Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker discuss Gone to Earth and its restoration

The 64th New York Film Festival, which closes on Sunday, saw the world premiere of a new restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1950 film Gone to Earth.

This is one of their less celebrated films, but as it was shot in the Stiperstones in Technicolor, it is a favourite of mine. Because of my Shropshire obsession, I have made two people watch it with me and both enjoyed it.

Here Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker discuss the film and its restoration. One thing I didn't know before watching this is that both Powell's parents came from the Welsh border. In an interview he once said:

All my family on my mother's side come from Worcestershire and Shropshire (my father's side is from the Welsh Marches), so I was quite keen to do it as I knew the people, the country, the voices. It was a very good story but rather melodramatic.

The restoration of Gone to Earth was also shown in London this week. Someone who was there told me on Bluesky:

The restoration has greatly improved it. You are drawn into the story, and largely held by it, rather than being distracted by the decayed grading of previous versions. The sound has been cleaned up too, so the dialogue is more involving. Lovely touches of humour emerged.

Matt Brittin and Manon Dave need a traditional BBC arse-booting

Many have spent the day unsure whether to be outraged by BBC senior management or point at it and roar with laugher.

Here's director general Matt Brittin, quoted by Deadline:

"I love the BBC. It’s full of words and discussion and slide decks and framing and reframing and reconstituting, and going around the houses, and actually, I'd like us to celebrate activity less, and outcomes more. And getting faster to outcomes that make a difference to an audience.

"Not [just], 'We did this great marketing campaign,' but actually, 'It drove up watch time usage and active accounts,' right? Or, 'We did this piece of journalism, and it changed the law, and it landed with these audiences.'"

And here's Manon Dave, "head of future world design in the corporation’s Media Tech unit", from the same report:

Dave told colleagues that he spent time on holiday redesigning iPlayer without any internal limitations. He wants the streaming service to become a place where audience members say, "I want to iPlayer and chill," though it is not clear if this means retaining the sexual connotations of the original "and chill" internet slang.

Dave’s vision for iPlayer included an AI agent called Iggy, which helps recommend and summarize iPlayer content, and can speak to audiences in different languages. Other ideas Dave presented to staff included a personalized "hero" picture at the top of iPlayer's home screen, which picks out algorithm-led content recommendations based on past viewing habits. He also demonstrated "Vegas mode," allowing viewers to "roll the dice" and see what iPlayer selects for them.

At one point, we are told, Dave referred to the director-general as "my big homie".

What to do with this pair?

Fortunately, my alter ego has the answer. In the last Liberator of 2025, Lord Bonkers described a traditional BBC arse-booting:

I don’t suppose you’ve had the pleasure of being present at this ceremony, where a bad hat who has evaded the stern eye of Sir John Reith and talked his way into the corporation, is ejected forthwith, but the way of it is this. 

The Chief Commissionaire, traditionally a former RSM from one of the Guards regiments, boots the miscreant the length of the longest corridor at Broadcasting House and out through the revolving doors. That corridor is lined with BBC luminaries, who tut and look disappointed in the bootee. 

You might spot, for instance, John Snagge, Grace Wyndham Goldie, Alvar Lidell, Franklin Engelmann, Katie Boyle, Moira Anderson, William Woollard, Angela Rippon, Lauren Laverne, Richard Osman, the Frazer Hayes Four, the more senior Teletubbies and several generations of Dimblebys in the throng.

Woman ‘posed as substitute teacher to insult students because she hates kids’

Metro wins Headline of the Day and may just have identified a phenomenon that explains some of my own school experiences.

The Joy of Six 1588

"Tony Blair once observed that the first step from opposition to government is an honest analysis of why you are in opposition. Kemi Badenoch and the people around her don't seem to have done that - or if they have, they’ve come up with the wrong answer." Andrew Cooper goes to the Conservative Party conference.

