More on Rupert Matthews, the new Tory MEP for the East Midlands

You can read more about Matthews's course - "PAR 501 Understanding Our Paranormal Universe" - on the International Metaphysical University website.

Thanks to Left Foot Forward for this. I suspect there will be more from the fascinating Mr Matthews in days to come.

Half Man Half Biscuit: Descent of the Stiperstones

Reviewing the new Half Man Half Biscuit album 90 Bisodol (Crimond) for The Quietus, Taylor Parkes says:

For insight, wit and imagination, Half Man Half Biscuit are currently peerless. Sharp as The Fall, cackling through fag-smoke at earnest 80s positivity; jarring as The Kinks' sardonic kitchen-sink palaver in the middle of a Swinging London youth-and-beauty cult. Over the past 20 years they've written fifty or sixty songs as smart, as clear-sighted and articulate as pretty much any pop music, ever...

Look, I am sure all that is true. But the really great thing about this song is that it is called Descent of the Stiperstones and even mentions Snailbeach.

Opening Sentence of the Day

Well done the Leicester Mercury:

The name of a town's annual Pork Pie Fair has been changed – because it has nothing to do with pork pies.

Coate Water is still threatened by development

Back in the 1990s I wrote my Masters dissertation on Richard Jefferies, so he has long been a hero of this blog. See the guest post by Rebecca Welshman from August for more about him and about the Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate.

Jefferies also featured in the Guardian yesterday, where Adam Thorpe described him as "arguably the founding father of environmentalism in Britain and (through fans such as Liberty Hyde Bailey) the US".

Thorpe went on to describe the threat to Coate and "Jefferies" Land today:

The area outside Coate Water, a 19th-century reservoir and park saved in 2006 from a previous land-grab, includes ancient, bat-roosted oak woodland, otter streams and tumuli. Renamed Commonhead by the grey suits – linguistically bulldozing all those awkwardly resonant old names – its 75 hectares is again under serious threat from a plan to build 900 houses and a business park. The developers claim that the above-mentioned road and petrol station have already "degraded" the area sufficiently to permit its destruction. 

The proposal, by Persimmon and Redrow, was defeated at a June hearing by Swindon Borough Council's own planning committee, after some stirring speeches by local people. However, the developers are appealing in November, and may win on legal grounds by using the government planning inspector's 2005 report, which dismissed Jefferies as lacking "the weight of acclaim" to justify blocking development. 

Although now against the proposal, Swindon council is following suit by citing other reasons for refusal – including environmental ones. The council refers to the town's internationally appreciated son (he has just been translated into Chinese) – "Jeffries [sic] the local Victorian writer" – but his legacy will play no part in the appeal process.

He also explained how you can object to the proposed development.

For World Food Day: Forced evictions in Uganda

This Al Jazeera report highlights the growing scandal of forced evictions in the developing world. This example is from Uganda.

For some background to this issue see the Oxfam resource page.

So farewell then Betty Driver

Betty Driver - best known as Betty Turpin from Coronation Street - has died at the age of 91.

She had a long life and a long show business career, but it still seems extraordinary that she was thrown off George Formby's first film Boots! Boots!

Matthew Sweet tells the story in his Shepperton Babylon:

A teenage dancer named Betty Driver - who would later spend decades on Coronation Street, preparing hotpot for the regulars of the Rovers Return - was also booked for the picture, and became the first casualty of Beryl Formby's jealousy. Her rapport with George was too convincing for Beryl's taste: she pressured Blakely [the producer] to cut Driver's scenes from the picture.

The film was reissued on DVD (apparently it is one for Formby completists only) with those scenes restored.

Betty Driver's heyday was the years immediately after World War II when she had her own shows on radio and television. The clip above, taken from a 1938 film, suggests she was a performer very much in the Gracie Fields mould.

There is an obituary of her on the BBC website, but you get the best picture of Betty Driver and her career from her recent appearance on Desert Island Discs.

Market Harborough street life

Today was my first free day in Market Harborough for some time. I was pleased to see that nothing has changed in my absence.

Six of the Best 193

"That the British Defence Minister holds frequent unrecorded meetings in the Ministry and abroad with somebody promoting the interests of foreign powers is much, much worse than a little cash-grubbing." Craig Murray looks at Liam Fox and Adam Werritty.

"Don’t let’s pretend that it is really such a mystery why such modern institutions, targeted and standardised to within an inch of their lives, have become so inhumane," argues David Boyle on The Real Blog.

