My first walk of 2020, and it seemed apt to start the new decade at the tomb of King Harold at Waltham Abbey. The aim of the walk was to climb a ridge of high land near Monkham's Hall that I've looked at many times.
A comment on a previous video mentioned a First World War anti-aircraft gun emplacement on the hill near Kennel Wood - so that's where I headed. A truly magnificent start to the new year and the new decade.
The lecture will take place in the Houses of Parliament in London each year, and details of the inaugural lecture to be held later this year will be announced soon. The guest speaker invited to deliver the lecture each year will be chosen by the trustees of Hong Kong Watch.
The speaker will be either a distinguished politician or activist from Hong Kong who has shown particular courage and commitment in the struggle for democracy, human rights, the rule of law and autonomy for the city; or a British or international politician or activist who has shown particular dedication in supporting the protection of ‘one country, two systems’ and Hong Kong’s way of life.
Lord Ashdown’s love for Hong Kong stemmed from three years spent there learning Mandarin Chinese from 1967-1970, when he qualified as an interpreter. He returned several times, notably in 1989 when he marched in the streets with protesters following the Tiananmen massacre, and he consistently fought for the right of abode of Hong British National Overseas ... passport holders.
In his final years, he spoke out vocally in support of imprisoned activists and protesters.
Traffic, the U.K. foursome famous for their flower-power hit “Hole in My Shoe”, were one of the first Western rock acts to play in communist Hungary. It was 1968, and even though they had sanctioned it, the authorities were less than happy with the band’s presence.
As the musicians took to the stage, police, uniformed and plain clothed, watched intently for any sign of “irregular behavior” among the crowd, straining to catch the merest whisper of an anti-government utterance.
But after a couple of numbers, the mood relaxed a little: the crowd, it seemed, knew their limits. It was then that Steve Winwood, Traffic’s front man, calmly announced: “The next song we would like to dedicate to the police. It’s called ‘Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring’.”
Was this a joke? A provocation? Didn’t these guys know you don’t mess with communist police?
“We froze. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of kids all froze. Will they stop the concert? Take them away in handcuffs?”
I love that something so banal is so mesmerically fascinating.In 1970 I was proud of knowing that the best Tube stop for Charing Cross station was Strand, not Charing Cross.
Montague Maurice Burton (1885-1952) opened his first store in Chesterfield in 1904, and entered the bespoke tailoring business in 1912. By 1914, there were 12 shops, mainly in the north of England; by 1939 there were 595.
At first the stores occupied existing buildings, but from 1923, new stores were built on freehold sites, and prominent town-centre corner sites (such as this one) were favoured. In about 1932, the company established its own architectural department, which maintained the house style established by the architect Henry Wilson, who had been working for the company since 1923.
In about 1937, Nathaniel Martin became chief architect, so this store is probably his work. Burton's stores are important as pioneering exponents of corporate architectural style, and as sponsoring Art Deco design.
The lyrics in 'Page Of Cups' flirt with the "unexpected, surprising muse" figure in the minor Tarot arcana. The track recalls 'Forever Changes'-era Love.
The former home of famous writer and philosopher G K Chesterton could be bulldozed and replaced with flats – in a move branded “shameful” by angry Beaconsfield residents.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, best known for the Father Brown detective novels, moved to Beaconsfield with his wife Frances in 1909 and lived in Grove Road until his death in 1937 – first at Over Roads and then across the road at Top Meadow.
Now, Over Roads, to which fans of the prolific writer flock every year, could be knocked down and replaced with nine apartments.The National Catholic Register gives the history of Chesterton's two Beaconsfield homes:
In their will, the Chestertons left both houses, Overroads and Top Meadow, to the local Catholic diocese. They requested that the property be used as a seminary, a convent, or as a temporary resting place for Anglican clergymen who had converted to Catholicism.
For a number of years, this was indeed how Top Meadow was used. Eventually, however, the diocese sold both properties. Today, both houses are privately owned.Over Roads or Overroads, I hope it will be saved.
Since that trip I have discovered that Trent Station, once an important Midland Railway junction, was not by the cottages but a little further down the line. So I will have to go back and photograph the arch that is the only thing that marks the site on public land.That's what I wrote about a trip to Long Eaton when I looked back on 2018.