Samantha Asumadu reports that Times Higher Education has given no coverage to the allegations against James Orr, the  Cambridge academic and former Reform UK policy chief whose foundation receives Hungary-linked funding. By coincidence, THE signed a partnership with Viktor Orbán’s government.

Achim Hildebrandt et al. examine David Goodhart's claim that a split between Somewheres and Anywheres lies at the heart of many contemporary political conflicts. They find little evidence to support it.

"Creepy. That’s the word for the rising right-wing interest in family policy, exemplified by a recent administration proposal to pay $9,000 each year per child for women to stay at home with their children. The money would come from, and deplete, an existing federal programme that helps working parents pay for childcare." Mitchell Zimmerman says the Trump-Vance family policy reeks of white supremacy and misogyny.

"With their bold transpositions of anachronistic elements, both works can be seen as unconscious, pre-bellum statements against the soon to emerge behemoth of post modernity which would come to be an all-encompassing cultural filter." Corse Present considers Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns and David Rudkin's Penda's Fen.

Geoff Lemon says cricket won't stop taking about the 2018 sandpaper scandal until the Australian authorities give a full account of what happened.

Roman Leicester wasn't built in a day 2

Four years ago I wrote:

What with one thing and another, it's been two years since I posted something from this series. So let's carry on the with the first part of its treatment of Roman Leicester.

It's time we had the second part. Its YouTube blurb says:

In part 2 of this episode exploring the archaeology and legacy of Roman Leicester, we examine the lifestyles of Ratae's former residents, uncovering amazing stories of love, life and death in the town.

Plans resubmitted for controversial 'state-of-the-art' crematorium next to Northampton secondary school

There's nothing sinister about this. Nothing sinister at all.

Our Headline of the Day Award travels down the A508 to the Northampton Chronicle & Echo.

Cleaners From Venus: Illya Kuryakin Looked at Me

A wonderful homage to the Sixties as they were or should have been. Rita Tushingham. Harold Wilson. David Hemmings. David Bailey. The Avengers. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

A portrait of the last days of independent Penge

A film made by the Penge Rotary Club in 1964. It provides a useful corrective to the view, widespread on Bluesky, that we all lived in shoeboxes and ate gravel until about 20 years ago, while showing us why the Sixties had to happen.

The former canal mentioned is the Croydon Canal; note too the children playing cricket without being organised by adults and an unexpected appearance by the Crystal Palace dinosaurs.

As to the palace itself, my father remember being woken as a small boy in Horsham, West Sussex, in 1936 to see the glow on the northern horizon that was it burning down.

Then steel yourself for an appearance by the feared Penge Formation Dancers, before the demise of Penge's council is mourned.

As ever in such films, it is the street scenes that are the most interesting.

How John Prescott blocked the full redevelopment of Ellesmere canal basin

I last visited Ellesmere canal basin getting on for 30 years ago, when I recall it being quite derelict. I was there again this summer and found it changed. But not as changed as it might have been.

There was a new supermarket, a derelict canal warehouse with a top ghost sign (someone told me there had been plans to convert it into a restaurant but they had fallen through) and lots of empty space.

If you want to know why it hasn't been more comprehensively redeveloped, and a BBC News feature from 2004 is enlightening:

For 15 years there has been a hole in the heart of the north Shropshire town of Ellesmere.

Ever since the Dairy Crest creamery shut down, efforts have been made to develop what is a prime canalside site, but all have failed.

In 2003 it looked as if things might finally change with the latest plans to redevelop the 50 acre site on the canal wharf.

Property developers Burbury Investments, which bought the site when the creamery closed, submitted plans for a retail village on the site.

It included shops, a supermarket, garden centre, caravan park, a 60 bed hotel, a wine bar and housing, with its own access from the A495.

The plans were enthusiastically backed by Ellesmere's Chamber of Trade and the Town Council, and permission was granted by North Shropshire District Council.

A vote run on the Ellesmere Community website showed roughly 85 per cent support for the scheme, with 15 per cent against.

