Samuel Danks Waddy

It has taken a while to get all the judges together, but we can now award Name of the 19th Century. And the winner is...

Samuel Danks Waddy.

Anna Raccoon, to whom this blog will be eternally grateful, has rediscovered him.

Wikipedia will tell you a little more about his career:

He was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnstaple, Devon on 3 February 1874 but resigned this seat in December 1879 to stand in a by-election in the Sheffield constituency, taking the seat on 21 December 1879. However he held the Sheffield seat for less than four months, being voted out by just 40 votes on 3 April 1880.

He was elected as MP for Edinburgh in 1882, and when that seat was abolished, he contested, but lost, the new Hallam seat at the 1885 general election.

On 7 July 1886, at the 1886 general election, he was elected as MP for the Brigg constituency in Lincolnshire. He held the seat until 1894 when he was appointed Recorder of Sheffield.

Britblog Roundup 231

...has the Redemption Blues.

Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison Blues

Today I have mostly been to prison.

My mother has been a probation volunteer at Gartree Prison near Market Harborough for many years. Today I went with her to Stocken Prison in Rutland to meet one of her old boys.

I can't recommend prison life, but we did have a tour of Bonkers country on the way.

And the experience has inspired today's music choice. I have always loved the primitive guitar break in this.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Ricky Ponting meets the Rutland alligator

Another week at Bonkers Hall draws to its close.

Sunday

In Leicester this afternoon I come upon a party of disconsolate young men sporting hats with corks dangling from the brim. They turn out to be the Australian cricket team, at a loose end after being ejected from that dreadful “Twenty20” cricket tournament. I point them to the library and art gallery and, when those suggestions fail to please, suggest they come back to the Hall for a cup of tea and some practice.

I am unable to raise an XI at such short notice, but am happy to have Meadowcroft erect some nets for them. It happens that the Queen’s Own Rutland Highlanders are training with live ammunition in the field next door and that the Rutland alligators are in playful mood. The last I see of the Australian captain, he is running into the distance with two of them gripping the seat of his trousers in their jaws.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born
Wednesday: The Corby trouser press

Thursday: The inkwells of Rutland
Friday: Rutland's nuclear deterrent

Saturday: A two-tier service?

The Northampton & Lamport Railway

Pitsford and Brampton my arse. This is Little Bowden Crossing signal box.

It used to stand at the end of my road and, although it had gone by the time it had moved here, the rails were still in the road where the level crossing had been. I can still hear the noise cars made rattling over them in my mind's ear.

This afternoon I visited the Northampton & Lamport Railway, where the box has been relocated and renamed. They have a mile or so of track to the south of Brixworth and, as their name suggests, plans to extend it along the route of the former Market Harborough to Northampton line.

To my surprise it was not open to the public on a Saturday in July, but it does open on Sundays and there are a couple of weekend events coming up. A Vintage Gathering on 25/26 July and Ivor the Engine on 1/2 August.

And perhaps the absence of trains in steam and volunteers made things easier for the inquisitive photographer? The Lamport & Northampton has a pleasing selection of steam and diesel locomotives and rolling stock.


As I wrote last week, the route of this old railway is now the occupied by the Brampton Valley Way - a footpath and cycle path. But the railway seems to coexist amicably with it - a lesson to people who oppose railway reopenings elsewhere when the trackbed is now a cycle path.


The old stationmaster's house at Pitsford and Brampton has been converted into a pub called the Brampton Halt. I found it surprisingly charmless and headed for the Spencer Arms up the road at Chapel Brampton.

That is Spencer as in Lady Di - the family seat of Althorp (even the Spencers have now given up pronouncing it All-trup) is only a couple of miles away.

When I came out there was a trap with two grooms trotting past. I assumed they were on their way to a wedding, but maybe life in Spencer country is always like this?

Win James Robertson Justice

...or at least his biography, in the latest Liberal England quiz.

James Robertson Justice (1907-75; henceforth JRJ) was a British film actor, famous for his portrayal of the fearsome Sir Lancelot Spratt in the Doctor films of the 1950s and 60s. He was much else besides: a professional racing driver, a soldier in the Spanish civil war, a Labour parliamentary candidate, falconry tutor to the young Prince Charles.

To win James Hogg's biography of JRJ (only one prize this time, I am afraid) just identify these five films in which he appeared.

1. A story of British heroism with a celebrated score by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

2. In this Ealing Comedy JRJ, spoke the great line: "It's a well-known medical fact that some men are born two drinks below par."

3. This lesser-known Ealing Comedy starred a small boy called William Fox who grew up to be James Fox - and Billie Piper's father in law. (JRJ appeared under the pseudonym Seamus Mòr na Feusag.)

4. In this film JRJ asked "You - what's the bleeding time" and Dirk Bogarde replied "Ten past ten, sir."

5. A classic family musical that also featured Stanley Unwin, Max Wall and Benny Hill.

Please e-mail me your answers. The quiz closes at 23:59 on Monday 27 July 2009.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: A two-tier service?