Some Labour members have claimed they were barred from attending the vote, and one reported being assaulted at the meeting.
Current MP Claudia Webbe was not present at the constituency Labour party ... meeting which was held on a Tuesday night when she was in Westminster. She told LeicestershireLive she only became aware of it on the night it was held
"I was very proud to be asked to become the Wokingham Lib Dems parliamentary spokesman for the coming year and was delighted to accept.
"With their large majority, it will be essential to hold the Conservatives, and their representative in this area, to account in order to ensure that neither runs roughshod over the interests and wishes of the local community."
lain Wilton’s new biography reveals some heavy feet of clay, but first it is important to appreciate just how compelling a figure Fry was in his prime. Born in 1872, his fame came originally from his extraordinary ability as a sportsman.
He equalled the world long jump record while a student at Oxford, was reserve for an England rugby trial, won an England soccer cap and played for Southampton in the FA Cup final. Contemporaries likened him to a Greek god in appearance.
As a cricketer Fry was one of the giants of the golden. years before the First World War. Batting for Sussex with Ranjitsinhji, the silk-shirted Indian whose wristy stroke play ravished Edwardian crowds, he turned himself into the most remorselessly effective batsman in the country.Fry was twice a Liberal candidate, assisted Ranjitsinhji when he became one of India's representatives at the League of Nations and was himself offered the throne of Albania.
In 1898 he married Beatrice Holme Sumner, ten years his senior. She had long been involved with Charles Hoare, a married banker, and the relationship had resulted in a scandalous society divorce. Her marriage to Fry has been seen by some as a business arrangement: Fry made an honest woman of her in return for Hoare financing his cricket career.
Wilton rejects this theory, yet his revelation that the first child of the marriage was probably fathered by Hoare seems to support it.
Hoare had established the Mercury, a training establishment for boys wishing to go to sea. On Hoare’s death in 1908 Fry became its nominal head, but the real power was Beatrice. Her rule became increasingly brutal, and the rigours of life under it proved fatal to one young inmate.
That reliable arbiter of morals, The Cricket Statistician, has gone so far as to describe both Fry and his wife as psychopaths.
There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,
Or wakes, as may betide,
A better lad, if things went right,
Than most that sleep outside.
Smog was the deadly downside of Britain's industrial might, as this powerful and revealing documentary spells out. In 1937, coal was Britain's lifeblood; it fuelled her industry and heated most homes.
But coal was wasteful and dirty, and it had an unpleasant, even lethal by-product. Smog wasn't just nasty and disruptive, it took its toll on buildings, the economy, child development and adult health - and it was a killer, claiming scores of lives every year.
By 1937, the battle against smog was already being waged: the film points to processing technology to convert raw coal into oil or smokeless fuel, the increasing use of cleaner energy from gas and electricity, and improved housing.
But another 15 years of periodic outbreaks of smog still lay ahead, before London's Great Smog of 1952 finally spurred Parliament into action in the form of the Clean Air Act of 1956.
A woman has claimed she was assaulted when she was barred from entering a meeting in which Keith Vaz was elected chairman of the Leicester East Constituency Labour Party.
The Labour activist says she suffered an injury to her right wrist as she attempted to get into the meeting at Belgrave Neighbourhood Centre, in Belgrave, Leicester, on Tuesday night.
She told LeicestershireLive she visited a police station and a walk-in centre to get treatment after the meeting.
Leicestershire Police has confirmed it is investigating the allegation.
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[Peter] Gray is a professor of psychology at Boston College and a co-founder, along with me, of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence. He writes often about how kids need to play; this is how they learn how to get along, be creative, make things happen and grow up. Playtime isn't wasted time; it's intensely educational, just not in a standardized test kind of way. When administrators replace play with academics, the gains are short-lived, but the damage is not.But as her article says:
Increased academic pressure and testing in kindergarten is bringing everyone to tears - including the teachers.All of which gives me an excuse for posting the video above, which I was promoting in the day job on Friday.
Booksellers tell me that there appear to be no immediate plans to publish For the Record in paperback. When I inquire, the former PM's factotum Laurence Mann confirms no publication date has been set.And who would want to read the paperback if they did read it?