But the town had reckoned without John Prescott. He called in the planning application and then ordered a public inquiry. The inquiry, chaired by a government inspector, sat for a week and recommended approval. Then Prescott overruled the inspector. The developers went to court, but there challenge to Prescott's decision failed.

At the time of writing in 2004, the site was "empty and dotted with derelict and overgrown buildings". That would have been fun to explore. It's much tidier today, but not what it might have been.

Here are some photos I took in August. This is the first of what will be a series of posts looking back on my holiday.

The Joy of Six 1587

Cathy Mongaghan says Essex County Council's Operation Vanguard shows what can happen when a party built on amplifying fear and division takes control of the institutions needed to turn its political story into public policy: "Reform warned people that asylum seekers made their communities unsafe. Reform won power in Essex. Reform then spent council money putting private security on the streets in response to the presence of asylum seekers. The fear came first. The policy followed."

James Murray asks what true pragmatism look like in an age of climate crisis: "How is the rational choice the one that drives up emissions that are triggering climatic tipping points and increases reliance on fossil fuels when volatile fossil fuel prices are the primary source of the current economic pain?"

"A mother whose toddler was removed from her care over a petty crime she committed 20 years ago has finally been reunited with her son after a months-long court battle." Amy-Clare Martin reports on the continuing inhumanity of New Labour's flagship Imprisonment for Public Protection law.

Mark Follman on how ChatGPT fed a mass shooter's violent fantasies and helped plan a massacre.

No, we don't have a lizard brain lurking beneath our rational minds, Hannah Critchlow reassures us.

"Like Stanley Kubrick, Wilder mastered a variety of genres and displayed a range rarely seen in the profession. Ace in the Hole was a scathing satire of the newspaper industry, Witness for the Prosecution a hugely influential courtroom drama and The Lost Weekend dealt with alcoholism in a way that was unprecedented in the 1940s." Darren Richman looks forward to a celebration of Billy Wilder's remarkable career.

Colin Milburn at Lord's in 1968: The first test innings I remember

The first test innings I can remember is Colin Milburn hitting the Australians all round Lord's in 1968.

And here it is, with John Arlott adding his comments.

The innings in question took place on the second morning of a rain-ruined match, and Milburn was the top scorer in England's first innings with 83.

England then skittled Australia in their first innings (David Brown 5-42) and made them follow on, but didn't have time to force a win. The full scorecard is on cricinfo.

"Chop chop ya bam" Grandson of Big Mags Haney jailed over 'sadistic' machete attack

I can't begin to imagine what went on in their chamber, but the judges have awarded Headline of the Day to the Daily Record.

Ian Anderson on the old hippies who used punk to get on in music

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Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull has given Louder a guided tour of the band's many albums.

When it gets to 1978 and Heavy Horses, he says:

You have to remember, this was at the time punk’s final embers were burning out and you had bands like The Police and The Stranglers, who were, collectively speaking, a bunch of old hippies. The brave new world of punk rock had perhaps become commercialised at that point. But bands like those two used punk as a means to get their foot in the door, just as I did with the blues in 1968.

And he has a point. Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers was in a school band with Richard Thompson, who became a founding member of Fairport Convention in 1967. Andy Summers had been on the scene since since the early Sixties and was 35 when The Police formed.

That's him on the left in the photo above with Zoot Money, photographed in 1964.

Lawrence Hogben, Pressure and the meteorologists of D-Day

Lawrence Hogben (1916–2015) was of the meteorologists who produced the vital weather forecasts before the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944. This, of course, is the process dramatised in this year's film Pressure.

In 1994, Hogben wrote about those days for the London Review of Books:

"Everything on the Normandy beachhead will hang on your weather," said the D-Day planners, assuming that we meteorologists had total control of the elements. "Just name us five fine, calm days and we’ll go."

A hundred years of weather records suggested there was no hope of their getting this. They limited their demand to "a quiet day with not more than moderate winds and seas and not too much cloud for the airmen, to be followed by three more quiet days." 