Caron's Musings writes this blog a memo on the subject of Tim Farron.

Is a battle for Stamford Bridge about to begin? asks twohundredpercent.

Spitalfields Life looks at Richard Jefferies in the City of London: " Whenever I feel lost in the metropolis, his writing is always a consolation, granting a liberating perspective upon the all-compassing turmoil of urban life and, in spite of the changes in the city, his observations resonate as powerfully today as they did when he wrote them."

"'Gone to Earth' is positioned here as an archetype of the 'film as safari' genre, a glimpse of rare, exotic lands," says Cinespect. Those rare, exotic lands are the Shropshire hills and this Powell and Pressburger films has been showing as part of a season at the 92Y in New York.

WaterAid "No Choice" urgent TV appeal

Keith Perch's resignation as Leicester Mercury editor is bad news for the city

Yesterday Hold the Front Page broke the news that Keith Perch, the editor of the Leicester Mercury, was quitting the paper with immediate effect. I had, of course, already heard this, but the nature of my source meant that I could not blog or tweet it as a scoop myself.

Keith's resignation is bad news for the Mercury. At various points in the recent past it has either been absurdly right wing or far too friendly with the city council. But under his editorship it has consistently broken important stories and held the city's politicians to account, thanks largely to the paper's excellent political reporter David MacLean.

This latter role is particularly important in a city with a Labour elected mayor and where all but two councillors are Labour too.

But you have to wonder whether Northcliffe Media, the owners of the Mercury, are losing their appetite for this sort of journalism. Already the paper's website looks like something that belongs to a free glossy magazine rather than the daily newspaper of a considerable city.

Tory MEP Roger Helmer stands down... to be replaced by expert on alien abductions

Yesterday Guido Fawkes broke the news that the Tory MEP Roger Helmer is to resign from the European Parliament, in part because of his "increasing disillusion with the attitudes of the Conservative Party".

There is more about his resignation in today's Leicester Mercury, including some delicately worded tributes from other local politicians. Louise Mensch, the Conservative MP for Corby, was less inhibited - as you can see from the tweet above.

Helmer is to be replaced at Brussels by one Rupert Matthews. And what an interesting fellow he turns out to be.

Hynd's Blog tells us:

The front page of his website (with pictures of knights and all) gives us a few clues that something aint quite right. Then we have his two personal blogs – The Ghost Hunter and – The History Man. A quick glance at these blogs and alarm bells start to ring. 

His published titles include, “‘UFOs: A History of Alien Activity from Sightings to Abductions to Global Threat’, ‘Roswell: Uncovering the Secrets of Area 51 and the Fatal UFO Crash’, ‘Alien Encounters: True-Life Encounters with Aliens and Other Extra-Terrestrial Phenomenon’, ‘Bigfoot and Other Mysterious Creatures”. It would appear, the Conservatives in their never ending quest for comedy have managed to find a man slightly more delusional and odd man than Roger Helmer.

And New Europe tells us there is more:

Mathews is also on the faculty of the International Metaphysical University Graduate College, an online university where the incoming deputy specializes in teaching a course, ‘Understanding our Paranormal Universe’ and a member of the Institute for Psychical Research. He says he has been investigating the paranormal for 20 years and possesses a “real insight on living with the paranormal”.

Well, I am all in favour of eccentricity and Mr Matthews promises to be someone to watch.

Tim Farron: A work in progress

Last month I offered Tim Farron, the Lib Dem President, a little unsought advice:

Now that Tim Farron is being spoken of as a possible party leader, he needs to risk the odd unpopular speech. Someone in that class cannot always be telling people what they want to hear.

How is he getting on with this project? Judging by his speech to the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference in Dunfermline on Saturday, which Caron's Musings kindly reprints, he has some way to go before he will satisfy me:

Being really honest with you now - I envy you. I envy Scotland. I envy your values, your sense of community, of collective endeavour and basic decency. If you want to know my main, even selfish, reason for being utterly opposed to Scottish independence is because a Britain with your values is a warmer, compassionate and caring place to be.

What has Alan Partridge done to offend Steve Coogan?

Steve Coogan has dedicated years of his life of the deconstruction of a fictional sports reporter. You have to ask whether it has been worth the effort.

Yes, Partridge is vain, prejudiced and deluded, but did we ever think that radio and TV sports reporters were much different from that?

