BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award:
Valerie, however, feels sorry to see it gone.
She says she stood the bomb by her shed so anyone who wanted to could look at it. "People used to think 'that's marvellous, where'd you get that from? Is it alright?'.
"They all used to play about with it and say it was a bit of a party piece.
"When anyone came around, I'd say: 'Do you want to see the bomb?'."
Aleister Crowley, "the wickedest man in the world", ... played for Cambridge in 1896 and 1897, while Harold Davidson, "the rector who was eaten by a lion" (he was actually mauled rather than eaten, but that’s jumping ahead), represented Oxford between 1901 and 1903.
As I've said before, it's great fun on my Trivia Desk, but you have to work weekends. Both Aleister Crowley and Harold Davidson (AKA the Rector of Stiffkey) have good Wikipedia entries.
Not quite never. Here's a story from the North Norfolk News:
A warning has been issued for quicksand around a ramp leading down to a popular beach.
North Norfolk District Council has temporarily closed the ramp at Happisburgh following the poor weather brought in by Storm Goretti.
On Saturday, the Happisburgh Coast Watch warned that "areas of very soft sand" were developing in the area.
A spokesman for the voluntarily manned station said: "If you are visiting Cart Gap Beach today, please be aware that there are some areas of very soft sand in the vicinity of the access ramp."
The newspaper goes on to report:
Last October, a woman walking towards Happisburgh via Walcott beach came into difficulty in a patch of sinking sand near the groynes.
She was left submerged "up to her thighs" before managing to pull herself out of danger and shout for help.
But it's true that we used to hear far more about quicksand. And it's even possible to put figures on that.
For that, go to an edition of the Radiolab podcast that I included in a Joy of Six long ago:
Producer Soren Wheeler introduces us to Dan Engber, writer and columnist for Slate, who ran across a strange fact: kids are no longer afraid of quicksand. To figure out what happened to quicksand, Dan immersed himself in research, compiled mountains of data, and met with quicksand fetishists.
Dan tells Soren and Robert about his journey, and shares his theory about why the terror of his childhood seems to have lost its menacing allure. And Carlton Cuse, best-known as writer and executive producer of Lost, weighs in on whether giant pits of hero-swallowing mud might one day creep back into the spotlight.
Here's the podcast. And if you follow the link to Radiolab above you will see a graph of appearances of quicksand in films. They peaked in the Sixties.
The judges have been hard at work, so I can announce that today's Headline of the Day Award goes to the Eastern Daily Press.
The Eastern Daily Press wins our prestigious Headline of the Day Award.
I have been asked by the judges to emphasise that they are sure the hurdy-gurdy player in question is nothing the like the vengeful ghost of a Gypsy child.
While I'm at it, the headline comes via Yahoo! because the Press has changed it to something more prosaic since the story went up.
And the music in the video, which is the very recording used in Lost Hearts, is not of a hurdy-gurdy at all. It's a variety of zither from the Vosges region of France.
Reader's voice: You don't think you're in danger of taking this feature too seriously, do you?
Rowan Williams reminds us that migrants are at the heart of our culture: "Many of the most characteristic forms of western medieval architecture ... owe their development to the to-ing and fro-ing of engineers and architects between western Europe and the Middle East during the Crusades. And we find it easy to forget that most of the stylistic repertoire of modern western popular music would be unthinkable without the Black American tradition that itself adapted and reshaped African idioms in the new and terrible world of enslavement."
"Decades of research have demonstrated that our political beliefs and behaviour are thoroughly motivated and mediated by our social identities." David Roberts argues that the cure for misinformation is not just more information or smarter news consumers.
Michael Savage dissects Liz Truss's attempt to win herself a share of MAGA gold: "The alternative media ecosystem has no shortage of comeback stories. It is always possible to rebrand yourself when you give in to a rabid political fanbase."
"Systematic synthetic phonics is taught using 'decodable' books that often have very limited content. But using real books is a way to motivate children through the imaginative ways that stories, poems and information are portrayed in these books." Dominic Wyse says England’s synthetic phonics approach is not working for children who struggle to read.
"In a story ... a boy runs into Jesus. He curses the child, who instantly drops down dead – though Jesus brings him back to life after a brief reprimand from Joseph." Mary Dzon on medieval Christians' enjoyment of tales about the young Jesus being a holy rascal.
Bob Trubshaw has studied the numerous east-west routes in north-east Leicestershire that continue into Lincolnshire and on to the Norfolk coast. They once transported wool in great quantities and were used by countless pilgrims heading for Walsingham.
JacquiWine reads Dark Tales, a collection of Shirley Jackson's later short stories.
