Friday, March 24, 2023

A blogger re-reads all 20 of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine stories

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The writer of Life Must Be Filled Up set herself the task of re-reading all 20 of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine stories, from Mystery at W...

Mystery Surrounds How Cow Made Its Way Into Market Harborough Tennis Club

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Sorry to have two Market Harborough stories today, but I suppose it proves that the judges are autonomous. Because they have given Harboroug...

Market Harborough is one of the best places to live in the country

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Not content with recently being voted the second coolest place in Leicestershire , Market Harborough has now been included on the Sunday Tim...
Thursday, March 23, 2023

Four East Devon Independent councillors to stand for the Lib Dems in May

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Four Independent councillors on East Devon District Council  - the leader of the council and three cabinet members - are to stand for the Li...
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When the Walker Brothers lost their shirts in Market Harborough

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This is a cutting from the Leicester Daily Mercury for Monday 6 September 1965, so the concert must have taken place on 4 September. I see n...
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Wednesday, March 22, 2023

The Joy of Six 1119

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"'It's time​ for the police to stop virtue-signalling and start catching robbers and burglars,'’ the home secretary, Suella...

Leicester man loses dad's ashes in Tesco bag for life during pub crawl

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Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Leicester Mercury . The judges were particularly pleased the paper had found a clickbait story tha...
Tuesday, March 21, 2023

In search of Birchinlee, the lost village that built the Derwent dams

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It's time for another trip to the valley of the wonderful Derbyshire Derwent with Trekking Exploration. This time we go in search of the...

Thomas Hardy had nothing to do with The Hardy Tree and its legend dates from the late 20th century

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When The Hardy Tree in Old St Pancras churchyard came down last December, I dutifully repeated its accepted history: When the Midland Railw...
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Maybe the dead do speak to us, but in their own way

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As Lord Bonkers might put it, the dead are Terribly Dead. I've had no sense of my mother's presence since she died, even though I...

Now 19 Leicester Labour councillors are told they can't stand again in May by the national party

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We now go over live to the Leicester Labour Party. From the Leicester Mercury : Labour members have responded with fury after 19 sitting cou...
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Monday, March 20, 2023

"Jennifer Anne and her way with hedgehogs": Joyce Grenfell skewers Enid Blyton

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When the editing of Roald Dahl's books was in the news, I wrote: Successful children's writers generally get a couple of decades in...
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Sunday, March 19, 2023

Suspended Labour councillor to challenge Sir Peter Soulsby in Leicester mayoral election

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Rita Patel, one of the four Labour councillors suspended by the party for supporting the abolition of Leicester's mayoral system, is to ...

For Mother's Day

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It will soon be a year since my mother died. One of the things I promised her I would keep when I cleared her house was the family photograp...

Did Ed Davey take a page from Paddy Ashdown's playbook?

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So let me shout it, yet again: if you want to boost our economy, you have to repair our broken relationship with Europe. Conference, you don...
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Iona Zajac: Red Corn Poppies

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The Skinny interviewed Iona Zajac last year when Red Corn Poppies was released as her second single: Your new single Red Corn Poppies is be...
Saturday, March 18, 2023

A tribute to Neal Ascherson on his 90th birthday

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Last October one of my favourite journalists, Neal Ascherson , turned 90. To mark the occasion, he was interviewed by Tim Adams in the Obser...

The Joy of Six 1118

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It's become evident to some of Putin's propagandists that they may face charges in a war crimes tribunal, but their own words are st...
Friday, March 17, 2023

The miraculous remains of the Somerset Coal Canal

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The Somerset coalfield is forgotten now, but the last mine there did not close until 1973. And at the start of the 19th century a canal was ...
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Senior Leicester Labour councillor to stand for the Greens in May

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One of the four Labour councillors suspended by the party in Leicester has announced that he will be standing for the Green Party in the ci...
Thursday, March 16, 2023

More notes on children and bombsites in British films

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It's time to add a few more notes about children and bombsites in post-war British films. ****** I watched The Blue Lamp from 1950 agai...

The Joy of Six 1117

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"We have obtained an excoriating letter sent to the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, by the co-directors of the BBC Singers. The letter men...
Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Aksel Rykkvin at the National Liberal Club

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Aksel Rykkvin's voice had already changed by the time I discovered him on YouTube. As I wrote when choosing an aria by him as one of my...

Eric Thompson knew my father

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Embed from Getty Images Long ago, my mother told me that my father had been a schoolfriend of Eric Thompson - the actor, director, narrator ...
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A forgotten canal tunnel in the centre of Cardiff

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Here's the "gloriously unexpected survival right in the centre of the city" I promised you when posting another video from Bob...