Chris Morris's contribution to On the Hour and The Day Today were more important than Coogan's because they were making fun of current affairs presenters and current affairs programmes in general - things we are far more inclined to take seriously.

I have a nagging suspicion that Partridge is being tortured for being less fashionable and less successful than Coogan. Why, he even reads the Daily Mail! If he doesn't hold the left-wing views it is obligatory to express in the circles in which Coogan moves, we are supposed to conclude, then he deserves all he gets.

The relations between comic characters and their creators are complex - you feel Dame Edna is more than a match for Barry Humphries - but maybe it is time for Coogan to find a more deserving target for his talents.

Mystic Calder forecast last year that Liam Fox would be the next cabinet minister to resign

Here is an extract from a post that I wrote in August of last year discussing tensions in the Coalition cabinet:

I also suspect that the differences within the two Coalition parties, Conservatives as well as Liberal Democrats, will ultimately prove more significant than the differences between the parties. So my own tip for the first resignation would be a Tory right-winger like Liam Fox.

It should have been "next resignation" rather than "first resignation", as David Laws had already come and gone, but this post is looking spookily accurate this morning.

Six of the Best 192

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association needs our help in opposing the plans Tower Hamlets Council to allow City bankers to hold parties in the memorial gardens for the merchant seamen who died in two world wars.

Predicatable Paradox attends the Scottish Lib Dem Conference in Dunfermline.

"Now apart from the logistical problems of trying to get a six year old to safely transport soup to school, one wonders if those at the Schools Food Trust have actually tried to feed said child cous cous, chickpeas or wholegrain crackers?" Living on Words Alone tells the School Food Trust where it can stick its lunchbox.

Labour is renewing its attack on civil liberties, reports Political Valley.

"Several clergymen called in the afternoon, and they had scarcely left when a most distressing scene occurred. Two girls of twelve or thirteen years of age quarrelled, as it would appear, about a remark which one of the clergymen had made concerning a new frock which one of them wore. The first notice I had of this was to see the pair boxing most viciously: before I could get at them, they had hold of each other's hair, and were yelling most fearfully: they fought like furies." Read extracts from the diary of a master of a London Ragged School on The Cat's Meat Shop.

Bazzfazz goes to an exhibition of the work of the poster art of Edward McKnight Kauffer at the Estorick Collection in Islington.

When Tony Benn was still Anthony Wedgwood Benn

On her blog, Lynne Featherstone points us to an article by Carol Morley in today's Observer. It deals with the life and death of Joyce Carol Vincent, who was found dead in her North London flat after her body had lain undiscovered for three years. Her story has been made into a film, Dreams of a Life, which is to be shown at the London Film Festival.

Lynne herself features in Morley's article, having tried without success to interest the authorities in the case, but I was struck by a very minor point in the article.

Morley says of Joyce Carol Vincent:

She was born in 1965, the year the Post Office Tower opened, which Tony Benn later referred to as a symbol of our age – an age in which we worship the internet, television, mobile phones.

But Tony Benn did not say this "later" at all. He said it at the time. Because in 1965 he was Postmaster General and one of the bigwigs at the tower's opening.

A Guardian article by Nigel Fountain from 2000 describes his attitude that day:

While Big Ben had represented "the fussy grandeur of the Gothic revival that epitomised the Victorian imperial affluence, built on the foundation of the first industrial revolution", as the postmaster-general, a Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn, had pithily proclaimed at the opening, "the Post Office tower, lean, practical and futuristic, symbolises the technical and architectural skill of this new age." 

Good old new ages, where would we be without them? At the time, Tony Benn - as he became when he, too, opted to be lean, practical and futuristic - reckoned a new definition of a Cockney would be someone born within sight of the tower.

You can even see footage of him that day on the British Pathe site. (My current internet connection cannot cope with it, so I have not seen this newsreel myself.)

Shortly afterwards Anthony Wedgwood Benn became even more lean, practical and futuristic and took charge of the Ministry of Technology - or Mintech, as he liked to call it. The days when Tony Benn (as he was later to become) would present himself as a sage who laughed at the follies of our technological age were then far ahead of him.

But then Carol Morley is not the first person to be taken in by accepting Benn at his own estimation. In a House Points column a couple of years ago I recalled his role in the banning of pirate radio and then asked:

Do the sweet young things who hang upon his words about global warming know that when a minister in the 1970s he forced through the construction of the coal-burning Drax power station?