We take the people who work on the railways very much for granted. Sometimes, we get jolted out of our complacency, as with Samir Zitouni, who shielded passengers with his own body during the Huntingdon stabbing attack and was left hospitalised and fighting for his life.
Now, a little while back, I got off the train at Wymondham, once an important railway junction, though no more – the ambitious plans for a new station for the Mid-Norfolk heritage railway near the main line station have come to nothing.
Wymondham (you pronounce this one "Windum", by the way, unlike the one near Bonkers Hall in Leicestershire) is a town with a history. Back in the 16th century, a brave and principled local landowner named Robert Kett led an ultimately doomed uprising early in the reign of Edward VI. He was hanged in chains at Norwich Castle (some reports say that he took three days to die), and was forgotten as a failure for many years, but his story has been rescued from obscurity and now Wymondham takes pride in him.
When you arrive at Wymondham station, an illustrated sign, bearing drawings of the Market Cross and of Wymondham Abbey, welcomes you to what is rightly described as a fine historic town.
There is a poignant dedication on the station sign: "Dedicated to a loyal railwayman, who died in the cause of duty – Walter James Stolworthy, of Wymondham (1927-1988)". Having lived hereabouts for 15 years, I knew nothing of Walter Stolworthy, of his loyalty, or of his devotion to duty. What had become of him? Had he, like "Sam" Zitouni, sought to protect others? Internet searches yielded no information.
I found the answer in the pages of the Eastern Daily Press for 14 October 1988. It turned out to be distressingly banal. He had been working with colleagues on the track near a level crossing at nearby Attleborough. And he had been fatally struck by a Sprinter train, one of the diesel multiple-units introduced a few years previously.
It's a reminder that although railways are a very safe form of transport – it used to be said that the safest place in the world was the inside of a British railway train – danger is not far away, particularly with the relatively quiet diesel and electric trains. And indeed, the day after Walter Stolworthy was killed, an elderly couple were seriously injured when a train hit their car on an unmanned crossing near Oulton Broad, and one of them died the following month.
In fact, railway workers have faced danger for many years. The National Railway Museum accompanies a display of safety posters and literature with the sobering statistic that in 1900 alone over 16,000 railway workers were injured or killed, and by 1913, that figure was over 30,000. Much has been done to protect railway workers from danger, but that danger will never be eliminated, as the unfortunate Walter Stolworthy found to his cost.
Walter was married and had three grown up daughters. And there were two death notices for him in the Eastern Daily Press. One mourned him as "loving father and grandfather, tragically taken from us, doing the job he loved." The other simply remembered him as a good friend.
He died doing a job he loved, he was loved and missed by his family and his friends. That deserves a memorial. And he deserves to be more than just a forgotten name.
Neil Hickman is a retired county court judge, amateur historian and independent parish councillor. He is the author of Despotism Renewed? Lord Hewart Unburied.
He hoped the stunt would bring him riches and fame, but he was swindled by his manager and returned to Ireland with nothing to show for it:
No Guinness Book of Records representative recorded Meaney’s feat and a rival burial artist named Tim Hayes, who spent less time underground in a regular-sized coffin, disputed his champion credentials. Later in 1968, a former nun named Emma Smith had herself buried beneath a fairground in Skegness for 101 days.
I just had to look up Emma Smith in the British Newspaper Archive, and found this front-page photograph from the Daily Mirror (18 September 1968). You can read more about her on the Skegness Magazine blog. She came to no harm, unlike Harold Davidson, the Rector of Stiffkey, who was mauled to death in the town by a lion called Freddie.
Emma Smith's record lasted until 1981, when it was broken by an American who lasted 141 days in his coffin. In 1999 a man stayed buried under the garden of the Railway Inn, Mansfield, for 147 days to win the record back for Britain. He was Emma's son Geoff.
This Terence Carroll documentary on the last days of the line from King's Lynn to East Dereham was first broadcast on BBC2 on 2 June 1969, though Wikipedia tells us the line had been closed for the best part of a year by then:
The line was not listed for closure in the original 1963 Beeching Report. But it was nonetheless closed to passenger and freight services by the Eastern Region of British Railways on Saturday 7 September 1968, save for a three-mile section for sand freight from King's Lynn to Middleton.
Wendling station continued for a short while as a filming location, with the station and its road bridge featuring in several episodes of the British situation comedy Dad's Army.
"There's a kind of misconception that this road is named after Prince Andrew... now Mr Mountbatten Windsor," said Gurney, a Conservative county, district and parish councillor.
