Flicks in the Sticks' Bigger Picture Archive Project, you can see the creature in the clip above.

The Shropshire Star quotes Elizabeth-Anne Williams from the Project:

"An interview recorded with George Evans in 2011 and archived at Bishops Castle Heritage Resource Centre reveals that when the Second World War broke out, a travelling circus had been performing in Bishops Castle with three or four elephants in their troupe. 

"The elephants required a lot of hay for feeding and when they packed up they weren’t able to take one elephant." 

George said the elephant was kept in the Castle Hotel stables, in the present car park, and he also remembered the elephant being taken for a walk past the Boys' School in Station Street where he and others gave it a swede which it 'squashed with its foot to eat it'.

The Bigger Picture Archive Project also turned up the footage of Amy Johnson at the gliding station on the Long Mynd that I posted recently.

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Peter Black says: "The opposition party leaders need to calm down. A snap General Election is not necessary and they are being rather silly to call for one." And he's right.

"No serious person believes that Jeremy Corbyn can win a General Election; yet the old men at the top of British trade union movement continue to back a useless leader because he plays a nostalgic tune that they and a dwindling number of their comrades recognise." James Bloodworth argues that Labour is becoming a historical re-enactment society.

Rewild our trashed hills, demands Mark Avery.

Kate Connolly on the English schoolboys who perished in the Black Forest in 1936 and became the centre of a Nazi publicity coup. Do read the comments too.

"His sister glanced away, as if trying one last time to arrange all the pieces. Then she said, 'I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure what really happened. Unlike in detective stories, we have to live without answers.'" David Grann examines the mysterious death of a Sherlock Holmes scholar.

Paul Gallagher remembers the glory days of Pan Books.

Vanessa Redgrave on Blow-Up - 50 years on

Thanks to Mike's Movie Projector for finding this video.

How Reg Varney ruined the British economy

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The comedian Reg Varney was born 100 years ago today.

Normally one would celebrate such an anniversary, but I cannot forget an old post on Stumbling and Mumbling.

This demonstrated conclusively that Varney (who died in 2008) was single-handedly responsible for Britain's woes.

If you doubt me, read this:

His portrayal of Stan Butler did much to perpetuate the image of the 1970s worker as a bone-idle work-dodger; we forget today just how enormously popular On the Buses was. And this in turn might subconsciously have contributed to the popularity of Thatcherism. How many of those who, when asked by Tories in 1979 whether the working class had become too big for its boots, conjured up a picture of Stan Butler and so voted for Thatcher?

And this:

Reg Varney was the first man in the world to use a cash point machine. In doing so, he might have kicked off two effects. One is a tolerance of inflation. One of the drawbacks of inflation is that it forces us to economize on holding cash, as inflation erodes its value. We therefore make more trips to the bank, incurring what economists call shoe-leather costs - costs which are more significant than you might think ... However, the invention of the ATM helped make it much easier to get cash out of the bank. This fall in shoe leather costs for technological reasons offset part of the normal cost of inflation, which helped make people less intolerant of it. 

Is it really a coincidence that inflation began to rise as the cash point machine, as popularized by Mr Varney, became more widely used? I think not.

And this:

Before Mr Varney used the cash point, impulse buying of good or sessions down the pub were constrained by the fact that cash was hard to obtain. After that fateful day, however, the constraint came down. 

If you think of consumers as rational far-sighted maximizers the effect on spending should have been minimal. But if people lack self-control, the spread of the ATM would have raised spending. 

Maybe, then, Mr Varney is partly to blame for the low savings ratio.

Is it any wonder that some people did not care for him?

Leicestershire Tory MP forecasts 20 defections if Theresa May becomes leader

Let's be honest: the East Midlands regional section is not always the most interesting part of Sunday Politics.

But it was certainly worth watching yesterday.

Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, was defending Andrea Leadsom and her bid to lead the party.

When the interviewer Marie Ashby put him to him that, according to the Sunday Times, some East Midlands Tory MPs were threatening to leave the party if Leadsom won the contest Bridgen replied:

"If Theresa May ends up leading the party I think you'll have as many people falling off the other side of the party."

You can see the exchange from 42:36 if you watch it on iPlayer.

Remember that the Sunday Times claimed as many as 20 Tory MPs were prepared to leave the party if Leadsom won.

Andrea Leadsom decides to apologise and play the victim

Truly appalling and the exact opposite of what I said.  I am disgusted. https://t.co/DPFzjNmKie

— Andrea Leadsom MP (@andrealeadsom) July 8, 2016

Remember this and Andrea Leadsom's other tweets on the theme?

All that has changed.

Helped by a comically one-sided article in the Telegraph by my former classmate Allison Pearson, Leadsom has decided to apologise and play the victim.:

When I ask if she would like to apologise to Mrs May, she says: "I've already said to Theresa how very sorry I am for any hurt I have caused and how that article said completely the opposite of what I said and believe." 

She refuses to say how the message was conveyed to the Home Secretary, but she admits she has felt “under attack, under enormous pressure. It has been shattering.”

Given that we have all read and heard what Leadsom said, you have to wonder how the apology was received.

And if a week in the public gaze has been "shattering," you have to wonder whether Leadsom is remotely suitable for the role of prime minister.

Reading between the lines, it sounds as though Leadsom originally stood to make herself better known, assuming that Boris Johnson would emerge as the Leave candidate.

Suddenly, Johnson and Gove took one another out and she found herself one of the final two candidates.

For her sake and the sake of the country, Leadsom should now stand down from the contest.