People can get upset when you point out historical ironies of this sort, but I am with Cicero: "To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."

Have you read all those books? Of course not

There is a silly piece of research, funded by the wine company Lindeman's, reported in today's Daily Mirror:

The majority of books on British bookshelves never have their pages thumbed, a survey has revealed. Research from Lindeman’s wine suggests up to 70% of all household books remain unread, resulting in book ‘waste’ of 80 books per household. And a third of owners even admit they have no intention of reading their books.

Somewhere behind this nonsense lies the idea that reading and owning books is a form of showing off. Why an aspirational brand like Lindeman's wants to identify itself with it is anyone's guess.

The truth is that the mark of a booklover is precisely that he has not read all the books he owns.

If I see a book about Leicestershire or Shropshire, I am very likely to but it. But I am very unlikely to read it from cover to cover as soon as I get it home. It is much more likely that I will flick through it, put it on a shelf and open it again only when I am planning a day out.

By contrast, once I have read a novel I may well give it to Oxfam to sell.

It's the books you haven't read that you keep: it's the ones you have read that you get rid of - unless you really love them.

Bert Jansch: Angie

I am still away from home helping the Dowager Lady Bonkers and do not have my copy of Electric Eden to hand. So my tribute to Bert Jansch will just be this Sunday video choice.

Angie was written by Jansch's fellow Scottish acoustic guitar pioneer Davey Graham, who died in 2008. Graham's Wikipedia entry quotes Ralph McTell talking about it:

here was a tune that combined a quirky rhythm figure with a tune of simple beauty with sexy blue notes with a hypnotic descending bass line. The hard part of this was that there were two beats to every bass note instead of the one that most of us were able to play. I was captivated and for the next few weeks played nothing else. Finally I could manage a passable version. My mates were impressed! It practically became my signature tune.

Angie became the song that every aspiring folk guitarist wanted to master, but Jansch learned it from a tape borrowed from Graham's half-sister, Jill Doyle, who was giving him guitar lessons. He included it on his 1965 debut album, which was entitled simply Bert Jansch.

You can read more about Jansch's career in his Washington Post obituary.

So farewell then George Baker

These days I find myself increasingly drawn to the obituary columns.

At least I have heard of many of the people in them. More and more I hear people discussing names - Jessie J, Phil Jagielka, Ed Miliband - that mean nothing to me.

Anyway, I was sad to read this evening of the actor George Baker. He is best known to modern audiences for playing Inspector Wexford and to people of my generation for playing Tiberius in I Claudius.

But long before either of those roles, he had a brief spell as a swashbuckling romantic lead in British films of the 1950s. The photo above shows him in The Moonraker from 1958 and it is borrowed from South Central Media Scene, which also examines his long career.

Reading the cast list for The Moonraker, I find that Oliver Cromwell was played by John Le Mesurier. I have not seen the film, but I imagine it goes rather like this:

CHARLES I: I intend to remind Parliament that I rule by Divine Right.
CROMWELL: Do you think that's wise, sir?

Nephew claims "explosive new evidence" in Hilda Murrell murder

The Shropshire Star - and that's good enough for me - reports:

The nephew of Hilda Murrell, the Shrewsbury rose grower whose murder in 1984 sparked a host of conspiracy theories and claims of an Establishment cover-up, has called for a reopening of the case because of ‘explosive new evidence’.

Rob Green says that the new information proves that at least one other man was involved in the crime and this information would probably lead to the acquittal of Andrew George. 

George is serving a life sentence after being convicted of Miss Murrell’s abduction and murder following a five-week trial in 2005.

The paper goes on to say that Green has written a book ("A Thorn in Their Side"). He told the Star:

"My primary and immediate motive is to expose explosive new evidence which proves at least one other man was involved in Hilda’s murder. This would probably acquit Andrew George. 

"I believe this book prov-ides enough evidence, known to both prosecution and defence but not put to the jury or Appeal Court judges in 2006, to reopen the coroner’s inquest into Hilda’s death."

The book does not appear to be on sale anywhere, but there is an interview with Green on the TVNZ site - he lives in New Zealand:

Green believes he has become a target because of the book. 

"We've had break-ins to this house, doors left open, drawers have been gone through," he told ONE News. 

He believes his house is bugged and has hid documents all over the house. 

"We've had to produce this book under extreme secrecy."

Copies of the book have been sent to UK politicians, lawyers and media.

David Aaronovitch is 57.