In fact, she said, research indicated it was named before he was born, in honour of his grandfather, who died in 1944, and was father of Prince Philip, formerly the Duke of Edinburgh.
That him above with his missus.
Jo Elvin writes about her experience of applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain: "It took the Home Office four weeks to come back to me and tell my application had been rejected. I was informed of this in a short, cold letter stating that they were not satisfied that our marriage was genuine. The last sentence of the letter told me I had four weeks to get my affairs in order and vacate the country for good."
Owen Sennett finds that YouTubers are earning up to £20,000 a month by making provocative videos that have targeted a Norfolk hotel used to house asylum seekers.
"In 1981, the tide turned for Lethbridge when she was able to return to the bar. 'It seemed like the end of a nightmare – it had been 20 years in which I couldn’t work in the profession I loved. It turned out a lot had changed while I’d been away. I was astonished: there were black faces, and women, in chambers. I couldn’t believe it – it was wonderful.'" Joanna Moorhead talks to the magnificent Nemone Lethbridge.
"Edge-of seat perils, Bond-style gadgetry, a dash of espionage, a villain both hissable and hilarious, and Tracy Island: the coolest playground in the world with its movable swimming pool and lift-and-slide rocket entries. What kid didn't love all that?" Mark Braxton on his lifelong engagement with Thunderbirds.
lachlansimages visits Ludlow on market day.
"The might of the MATs give them a power within the DfE that smaller schools do not have, highlighted here in a 2019 Schools Week article reporting that an academy leader boasted that he 'flicked away safeguarding concerns' raised by a whistleblower." Pam Jarvis explores the dark side of multi-academy trusts.
"Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t have an inkling of the relevant law, this is horseshit of the highest order. It is absolutely untrue that council tenants can be evicted in order to house asylum seekers. It is not a 'complex issue with legal and ethical considerations', it is a non-existent issue because it cannot legally happen." Giles Peaker is furious about what people may now see if they use Google to research something in the news.
Jennifer Quellette talks to two researchers whose work suggests that people who believe conspiracy theories don't realise that they are in a small minority.
"Officials would want to avoid the fate of Dunwich, where erosion led to skeletons sticking out of the dunes after plots were washed away by the sea in the 1920s. There are similar macabre tales relating to Eccles-on-Sea, which featured in the Domesday book of 1086 and was swallowed by the sea over a number of centuries. The church tower finally collapsed in a winter storm in 1895." Owen Sennitt on the debate over what to do with the graveyard at Happisburgh in Norfolk, which will be lost to coastal erosion.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds that the new box set chronicling the birth of Nick Drake's debut album Five Leaves Left offers some quiet revelations: "Hearing Drake speak his aural aspirations for songs – notably, he wants Made to Love Magic to sound 'celestial' – helps reframe the refined baroque arrangements of the finished album, underscoring the intentionality of the sumptuous, sighing strings."
Ben Jackson says the government must change direction on child poverty: "When governments are remembered after they lose office, their achievements are unforgivingly distilled into a few pithy bullet points. Does Keir Starmer really want one of his bullet points to be that he was the unusual Labour prime minister who presided over an increase in child poverty?"
Rose Dixon reports the success of Iceland's experiment with a four-day working week.
"The men would wait for the Germans to pass over them and then come out at night. Their role was not to fight the Germans face-to-face. Their brief was to hit the supply chain, causing enough chaos to slow down the German advance, blowing fuel and ammunition dumps, destroying railway lines, bridges, and convoys. Local country houses that had been taken as German HQs were to be destroyed and German officers and British collaborators assassinated." Andrew Chatterton explains how the British Resistance would have fought Nazi occupiers.
"Meryl marched into the hotel suite where Hoffman, Benton, and Jaffe sat side by side. She had read Corman’s novel and found Joanna to be 'an ogre, a princess, an ass,' as she put it soon after to American Film. When Dustin asked her what she thought of the story, she told him in no uncertain terms. They had the character all wrong, she insisted. Her reasons for leaving Ted are too hazy. We should understand why she comes back for custody." Michael Schulman tells the story of how Meryl Streep battled Dustin Hoffman, retooled her role and on her first for Kramer vs. Kramer.
Peter Black discovers an Edwardian mystery: The story of Violet's Leap.
Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe David Chadwick has challenged the Welsh Government, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Natural Resources Wales over plans to limit the water supply to the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal.
The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal relies heavily on water abstractions from the River Usk, which runs alongside the canal for much of its length, providing over 80% of the water required.
The canal was originally exempt from rules governing abstraction from the Water Resources Act 1991, but in 2017 this exemption was removed. Now, Natural Resources Wales are looking to enforce limits on how much water may be abstracted from the Usk. ...