On top of this, the military insisted on a late full moon for the parachutists, plus a tide that would be high three hours after pioneer forces had landed at dawn to clear paths through the beach mines and other obstacles. 

Tides and moon being fully predictable, they would determine possible dates. July would be too late, and May too early. That left just four possible days: 5, 6, 19 or 20 June. We worked out the odds on the weather on any one of these four dates conforming to requirements as being 13 to one against. So meteorologically, D-Day was bound to be a gamble against the odds.

The planners had originally wanted to know how far ahead a correct weather forecast could be made and who should make it. "We can make it, one, perhaps two days ahead," said the Meteorological Office. "We can make it up to five days ahead," said the American Air Force. "But do they know anything about the sea?" asked the Royal Navy, who made no promises. 

To satisfy pride, and to get the best possible forecast, the solution was to form a committee made up of the three groups. However, fear that loud-mouthed Americans might shout down mild British civil servants, or even battle-hardened naval officers, brought about an administrative compromise. 

The D-Day forecast became a telephonic affair: the six forecasters would stay in three separate centres, joined to one another, and to Eisenhower’s headquarters, by GPO telephones (which worked). A non-forecaster 'presenter' would moderate our debates and then explain our agreed forecast to Ike and his staff.

And, as Hogben goes on to explain, this unlikely approach produced an an accurate forecast. Eisenhower was persuaded to stage D-Day on 6 June rather than his original preference of 5 June, and the waiting a fortnight until the next possible dates would have led to a military disaster.

One in the eye for the Tory Bayeux Tapestry as Labour hits back

Over on Beelzebub's Picture Book, the Labour Press account has posted this neat response to the Conservatives weird take on the Bayeux tapestry.

The Joy of Six 1586

Jonathan Freedland argues that the Greens' anti-Zionism motion is yet another attempt to tell Jews what they should think: "In each generation, those making such demands of Jews believe they are acting in a righteous cause. The Christian persecutors of the Inquisition were sure that they were honouring Jesus; today’s Greens are certain they are advancing the cause of anti-racism, even as they would hound and defame and shame a tiny minority."

"Money matters in politics, especially if you have a lot of it. Alistair McAlpine understood this all too well. 'If you’ve got £1 million or £2 million to spend on political advertising, forget it,' he told a journalist three decades ago. 'If you’ve got £8 million, you can make people believe anything you want.'" Peter Geoghehan examines our continuing failure to regulate party funding.

Aaron Tucker says facial-recognition technology is scarier than you think.

"What happened to Luna reflects the mental health struggles of many young people, but it is also, in part, a story about money: a private education industry that has grown increasingly reliant on the fees international students bring, propped up by a patchwork of private companies that profit from these children while carrying almost none of the legal obligations that would normally come with caring for them." Samira Shackle on the death of a 16-year-old from Hong Kong in Shropshire.

Geraldine Kendall Adams goes to see the Bayeux tapestry: "Then there’s that special moment when we get our first glimpse of the tapestry from above, stretched out so long that it almost seems to disappear over the horizon. I wasn’t prepared for how much this sight would move me: it genuinely took my breath away, and I could see it did the same to other visitors. In terms of pacing, this overhead view is a masterstroke of suspense-building and payoff."

"This delightful gem of a movie is, for me at least, ironically not only the best Warner Bros film released so far this year, it also is, hands down, the best animated/live action hybrid since Robert Zemeckis’ classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit hit screens four decades ago." Pete Hammond reviews Coyote vs Acme.

This is Lorelei: Billy Come Back

For most of his life, Nate Amos made music just to get through the day, writes Jazz Monroe in the Guardian:

There was plenty of it: dozens of self-produced albums and EPs uploaded – since his This Is Lorelei project launched in 2012 – to what was then a plucky, independent platform called Bandcamp. Now 35, he is perhaps the quintessential Bandcamp artist: part bedroom-pop whiz, part alt-country troubadour, part indie rock rascal with a big, heavy heart. His peers treat him like a lost folk hero from a bygone era.