Cameron appears to have withdrawn in terror to his garden shed and has not seen fit to emit a single Tweet since December 13, when his long-time rival Boris Johnson secured his Commons majority.It's like I blogged back in October, the public schools' weakness is now the character of its old boys.
Forget Jane Birkin, Nico and Julie Driscoll, singer-songwriter Jane Weaver is a unique and talented vocalist with her own distinctive style and her own dazzling collection of songs.
Born in the same hospital as John Lennon, she had a strict catholic upbringing. Luckily for us, fate intervened and Weaver became seduced by the sight and sounds of Kate Bush bellowing Wuthering Heights on TOTP.
"It was like a visitation" she recalls fondly. "She had this other worldly quality that was very emotive and very fairytale like. I immediately wanted to become a singer."
Though I had departed by then, the Lib Dem pivot on 28 October to back an election appears to have been taken that weekend under SNP pressure, and Labour left Labour no choice but to follow suit.
It was a catastrophic mistake, gift-wrapping everything wanted and handing it to him for Christmas... majority government, Brexit, and given the state of the Labour Party, potentially ten years in office.
Defeated Lib Dem MPs, Jo Swinson among them, paid a heavy price for her disastrous miscalculation.
For the last few months, I had been hearing second hand that a few journalists had been attempting to make our relationship salacious or sensational. My understanding was that they had been calling around asking questions from as early as mid-October.
Then, last Saturday the Mail on Sunday contacted me directly to tell me they were publishing something with less than 24 hours notice. I pleaded with them to wait. I hadn’t yet told my 92-year-old Grandma who reads their paper “just for the crossword” and I couldn’t bear the idea she would see it before anything else.
After a series of phone calls over the course of the day, they agreed to not write it last week, but I still believed they would publish this Sunday with or without me. So I told my grandmother and decided to take back the control that I feared would be stolen from me.
In the past few days, I have learnt that reporters have been offering money and doorstepping houses of an ex-boyfriend and former neighbours looking for information about either of us. All because I had the prerogative and confidence to tell our story myself.
Today a follow-up story in the Mail on Sunday accuses me of trying to "weaponise" my sexuality. They have barely quoted anyone who met me, and many of the people quoted seem confused about what pansexuality actually is.
The story frames my actions, my telling of my story, as a calculated plan.
This couldn't be further from the truth. While I am proud of who I am, it was the media who I felt intimidated me into doing it at a time, not of my choosing.Reading this you wonder why anyone would go into politics.
A GCSE in natural history is being planned to help teenagers reconnect with wildlife by learning the names and characteristics of British plants and animals, i can reveal.
i understands that a major UK exam board is actively working up proposals for the new qualification, which is the brainchild of broadcaster and nature writer Mary Colwell and backed by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.
Ms Colwell said she was hopeful it could be taught in schools in England as early as September 2021.Mary Colwell explained why she has been promoting this idea in a guest post for this blog last year:
It arose from a realisation that the world is unfamiliar to so many. Although we live here, breathe the air, eat what is grown in the earth and watch programmes that celebrate the natural world, many people know little about their surroundings.
This was not the case 50 years ago. There has been a steady erosion of the rock that kept us stable on the planet - our understanding of nature and our place in it.A similar idea lay behind the publication of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris and the subsequent campaign to get it into schools.
This curriculum at Oxford was really heavy on medieval literature, just at the moment when most other universities were going in the direction of modernism and the kinds of writing that we now associate with literary fiction in the 20th and 21st centuries.
At Oxford they were doubling down on medieval literature and also looking at it not just as examples for linguistic analysis - which was how it had been primarily studied in the 19th century under philology - but really looking at it as literature. Really seriously asking students to meditate on both the English medieval past and also this idea of magic and enchantment.And she points out that Susan Cooper, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Diana Wynne Jones and Philip Pullman all studied this curriculum between 1956 and 1968.
T.H. White was at Cambridge at a really interesting time, when there was still a medieval requirement, but right as they were ending it. If you compare his The Once and Future King to, say, The Lord of the Rings, they’re so different in the way they talk about the Middle Ages, with a different level of reverence.
There’s anachronism in White’s writing, and pretty profound critiques of the warlike nature of the Middle Ages and of a lot of the nostalgia for that period. Whereas Tolkien and his students tend to be a lot more reverent of that material.This may explain why White's writing is so much warmer than that of the Oxford School.
