For those watching in the United States, this film is like a road map to how to get public support and your community energized around lower speed limits.
New York City may have recently set it's city speed limits at 25 mph, but to keep driving down serious injuries and fatalities, we should be following the example set by the UK.
[The Revd Hughes] tells me he has arranged for a locum vicar to take Divine Service and visit the sick whilst he is away.
“He’s young and keen and believes every word of the Liberal Democrat manifesto is the literal truth.”
I eye him levelly: “It’s not Farron, is it?”You may also enjoy these two posts from 2010:
He loathed the Taunton public school to which his parents managed to send him, a "philistine place" he has described as "hell". It took him, or so he says, 27 years to return to the town, and when he did, he got his revenge by sending it up in one of his restaurant reviews (he was then the offal-scoffing and somewhat porcine restaurant critic of the Times). The locals and its liberal democrat MP went nuts.Can this be true?
His article has angered residents so much that the MP has demanded an apology.
Meades asked in The Times article if the restaurant would thrive in the town.
He questions whether the "three headed sheep shaggers" would come down from the hills to support the establishment.
And if they did, he continues, where would they park their combine harvester or tie up their cow?And who was the Liberal Democrat MP who went nuts?
Local reaction to the article has led the town's Liberal Democrat MP Jackie Ballard to table a Common's (sic) motion seeking an apology.
She said: "I think its a disgraceful slur on the county town of Somerset and also Mr Meades made some crude comments on the natives of Somerset who he thinks are not sophisticated enough to enjoy a good restaurant.
"I can assure him they are."And Jackie Ballard really did table an early day motion on the subject. It ran:
That this House deplores remarks made by Jonathan Meades in The Times Magazine of Saturday 4th July regarding the people and town of Taunton; knows that Taunton is the county town of Somerset and it has many natural and man-made assets including the River Tone and the recently enhanced, thriving town centre; recognises that Taunton is at the heart of a rural community and is also the home of Somerset county cricket, the Charity Commissioners, the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, The Castle Hotel and many other nationally known organisations and businesses; and calls on Mr Meades to apologise specifically to the people of the Somerset levels and the Blackdown Hills for his obscene and offensive comments and to the people of Somerset for his unwarranted slur on their county town.There were 11 signatories: Jackie, nine loyal Liberal Democrats and, for some odd reason, Ken Livingstone.
Mr Meades said he will not withdraw his comments as they were meant light heartedly .
He said: "She has no sense of humour, she is after all a Liberal Democrat."People can be so unfair.
9 July 1968 - Many belong to a species of stage boy, only related to childhood by their small size. All the other attributes of boyhood - youth, gaiety, innocence - have long since gone. Squat creatures, seemingly weaned on Woodbines, they are the boys who have been in Oliver! Lionel Bart has cut a swathe through the nation's youth like the 1914-18 war. They are the new Lost Generation.
Alan Bennett Writing Home (1994)
"Who could forget the scene where poor Olive is rescued from the speeding bus? Lines of dialogue such as 'Blimey, Stan, keep your foot down' and 'Don’t you dare touch that brake, Butler' were on everyone’s lips.Two journalists recalled being in Leicester for the trial at Frank Beck, where allegations against Greville Janner were first heard in public.
"Beith be not proud, though some have called theI forecast that the forthcoming general election would be more boring than people expected. I badly misunderestimated the SNP surge, but was right to be sceptical about Green and Ukip advances.
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so."
If your goal is to produce a book that is inoffensive in every culture, it is not surprising if you come up with something rather anaemic.
Back in the 1970s, good Liberals wanted a greater role for the market as a counterweight to centralised power. We wanted choice and innovation.
Today, however, things are more complicated than that. What the market often gives us is homogenisation.I discovered Cleaners from Venus and their 'Illya Kuryakin Looked at me.'
A stone sculpture should be erected to commemorate a meteorite which hit the UK on Christmas Eve 50 years ago, campaigners have said.
The meteorite, which was the size of a "Christmas turkey", exploded into thousands of pieces over Barwell, Leicestershire, on Christmas Eve, 1965. It was the biggest recorded meteorite to hit the UK.Read more about the Barwell meteorite on this blog.
Must be careful not to get off at the station before Canterbury
— Jonathan Calder (@lordbonkers) July 26, 2015
BBC News - #Train #derailed after hitting cows on line in #Kent http://t.co/FBtiFoY2df #TCEP #History #Business #Medicine #Railways #Chilham
— Chaucer University (@ChaucerUniv) July 27, 2015
"We always decorate the domestic staff for Christmas."
A level crossing in Leicestershire which was closed earlier this year due to safety concerns is to be replaced by a new footbridge.