And his new album as This is Lorelei?

The Singer in My Band is alarmingly jaunty – an outlier in a bric-a-brac catalogue that has noodled from sad chamber pop to murky post-punk to midsize indie anthems. He knocks out twangy riffs, hearty harmonies and bunnyhopping basslines that hark back to his childhood under the spell of his bluegrass-maestro father, Bob Amos.

This is a track from it.

A ghost sign near Parliament Hill Fields

I've just got back from London after a walk and boozy meal with Liberator friends.

On the walk, I spotted this ghost sign near Parliament Hill Fields.

Turns out I was worrying about the Gell-Mann amnesia effect

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I suggested a couple of days ago that:

Becoming very knowledgeable about a niche subject is worrying, because you find much that has been published about it is wrong. And then it become more worrying, because you suspect this is true of every subject if only you knew.

A reader kindly sent me a link to an old Wikipedia page on the Gell-Mann amnesia effect:

The Gell-Mann amnesia effect is a claimed cognitive bias describing the tendency of individuals to critically assess media reports in a domain they are knowledgeable about, yet continue to trust reporting in other areas despite recognizing similar potential inaccuracies.

The effect is not formally recognized, but the concept has gained traction in critical thinking and media literacy discussions.

The term was coined by novelist Michael Crichton in a 2002 speech, naming it after Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with whom he had discussed the phenomenon.

This is very much what I was getting at, but is it possible not to display such amnesia? You can hardly resolve to become an expert in every field of human knowledge, nor can you refuse to take on board any information unless you can vouch for its truth yourself.

All that is left to us is a sort of weak, generalised scepticism. But I suppose that's not such a bad condition to live your life under.

Exploring the history of old Tottenham with John Rogers

John Rogers takes us on a tour through the history of Tottenham in North London, partly in search of St Loy’s Well.

The walk's blurb on YouTube says:

Starting at Bruce Castle one of the two largest Tudor houses in Greater London making Tottenham an important centre of London history. Our Tottenham history walk then takes in All Hallows Church, Lordship Lane Rec and talk about Tottenham resident Luke Howard and his classification of clouds. We then visit Luke Howard's home in Bruce Grove. 

Walking down the ancient High Road Tottenham we talk about the various royal associations as we arrive at Tottenham High Cross which has stood on this site since at least the 12th century. From here we go to Page Green and discover where Seven Sisters gets its name.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Lib Dem MPs are talking to the media about their concern at the party's direction

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There have been whispers about discontent with the party's leadership among Liberal Democrat MPs for some time. Now some of those MPs are talking, some more openly than others, to the media about their concerns.

This is from BBC News yesterday:

One frontbench Lib Dem MP told the BBC after Burnham's Labour conference speech: "Lots of us [are] struggling tonight with [a] Labour leader articulating Lib Dem values better than we do."

They pointed to Burnham's promises on electoral reform, social care, the water industry, and relations with Europe - all Lib Dem campaign points in recent years.

"I'm honestly utterly despondent with the state of things," another Lib Dem MP said.

Some senior Lib Dems believe Sir Ed's position as leader has been vulnerable for some time, even if they stressed no challenge is imminent.

"A plausible candidate could take him tomorrow in a bloodless coup," one prominent party figure said.

"But that person hasn't yet revealed themselves as far as I'm aware. Nobody is going to blow anything up without a clear plan to put something in its place."

A second report appeared on Sky News today, focused on dissatisfaction with our reaction to the government's proposals on social care and the triple lock. It seems there are some MPs who share my reaction:

Others, who don't necessarily agree with scrapping the triple lock, felt frustrated by the tone of Sir Ed's response - especially given he's been Westminster's most prominent campaigner in recent years for an improved social care system.

