"Kirby Muxloe Castle is a wholly unexpected pleasure." I wrote in July 2010.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Friday, December 16, 2016
Wilson, Keppel and Betty in colour
Thanks to Alan Stafford for posting this. He is the author of Too Naked for the Nazis, a biography of Wilson, Keppel and Betty.
That title must refer to a story I have blogged about myself.
Leicester to Uppingham bus survives for another year
In November I blogged about the threat to the 747 bus from Leicester to Uppingham.
Yesterday came news that Leicestershire and Rutland County Councils have stepped in to save it.
The Leicester Mercury reports:
A bus service has been saved thanks to an emergency subsidy of £60,000.
Leicestershire and Rutland County Councils have agreed to spend £60,000 to ensure the Leicester-Uppingham 747 bus service operates for another year.
Bus firm Centrebus has said it would discontinue the service on January 8 because it was not cost effective.
However the councils' subsidies will now extend it to January 2018.But, as the Mercury makes clear, the councils have made no commitment to support the service after that.
I used the service today. Uppingham was misty and mysterious.
Why the Liberal Democrats are winning in Leave constituencies
George Eaton writes for the New Statesman
In last night's council by-elections, the Lib Dems won two seats off the Tories in Teignbridge (which was 54 per cent Leave) and a seat off them in Taunton (53 per cent Leave), with dramatic swings in both cases.Such impressive results in Leave constituencies, he suggests, mean that the Liberal Democrat strategy of being the party of Remain may not be as limiting as some have argued.
Eaton notes that only one of our top 30 Tory targets is a Remain seats with a Leave MP - that's Lewes, by they way.
But he gives three reasons why we have started to do well in Leave constituencies like Teignbridge and Taunton.
First, 48 per cent will not win you a referendum but it will win you an awful lot of seats under a first-past-the-post election.
Second, some Leave voters - attracted by other Liberal Democrat policies, such as localism, and wanting a competent opposition Labour is unable to provide - may still choose to turn or return to us.
Third, freed from coalition, we are once more a party that can attract protest votes.
My feeling after the Richmond Park by-election was that it marked a return to the normal order of things - Richmond has been a Liberal/Tory marginal for more than three decades. Today it is the 2015 general election result that looks anomalous and not our narrow victory in the by-election.
Similarly, the Liberal Democrats should be a threat to the Conservatives in West Country by-elections while they are in government.
So last night's triumphs may mark a return to politics-as-usual as much at they represent the fruits of our new strategy.
Advent Calendar 16: Near Chapel Brampton
My records say this was taken in Northamptonshire, but it does look very like a back way into Bonkers Hall.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Walking the River Fleet through North London
Another video from Londonist. Matt Brown is an engaging guide as we follow London's most famous lost river.
Clegg: Britain must compromise with EU to maintain our security
Nick Clegg launched his latest Brexit Challenge paper today. This one looks at the need for justice and home affairs cooperation between Britain and the EU.
The Independent quotes him speaking at the launch:
“Our connections with Europe have strengthened our police and criminal justice systems substantially over recent years. Cross-border crime and terrorism will still need to be tackled after Brexit. We cannot let political dogma get in the way of public safety.
“The Government needs to think about what compromises they are prepared to make in return for an unprecedented deal that allows us to, at the very least, maintain the successful security measures we have in place now.”You can read the full paper on the Liberal Democrats website.
Six of the Best 651
Chris Dillow explains why the government is cutting the number of overseas students: it's target fetishism.
"Something is deeply wrong with this erstwhile national staple: it has become a travesty of trade, a grim parody of twenty-first century consumerism." David Butterfield explains how W.H. Smith became a national embarrassment.
"The spread of bad archaeology online is not fuelled by conspiracy theorists or Macedonian teenagers out to make a buck. It is fuelled by fans." Adrián Maldonado on the fate of archaeology in the post-truth era.
E.R. Braithwaite, the author of To Sir, With Love. has died in the United States at the age of 104. Sewell Chan wrote his New York Times obituary.
Matt Gilbert takes us to Johnny Ball Lane, a half-hidden route to Bristol's past.
Liberal Democrats jump to best poll rating in five years
Good news in the Evening Standard:
The Liberal Democrats have jumped to their best poll rating in five years after the Richmond Park by-election, an exclusive poll reveals today.
Their vote is up from 10 to 14 points in the monthly Ipsos MORI Political Monitor survey - their biggest share since August 2011.
At the same time, leader Tim Farron’s personal ratings have improved, with satisfaction in his performance rising from 23 per cent to 27.
And the research found the Lib-Dems a clear five points ahead of Ukip, who are also up slightly.We have been waiting for a winnable by-election to give the party a boost, and it duly seems to have happened. All that talk of a Liberal Democrat fightback, seen first in rising membership and then in local by-election gains, seems to have been justified.
If 14 per cent still sounds disappointing, we should not forget that our poll ratings have rarely been much higher.
I sensed that the press was starting to take Tim Farron more seriously a couple of weeks before polling day.
A Liberal Democrat revival would make a good story, and Labour is in such a mess at the moment that it is unlikely to come up with a competing one.
Warning note: It's only one poll, ratings can go down as well as up and your house may be at risk if you do not keep up payments.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Tracing the Bewdley to Hartlebury Junction line
Another video from Holden Webster, who runs the Shropshire Railways website.