The Canal and River Trust now has to pay for the extra water they use to keep the canal alive, but do not have any new income to pay for it with the annual cost possibly in excess of £1m a year.
That was posted on the Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe Lib Dem's website a month ago, and there does not seem to have been any breakthrough in the talks between the authorities involved.
A couple of days ago Nation Cymru quoted Mark Evans from Glandŵr Cymru, the body that looks after canals in Wales:
"Our charity acted to safeguard the much-loved canal over the summer months, with additional water purchased from Welsh Water. This is whilst an affordable long-term solution is found - which will need the collective help of Welsh Water, the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales.
"As an emergency measure we have diverted money away from planned maintenance and repairs across our canal network to secure a water supply this summer. However, it isn’t sustainable for our charity to bear this cost alone."
Given that the canal is now more than two centuries old, you wonder whether its continued health is now as important as that of the River Usk. We don't begrudge protecting the Norfolk Broads because they are flooded medieval peat workings.
Anyway, I ought to declare an interest here. The picture above shows the canal at Llanfoist Wharf near Abergavenny, and I had a very happy week's holiday with a cousin of my mother's at Llanfoist when I was 14. That week is in part responsible for my love of the landscapes of the Welsh border.
The canal around Llanfoist and its tramways were the setting for Alexander Cordell's novel The Rape of the Fair Country - a sort of poor Welshman's version of How Green Was My Valley.
A mysterious spate of sinkings along a remote stretch of the River Yare has prompted growing concern from the Broads Authority (BA), as costs mount and investigators struggle to find answers.
Six vessels have already sunk this year, including two within weeks of each other in the same three-mile section between Reedham and the Berney Arms. The unusual pattern of incidents has sparked comparisons with the infamous Bermuda Triangle – the area of the Atlantic Ocean known for the unexplained disappearances of ships and aircraft.
Despite extensive surveys, including by specialist dive teams, BA officers say they are no closer to understanding why so many boats are going down.
The photo above shows the railway swing bridge over the River Yare at Reedham.
"The rapid rise of megafarms in Norfolk raises urgent questions about the cost of cheap food. Intensive livestock farming may meet demand, but at what environmental price? From water pollution to biodiversity loss, the evidence is stacking up against these industrial-scale farms." Owen Sennitt looks at the latest campaigning and legal moves.
"Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, was arrested early in the morning of Wednesday, 19 March, on two charges - one related to corruption and the other to terrorism. He released a video of himself shortly before the arrest, talking to the camera while nonchalantly adjusting his tie. 'Hundreds of police officers have arrived at my door,' he said. 'I entrust myself to the people.'" Helen Mackreath on Erdoğan's attempt to suppress his most dangerous rival.
Jon Stock, in his book The Sleep Room, tells the story of the psychiatrist William Sargant who, in the 1960s, used a combination of narcosis and ECT to "reprogram" troubled young women. Now his patients, including the actor Celia Imrie and the former model Linda Keith, are trying to piece together what happened.
Sven Mikulec discusses the long rediscovery of Orson Welles's film Touch of Evil.
"The train begins by cantering over Shropshire farmland, beating out a lively jig. Eventually we reach Knighton — the station is in England, but its car park is in Wales. Beyond the border the landscape changes. Norman churches give way to Methodist chapels; cricket greens to rugby clubs." Oliver Smith takes the Heart of Wales Line from Craven Arms to Llanelli.
I have covered just some of the key pillars of the challenges that our coastal communities face, as well as their resilience and our opportunity as a whole country to support them. What frustrates me greatly is that despite the wide-ranging and various challenges, responsibility for supporting them is fragmented and siloed across Government.
I am delighted to see the Minister in his place; however, his remit contains only the communities aspect of our coastal communities. We have unique health challenges, economic challenges and opportunities of major environmental importance.
Our coastal communities are too important to be bit parts of different portfolios, and we urgently need to take a holistic approach to supporting them, understanding how the different factors interact with one another. We need to be able to see and understand the impact of economic outcomes on health and wellbeing and how environmental challenges and renewable energy opportunities can go hand in hand.
That is why I have been calling for the creation of a Minister for coastal communities to give us a specific representative, speaking up for our areas in Government. That call has cross-party support, with MPs from across the House supporting it in the previous Parliament.
You can read the whole debate in Hansard. It was a good debate, and several other Lib Dem MPs spoke or intervened.
Behind the concerns expressed by members on both sides of the chamber, I suspect, is an anxiety about the appeal of Reform UK to some of these communities.