Little Bowden foot crossing was closed back in August after a risk assessment determined that the amount of time people were asked to stand at the red light varied too much for it to be safe. Train movements in the area meant that on some occasions the red light would be triggered by an approaching train which would then reverse into a nearby siding and therefore never arrive at the crossing itself.
Network Rail determined that the variation in warning time– although working entirely as it should – meant that those using the crossing may grow to distrust the warnings and decide to cross when it was unsafe to.
Now Network Rail is applying for planning permission to allow a bridge to be built at Little Bowden, which crosses the Midland Main Line and sees around 200 trains a day pass through it, with the crossing set to remain closed permanently.
Designs for the bridge are currently being discussed with Leicestershire County Council, with the new footbridge potentially in place within the next 12 months.These workings that trigger the crossing lights without ever arriving at the crossing must be track machines arriving from or leaving for the North at the sidings by Market Harborough station. And I imagine they generally take place early in the morning or late at night when few people are using the crossing.
Something close to our hearts is your planned adaptation of John Masefield's The Box Of Delights. What's the status of that at the moment?
The script is there, I would love to make it but I think there is a problem with The Box Of Delights and the problem is that… I don’t know what children expect.
I know what adult Hollywood producers think they expect and it is that the story should be much more intricate and much more special effect-y and have comedy and [waves hands around] terrible surprises, and to look overegged in general.
The Box Of Delights is a story from the 1930s about a boy who has wished on him something that is almost a curse, which is a box that can allow him to do certain things, and is being struggled over by two powerful figures from the past.
And you know, I’m from a certain generation, and I am the age I am and for me, it’s partly an answer to your thing about why didn’t you juice up Great Expectations. For me, the story of that book, just the way it is with the story of Great Expectations, is sufficient.
It’s a really good story, it has a really strong human sense of good and evil and exploration and peril and all sorts of wonderful things but I think it’s in trouble because it isn’t Transformers.A sad conclusion, but at least we have the BBC adaptation to watch.
Had the case gone ahead, the court would have heard evidence that Lord Janner sometimes groomed boys for "relationships" and on other occasions acted opportunistically to grope and indecently assault teenagers.
The alleged offences took place primarily in Leicestershire, when Lord Jenner was driven by his parliamentary interns to his constituency from London, where he preferred to spend most of his time.
The Times is aware, however, that allegations have also been made concerning assaults on children at the Oasis swimming pool in central London.
Former interns said that he had little interest in constituency work. One former intern gave evidence that the long drives to Leicester sometimes involved stops at particular children's homes and at service stations.
That account links with evidence from one of the alleged victims, Hamish Baillie, who says that the MP first approached him when he was playing arcade games at Leicester Forest East service station in 1983.
Mr Baillie believe that Janner was told his name and where to find him by Frank Beck, manager of the care home where he was a resident for nine months.The Needle blog adds:
Sources familiar with the ‘trial of the facts’ had told The Needle that about 100 witnesses were due to give evidence against Janner and that the evidence was overwhelming.Other posts about Greville Janner on this blog include:
"It was an incredible sight. You get the odd squirrel around here, but never a reindeer."BREAKING...
Jesus kidnapped in York
Moderate Labour MPs want veteran MP Alan Johnson to step in as caretaker leader if they manage to oust Jeremy Corbyn .
Four senior sources including members of the shadow cabinet have said they see the former Home Secretary as the best man to unite the party if Mr Corbyn was forced to step down.
One shadow cabinet source said it was “a case of when, not if” Mr Corbyn is forced out by disgruntled MPs.Liberal England: circulating unfounded rumours since 2004.
Troubled Lucy Allan has been asked to apologise for her comments about “bully boy” Labour councillors in the town – or face a lawsuit.
The Telford MP launched a Facebook rant against “a small group of bully boy councillors, thugs and henchmen” who she claimed had hounded her for two years, before going on to name them.
Members of the executive committee of the Telford Labour Party today published an open letter to Ms Allan in which they claim the comments made by the MP are “defamatory and untrue”.And this morning the Telford Labour Party sent this tweet:
We can also confirm that one of our members has instructed Solicitors to act on his behalf.
— Telford Labour Party (@Telfordlabour) December 19, 2015
Elsewhere on the Star's website you can read the claims of Arianne Plumbly, who worked for Lucy Allan in her Telford office.
As a regular visitor to the London Hospital, Whitechapel, Catherine saw at first hand the effects of the 1860s cholera epidemics on the East End poor.
She founded an orphanage for the children of cholera victims, in a large house in Clapton. It also took in convalescent patients, and the convalescent home later moved to Woodford Hall, Essex, in 1866. Adults and children were sent here from the London Hospital in the East End to recover from illness or surgery. The home moved to Mitcham in 1900, eventually closing in 1940.