It's clear that the arrival of Andy Burnham at Number 10 has fundamentally changed the political landscape. I don't know if the Liberal Democrats need a new leader to navigate that landscape, but we certainly need some new thinking and a new approach from the top of the party.

Blackburn Reform councillor accused of farting at rival

I pleaded the case of BBC News and its 

Car crashes into viral shop shutters where gran was hoisted into the air

but the judges were stern. Bewigged. Implacable. 

So our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Lancashire Telegraph for:

Blackburn Reform councillor accused of farting at rival

I'm not happy. As the headmaster says in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On:

"Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall."

Still, I suppose you have to admire the Telegraph's front page. (The winning headline appears on the paper's website. The judges insist I have to be able to link to a headline for it to be eligible for this award.)

The Joy of Six 1585

"Burnham’s speech was, in some ways, an exercise in calling the electorate’s bluff. 'I have given you what you often say is missing from politics,' Burnham concluded. “Honesty, ideas and a clear direction for the country we all love.' The message was thus: You say you want change and are sick of politicians who dodge difficult decisions and offer little beyond managerialism. So here are some difficult decisions — will you back me?" Zoe Grunewald was in Liverpool for Andy Burnham's speech.

Chris Grey looks at the the speech's effect on the Brexit debate: "In personal life, we rarely regard terrible decisions we have made as being unalterable, or at least not for long. We may, moralistically, tell ourselves that we have 'made our bed and must lie in it'. We may, stoically, insist that we 'mustn’t grumble' and 'have to make the best of it'. But few of us are so moralistic, or so stoic, as to deny ourselves the chance to revisit our bad decisions, if it is possible. With Brexit, that has not, in the sense of realistic politics, been possible until now. Burnham’s speech this week has made it so."

Ruth Bright has some questions for Burnham (and the Liberal Democrats) on what a 'National Care Service' would look like.

"In November 1749 John London walked from his home to vote in the Westminster constituency parliamentary by-election at St Paul’s, Covent Garden. He was probably with a group of his near neighbours from Hungerford Market, just south of the Strand (where Charing Cross railway station stands today). He cast his vote for the government candidate, Lord Trentham, then presumably returned home to continue his day’s business."  Gillian Williamson explores the earliest known record of a Black person voting in a British parliamentary election.

Finlay McLaren suggests I, Claudius as a model for out beleaguered television industry: "I, Claudius is also a reminder that costume drama doesn’t need armies of extras, CGI palaces or international location shoots. It needs good scripts, good actors and directors who know how to use them. As the television industry struggles with budgets and commissioners become increasingly frightened of expensive productions, perhaps the future lies not in trying to compete with multi-million-pound streaming hits, but in cheap, writerly drama like I, Claudius."

"Without wine’s prestige, and with relatively minimal transport costs and, at those ABVs, considerably lower UK alcohol duty than wine, some of the bottles in today’s picks are nothing short of a giveaway." Mina Holland on the appeal of perries

Now We Are Severn released by Shrewsbury's Up Sewage Creek

The Shrewsbury river campaigners Up Sewage Creek have released a 10-minute film about the River Severn and their work to protect it: We Are Severn.

Shropshire Live says:

The film, which has been produced by award winning Shropshire arts organisation MediaActive Projects, is a collaboration between local people and creative practitioners designed to raise awareness about the state of the Severn. 

It features video footage, animation, and interviews with local river campaigners talking about the Severn and why it is so important to Shrewsbury. 

Up Sewage Creek won't allow the video to be embedded on other sites – good luck with the campaign, guys – but if you click on my photo of the Severn in Shrewsbury above you will to taken to it on YouTube.

The death of Dennis O'Neill and expertise in a narrow subject

Becoming very knowledgeable about a niche subject is worrying, because you find much that has been published about it is wrong. And then it become more worrying, because you suspect this is true of every subject if only you knew.

One of my niches of expertise is the death of Dennis O'Neill in 1945. He had been fostered by a couple on a farm in the Stiperstones (that's why I first came across the case) and the trial of his killers shared the front pages with news of the last days of the war in Europe.