This one discovers the southern end of the Severn Valley Railway. The SVR was built to join Shrewsbury to Worcester with the link to Kidderminster coming later providing an East/West link across the South Shropshire border.
His journey takes him through Stourport on Severn where the lines history is preserved with a public footpath nearly all way from the centre of Stourport to the junction with the main Worcester to Birmingham line at Hatlebury.
The station at Stourport has sadly disappeared altogether into a modern housing development, but the large rail viaduct to the east of the town still remains intact to walk on.
How internet trolls are attacking democracy
Russia is helping Trump’s campaign, yes, but it is not doing so solely or even necessarily with the goal of placing him in the Oval Office. Rather, these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern ...
Russia’s desire to sow distrust in the American system of government is not new. It’s a goal Moscow has pursued since the beginning of the Cold War. ... What is new is the methods Russia uses to achieve these objectives.
Last month War on the Rocks published a report by Andrew Weisburd, Clint Watts and J.M. Berger on Russia's social media propaganda war against American democracy.
They argued that:
Until recently, Western governments focused on state-to-state negotiations with Putin’s regime largely missed Russian state-to-people social media approachesand identified five objectives that Russia’s social media campaigns seek to strengthen Russia’s position against Western democracies:
- Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
- Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
- Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
- Popularise Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
- Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy. Unfortunately, that effort is going very well indeed.Meanwhile in Britain, research by Brexit24 reveals, someone appears to be employed full time to seed The Times website with positive stories about Brexit and to ridicule those who express doubts about it.
Whoever employs that troll, Putin has decided to weaponise the West's own stupidity against itself. And that is one resource with which we are well endowed.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Six of the Best 650
Chris Grayling is misleading Southern passengers, argues Paul.
Bradley L Garrett and Adam Fish decry the privatisation of urban airspace.
"That’s what characters in Dickens do: they step out of the novels and they roam the world." Jenny Hartley recommends five books on Charles Dickens.
Thomas Mallon reviews a new biography of Beryl Bainbridge.
Lynne About Loughborough looks at Swithland slate.
Monday, December 12, 2016
A 1957 British Railways poster for Lichfield Cathedral
Lichfield is on my long list of Places I Must Visit Again One Day.
Monty Panesar and the psychological toll of sport
There's a story in today's Guardian suggesting that athletes in individual events are more prone to experiencing depressive symptoms than are athletes in team events.
It quotes the German psychologist Professor Jürgen Beckmann:
“The real problem is with young athletes. Those who receive social support from parents and peers experience much less stress than those who don’t. That’s especially important during adolescence.
“We found that up to 20% of young athletes do have a problem with higher depression scores. In the general population its range is between 9% and 12%.
“We are not diagnosing them as being depressive, but on the depression scales they have quite a score.”As regular readers will know, I am not one to show off, but the story has its origin in one of my press releases in the day job.
Not that athletes in team sports are without problems.
The New Statesman has a revealing interview by Emma John with the former England cricketer Monty Panesar about his psychological health problems and his desire to regain the top of the game:
England, now struggling in the Test series in India, are still looking for a long-term solution to their dearth of spin-bowling options. But it would be a long road for the Luton man to travel if he were to return to the Test side.
Describing how little cricket he has played in the past few years, Panesar concedes that it left him unmoored.
“When you haven’t bowled for ages you wonder: ‘What was I like?’ There was a point where I completely forgot what kind of cricketer I was. You just forget, your mind forgets. And then you sort of speak to people who knew you at your best. You ask: ‘What was I like?’”He was very good.
As time goes on, England's victory in India in 2012-13, in which our spinners Panesar and Graeme Swann played the central role, gets to look more and more impressive.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
An interview with Foxy Faced Charles
Paul Emmines has conducted interviews with three members of the cast of the classic BBC adaptation of John Masefield's A Box of Delights:
- Foxy Faced Charles (played by Geoffrey Larder)
- Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (played by Patricia Quinn)
- Chubby Joe (plaed by Jonathan Stephens)
Patricia Quinn is the widow of Sir Robert Stephens, who played the chief villain Abner Brown.
Fingermarks of an 18th century child preserved in brick
On Friday I posted a video of the Flying Scotsman crossing the Welland Viaduct and quoted Wikipedia to explain where you can find that remarkable structure.
Its entry included this detail:
This afternoon I found these on Twitter:
Its entry included this detail:
Before the extensive privatisation of British Rail, repairs were regularly made to the structure by the Kettering and Leicester civil engineering staff.
Many of the older bricklayers reported having seen the imprints of children's hands and feet in the bricks, from where they had walked on the clay-filled moulds before firing in the kiln.I'm not sure I believed it, but it was a nice story so I quoted it in the post.
This afternoon I found these on Twitter:
Unique bricks discovered at lock 15 by HLF Trainees- got finger prints on them from before firing! pic.twitter.com/b0PDa9WNuW— CRTGraham (@CrtGraham) November 24, 2016
Lock 15 is part of the Woolsthorpe flight on the Grantham Canal. You can read about its restoration on Canal Junction.Can't get more handmade than this! Fingermarks of the maker - a child probably! Bricks made locally over 200 years ago on Lock 15 #Grantham https://t.co/9Qsv9Osvqj— Grantham Canal (@GranthamCanal) December 11, 2016
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