As for the orphaned boys, Catherine sent them from Clapton to a new orphanage in the Gladstones' home village of Hawarden. Initially, she took a dozen boys from London to the village and accommodated them in a former coach house; Gladstone paid for their keep. (The couple also accommodated unemployed Lancashire mill girls and elderly women on their estate.)
The orphanage continued for many years, and seems to have taken in other children in need of a home. A guide to the village of 1890 describes it as housing twenty to thirty boys and being 'hard by the Castle [the Gladstones' home] and across the yard'.And this blog's hero J.W. Logan had a home in East Langton for the children of men killed on his works.
And lads knew lizards at Knighton
When I was a Knighton lad.
The annual Celebration of Christmas concert will be held on Saturday (December 19) at the parish church of St Dionysius, Market Harborough ...
The reader this year is Carole Boyd, Lynda Snell from ‘The Archers’ (and all the female voices in Postman Pat among many other credits!).
The concert starts at 7.30pm and the doors open at 6.45pm. Tickets are available from Tim Blades 07976 757352 or MH Music in Market Harborough.
There will also be some tickets available on the door but organisers recommend that people get there early for them.
"I am sorry to see her go, but I fear she had lost the dressing room."
An 87-year-old former schoolmaster from Shropshire has a unique claim to fame – he is the inspiration for the famous Monty Python "The Knights Who Say Ni" sketch.
Laurence Le Quesne had a habit when at Shrewsbury School of exclaiming “ni” as he scoured the library for books.
The quirky trait amused his pupils, who happened to include a certain Michael Palin.
He used it as a basis for the famous scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.I also realise that I once owned a book by him on Thomas Carlyle.
"In the current flare of details coming out about the Tatler Tory bullying affair, one group more than others has been scrambling for cover, and that is the Young Britons' Foundation." Random Scribbling Notepad tells us all about it.
Artworks created by some of the most acclaimed artists of the 20th century, from Henry Moore to Barbara Hepworth, have already been destroyed.
Created and sited in the open for all of us to enjoy; these pieces were made for our public spaces, our schools, hospitals, housing estates, civic areas and communities. They were commissioned and designed with a social spirit to add colour to our local places and our daily lives.
Such sculptures, murals and architectural reliefs are disappearing for many reasons, and for some pieces, it is already too late. Stolen and melted down for their scrap value; neglected and vandalised beyond repair; sold and moved from their intended public spaces; destroyed by redevelopment, or just forgotten - location unknown. The nation's great outdoor collection of public art is in jeopardy.Historic England is seeking help in tracking down these lost pieces.
If you regularly borrowed science fiction books from your local library anywhen from the 1950s to the early 1980s, the chances are that your read a Hugh Walters novel or two.
You remember - English astronaut Chris Godfrey and his team flying to each of the planets in the solar system?
With titles like 'Expedition Venus', 'Destination Mars' and 'Journey to Jupiter', with a Hugh Walters novel you were guaranteed nailbiting tension coupled with a wealth of technical detail!
Unfortunately the books have been out of print for many years, and many libraries have by now disposed of their copies. Hopefully this page will evoke some memories of a classic series of novels.As I once said of the first book in the series, Blast Off at Woomera:
They don't write stories like that any more. Particularly ones in which, as I recall, the hero visits Battersea Fun Fair and has a run in with some teddy boys, and the British space mission is led by a Wing Commander Greatorex.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
A couple of Saturdays ago I saw Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings at Market Harborough Leisure Centre. The opening act was Steve Gibbons, a legend of the Birmingham music scene.
Back in 1977, when the Steve Gibbons Band had a hit with Tulane, he was a leather-jacketed rocker - a sort of Brummie Fonz. Today he looks like a Southern gentleman, albeit one you would be wise not to play cards with for money.So here is Steve Gibbons in his pomp. The bass guitarist in his band is another Birmingham legend - Trevor Burton from The Move.
Outrageous that Corbyn goes to a Stop the War dinner - he should go to dinners held by arms dealers and offshore bankers like a proper MP.
— Mark Steel (@mrmarksteel) December 11, 2015
Back in September I suggested that "whataboutery is pretty much all that enthusiasts for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party have to offer".Mark Steel has based a whole stand up and journalistic career on this trick. His every column or routine runs in essence: "So the Tories say X do they? I expect they say Y and Z too!" And everyone laughs.
They laugh because this technique is a form of political group grooming. It reminds you how generous and sensible you and your allies are, and how cruel and stupid your opponents are.But then Steel had to broaden his range when he left the SWP in 2008 (but was kept on by Radio 4 even so). For, as Harry's Blog pointed out at the time:
Given that Mark Steel's comedy routine consists of reciting the editorials from last week's Socialist Worker in a "blokey" voice, I wonder what he'll do for material in the future.So well done Mark. Maybe your comic repertoire will be so broad one day that you will be able to come out against fascists and semi-fascists like Assad and Putin.