Now I've come across another example of someone getting things wrong about the affair.

Here's Professor Ray Jones, who's about as eminent as you can get in social work, writing in an article on the Maria Colwell inquiry of 1974:

Following campaigning by the local MP and the local newspaper, a public inquiry was launched.  At the time this was a new and novel response to a child’s death. 

A previous inquiry in 1945 into the killing of twelve-year-old Dennis O’Neil was undertaken by a judge in private and took four days.

The Colwell inquiry, however, was held in public...

But the inquiry into the death of Dennis O'Neill was not conducted by a judge. It was conducted by Sir Walter Monckton, who was a KC and soon to become solicitor general in Churchill's caretaker cabinet.

The Monckton Chambers website says of him:

Monckton served with great distinction as a soldier, then lawyer, politician and industrialist. As well as being recognised as one of the leading advocates of his day, he was adviser to Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936, was appointed Solicitor-General in 1945, served as a Cabinet minister under both Churchill and Eden in the 1950s, and subsequently became chairman of Midland Bank.

So he was many things, but he didn't do any judging.

And Sir Walter Monckton conducted his inquiry in public and its proceedings were widely reported in the national and local press across those four days. You can see the start of one such report above – it's from the South Wales Argus for 12 April 1945.

Incidentally, the lack of cooperation between services that Sir Walter identified as a problem here has also been found by every such inquiry since.

Peer says his name should not be used in legal letter in island cafe dog snub row

After commending the slugs of Stretford, the judges gave our Headline of the Day Award to The Scotsman.

Our picture shows Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides, where the cafe in the island cafe dog snub row is to be found.

The disturbing folklore behind Alan Garner's stories

Grim Jim and his disembodied hands are new to me, but this is a good video. Though he talks mostly about Garner and his first two books, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, there are passing insights into other fantasy writers too.

The Burnhamites will not hurt them for they are tough as leather

I was impressed by Andy Burnham's speech to the Labour Conference and I hope the Liberal Democrats will soon sound warmer about his talk of electoral reform, return to the European Union and improvements to social care than they have so far.

But that isn't going to stop me the final verse of a song written to celebrate the acquittal of five Tollesbury men charged with piracy in 1894:

The Tollesbury men and Mersea men
Know how to stand together;
The Burnhamites will not hurt them,
For they are tough as leather.

That comes from an article by Helen Matten in issue 172 (December 2020) of The Essex Family Historian. The piracy charges followed a clash between fishermen from Tollesbury and Burnham-on-Crouch.

The Joy of Six 1584

"The judge told him he did not qualify for asylum and asked the 13-year-old to make a choice: a promise of a $3,000 stipend from the Department of Homeland Security to return to Honduras without his mother and family, or a deportation order. 'I don't know,' Angel said before beginning to cry. 'I have no one. I have nothing.' Julia Conley reports on monstrous US deportation hearings where children are given no legal representation.

Steven Beschloss thinks the Republican mid-term candidates now deserting Donald Trump have left it too late.

"Feltham was described as the most violent YOI at the time of inspection, with more than 400 assaults recorded in the previous year, including 126 involving weapons. Wetherby recorded nearly 500 assaults, although inspectors noted it held more children than Feltham or Werrington, which recorded 324 assaults." Joanne Parkes reads an HM Inspectorate of Prisons' report Children in Custody 2025/6. which concludes that standards across the youth estate remain woeful, despite some improvements at individual establishments.

"From a safe distance, the news that one of English football’s most successful clubs has been found guilty of more than 100 charges of financial irregularity, including “sham” payments totalling around £900m, may feel like so much so-what, a thicket of sporting arcana that even devoted fans occasionally struggle to parse. But, of course, the City case goes deeper than one club, one league, even one sport. Fundamentally, it is a parable of power." Jonathan Liew says the Manchester City case shows us how the global mega-rich now expect to operate with impunity.

Francis Young reviews a new biography of M.R. James: "It has been a long time coming, and eagerly awaited by many, and in this year of the 90th anniversary of James’s death, it does justice to the man and does not disappoint."

Farran Smith Nehme watches Quartet, Trio and Encore – three anthology films adapted from short stories by W. Somerset Maugham.

Vampire Weekend: Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

I heard this late one long ago night on Radio 3's Late Junction and thought I had discovered an obscure band to like. 

Then I discovered they were the most fashionable new band in the world.

Russia opens criminal case against Lib Dem councillor

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Russia's spy agency has opened a criminal case against a Liberal Democrat councillor, accusing her of being part of a terrorist organisation.

Ksenia Maximova, who was born in Russia, is a Lib Dem member of Ealing Borough Council. She is also the founder of the Russian Democratic Society, an organisation that works to counter authoritarianism and war by empowering democratic voices from Russia. It is designated "undesirable" under Russian law.

She told Sky News that being put on Russia's list of terrorists comes as no surprise:

"For years everyone was saying it's a bit random that I was still not on it. I guess I'm one of the last ones, I was a bit more careful."

Now the Russian authorities have opened a case against Ms Maximova under Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code, which concerns participation in an organisation designated as terrorist under Russian law:

Ms Maximova could face prosecution if she returns to Russia, but says she already knew she could not go back:

"The problem comes if they stick you on Interpol," she added, saying that could see her held up at passport controls when she travels.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes admits he narrowly avoided prison after blowing up Dr Doolittle movie dam

This headline dates from 2018, so I'm not putting it to the judges, but the story below it is worth repeating because Sir Ranulph is in the news.

SomersetLive reported on the address he gave when he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Law at University of Bristol that year:

The explorer said: "Unfortunately, while on leave back in the UK in the mid-1960s, I got phoned up by an old Eton friend.

"He had moved to a place called Castle Combe in Wiltshire, which had just been voted Britain's prettiest village.

"And this beautiful village was being attacked by 20th Century Fox, who were making a film there called Dr Dolittle.

"This involved turning the stream into a dirty great lake with a 20-foot concrete dam, ruining the village."

Sir Ranulph continued: "My friend decided to bring this outrage to the general attention by blowing up the entire concrete dam the night before the film started.

"I had just completed an army explosives course, where you learn to blow up as much as you can using as little as possible.

"And I was pretty good at this. So he asked me to stand in," Sir Ranulph joked.

"Unfortunately, everybody was caught, we all ended up in Chippenham prison, and I was on police probation in Salisbury for six months."

Finishing his thank-you speech to the university, Sir Ranulph said: "15 years after the Chippenham Assizes which found us guilty and fined us heavily, I went to the Isle of Wight.

"I met with the wonderful judge who had not put us in jail, and he said if we had done that one year later, he would have had to have given us seven years minimum."

Other sources say the dam was made from sandbags not concrete, and I'm not sure what "police probation" is, but that's the story as he told it.

I was taken to see Dr Doolittle for a friend's ninth or tenth birthday treat; another member of our party reckoned this was the sixth time he had been taken to see it. Most film critics of the day would have regarded this as cruel and unusual punishment.

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• Political lessons from science fiction – Peter Chambers
• Councillor defection scores on the eve of polling day – Augustus Carp
• Why have the Lib Dems given up fighting most parliamentary by-elections? – Augustus Carp
• In praise of outgrounds: How cricket in small towns made a roaring comeback – Matthew Pennell
• Why has the HS2 project been such a disaster? – Peter Chambers
• Doctor Who: The most golden era? – Peter Chambers
• Like a challenging computer game? Try the Government Digital Service – Mark Valentine
• Why Liberals must take power away from the media billionaires – Donnachadh McCarthy
• Reform and Labour are losing councillors fast – Augustus Carp
• Is Isaac Asimov's psychohistory fiction or reality? – Peter Chambers