The latest dispatch from the nation's most celebrated fictional peer. Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Saturday

Do you remember Phil Willis’s delightful daughter? She was the young lady in the advertisement who had the internet projected on to her white dress. I thought that was a splendid idea and am sorry that it subsequently lost ground to the flat plasma screen.

Anyway, I learn today that Willis is in the soup for claiming for a flat where the young lady lived. I fear he is the author of his own misfortune as I put a perfectly serviceable solution to him some years ago. “Willis,” I said, “why don’t you get bunk beds? That way, your daughter can sleep in the lower bunk when she is there alone but move to the upper bunk when you are in Westminster on parliamentary business.”

Willis replied rather sniffily that it would be wrong to offer his daughter a two-tier service.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses
Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Wednesday: The Corby trouser press
Thursday: The inkwells of Rutland

Friday: Rutland's nuclear deterrent

Everyday life in Rutland

Isn't that Lord Bonkers at the back?

Coming soon: A James Robertson Justice quiz

Liberal England is about to have another of its internationally famous prize quizzes.

This time, as a change from all that boring politics, I shall be offering you a chance to win James Hogg's biography of the British film actor James Robertson Justice.

I hope to post the questions here some time tomorrow, so please come back and try your luck then.

House Points: What are British troops doing in Afghanistan?

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Afghan recap

House Points has been going for so long that, while writing a column, I sometimes have the feeling that I have written it before. I’m sure you often have that feeling when you read them. But then there are a lot of subjects on which this government has made little progress over the past 10 years.

Take Afghanistan. Back in March 2006, just as Ming Campbell was being elected Liberal Democrat leader, I questioned what exactly our troops were doing there. The then defence secretary John Reid, I reported, had described their task as “establishing democracy, ending terrorism, achieving security in the south of Afghanistan, helping the Afghan economy and dealing with poppy destruction”.

He didn’t, I pointed out with mordant sarcasm, say what they would be doing after lunch.

Three and a half years on, the confusion over the purpose of the British presence remains. As Nick Clegg put it in the Commons on Monday, “For the past eight years, the Government have been sending mixed signals about the nature and purpose of the deployment. In the past week we have had the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary giving different justifications for the war.”

Perhaps we now hear less about our hopes of establishing a Western liberal democracy in Afghanistan – ministers used to make the British Army sound like the Islington Labour Party under arms – and more of the claim that our troops out there are defending Britain.

But it is that claim right? What Islamist terror we have seen in Britain has been homegrown – almost homemade, in fact, though no less deadly for that – and it is arguable that our entanglements abroad in recent years have made us more vulnerable, not safer.

Nick Clegg’s remark that the Government’s strategy has been over-ambitious in aim and under-resourced in practice was widely reported. Paddy Ashdown used the same line in the Lords on Monday, but went on say more.

Paddy said we have learnt that through bitter experience that unless the international community can act to a single plan and speak with a single voice, we will not succeed somewhere like Afghanistan.

Unless everyone learns that lesson, I fear someone will be writing a column very like this one years from now.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Rutland's nuclear deterrent

Today Lord Bonkers shares some insights on subatomic physics.

Friday

Clegg, I read in the Manchester Guardian, has declared that a Liberal Democrat government (and it can be only a matter of months before we have one) will not renew Trident.

Good for him. I have long believed that Britain simply cannot afford an independent nuclear deterrent; it costs so much that we may as well drop flaming bales of £50 notes upon our enemies.

Here in Rutland we have, of course, never had nuclear weapons (we did try splitting atoms but found them terribly fiddly), but have on occasion found it useful to give the impression that we do. At times of international crisis, the Rutland Water Monster is asked to wear a cardboard conning tower so that she resembles a submarine. The effect is strikingly realistic and quite enough to fool any passing Zeppelin.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born
Wednesday: The Corby trouser press

Thursday: The inkwells of Rutland

Chandila Fernando attacks Tories over race

In light of the decision of Chamali and Chandila Fernando to join the Conservative Party, it is worth repeating what Chandila said about the Tories only last year.

Interviewed on Liberal Democrat Voice during his campaign to be elected as president of the Liberal Democrats he said:

I left the Tories for a number of reasons, but mainly because of their position on race and immigration. As the son of an immigrant myself, I am appalled by the way the Right often takes an extreme, populist and dangerous stance on these sensitive and explosive issues. I am a true liberal and feel at home in the Lib Dems. David Cameron may have given the Conservatives a new-look, but he has not fundamentally changed his party.

Chandila Fernando was also director of Liberal Vision when he stood for the Lib Dem presidency, but you wouldn't know it from that organisation's comment on this story.

Vote for your 10 favourite blogs

The magazine Total Politics is again running its poll for Britain's top political blogs. To quote the magazine's website, the rules are simple:

You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).

Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.

You MUST include ten blogs. If you include fewer than ten your vote will not count.

Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com.

Only vote once.

Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents are eligible or based on UK politics are eligible.

Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name.

All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2009. Any votes received after that date will not count.

If you have your own blog, please do encourage your readers to take part. Last year, more than 80 blogs did so. We hope this year it will be far more than that. BUT, DO NOT list ten blogs you think your readers should vote for. Any duplicate voting of this nature will be disallowed.

In the past the poll has chiefly been promoted and advertised by Iain Dale's Diary. Those of us who are not Tories have grumbled about this but still taken part - not least because it gave us a ready-made excuse for not doing better in the voting.

This year - quite rightly - the poll is being jointly promoted and sponsored by LabourList and LibDemVoice, as well as by Iain.

So do vote for your favourite 10 blogs - and if you can see your way to including Liberal England amongst them... thank you very much.

Incidentally, although Total Politics talks about "your 10 favourite blogs", it is clear that they have only political blogs in mind. If you look at my blogroll, you will see that some of my favourites are not political at all.

Perhaps the organisers need to think about this?

Pennbury "eco town" plans abandoned

The Leicester Mercury reports:

Leicestershire's proposed eco-town has been rejected, the Government announced today.

Pennbury, a 15,000-home development for land between Oadby, Great Glen and Stoughton, failed to make the shortlist of preferred sites for the flagship homes developments.

More significantly, the site at Stoughton is not mentioned in the "second wave" of developments that need more work before the government considers them again.

They'll be dancing in the lanes of High Leicestershire tonight. I made my own opposition to the plans for a new town at Stoughton clear in an article for Comment is Free a year ago.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The inkwells of Rutland

Another visit to Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Thursday

Rutland’s ink industry has long been the foundation of its prosperity. I am fortunate enough to own several inkwells myself – some supplying blue ink and some black – as well as a plant where the two varieties are mixed to form blue-black ink. In recent weeks, we have been shipping countless barrels of Rutland Extra Black to Westminster and today I discover why.

The Commons publishes its members’ expense returns and they are simply dripping with the stuff. “Redacting” they call it. If I had covered my work with that amount of ink, my schoolmasters would have called it something very different and impressed their opinion upon me in no uncertain manner.

Ink extraction, incidentally, is not without its dangers and we live in fear of one of the men falling in. We keep to hand a supply of industrial strength blotting paper for such emergencies, as that is the only thing that could save him.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses
Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Wednesday: The Corby trouser press

Iain Dale and Nich Starling on the Norwich North by-election

The By-Elections blog will take you to a recording of their joint interview on Radio 5 Live from Tuesday.

Labour turncoats on Gary McKinnon

Tomorrow's Daily Mail tells us:

Eighty-two Labour MPs signed three Parliamentary motions, dating back to 2005, opposing the Extradition Act and sending Gary McKinnon to the U.S. for trial.

But only eight of them had the integrity to back the Tory Opposition Day call for an 'immediate review' of the one-sided treaty. Of the other 74 Labour backbenchers, 59 displayed rank hypocrisy by supporting the Government. Another 15 abstained.

And the paper's website helpfully goes on to list them all.

Phipps NBC: A Northamptonshire brewer

This brewing company's website says:

Phipps NBC are dedicated to creating quality beers based on the original Phipps NBC products sadly lost when the brewery closed in the early 1970's.

Part of Northamptonshire's history going back to 1801 (Pickering Phipps started brewing in Towcester) was almost lost and our aim was and shall remain to celebrate the past whilst looking forward to the future.

Working with several retired brewers and past employees to develop our premium traditional beers we now have a strong demand for Phipps once again across the East Midlands and beyond.

The site also has numerous old photographs of pubs from the original brewer's heyday. The photo above shows the now-closed Sun Inn at Braybrooke - down a by-road from Market Harborough - in 1940.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Corby trouser press

Our week at Bonkers Hall gathers pace.

Wednesday

I shall not pretend that I was delighted back in the 1930s when a steel works was built beside the pretty little Northamptonshire village of Corby: I had Meadowcroft (or perhaps it was his grandfather?) plant a spinney lest it spoil the view from the South Terrace here at Bonkers Hall. My foresight was rewarded over the following decades as Corby grew into a large town of quite preternatural ugliness.

Nevertheless, when the works closed in the 1980s I did what I could to help the town’s inhabitants by encouraging the establishment of new industries. I struck gold with the Corby trouser press. This ingenious device allows one to crease one’s trousers smartly if one is away from home and one’s valet, and can also be used to keep the eggs and b warm if one is having breakfast in bed.

I have always urged my Liberal Democrat colleagues at Westminster to buy the things; thus I fear I must shoulder some of the blame for Huhne getting into hot water after claiming for one on his expenses.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Britblog Roundup 229

On The Wardman Wire.

Bad Grammar of the Day

I have just heard a newsreader on Radio Five Live say something like:

Despite having an injection in his injured knee, England coach Andy Flower is confident that Andy Flintoff will be fit for the second test.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: David Boyle - a star is born

A second day at Bonkers Hall.

Tuesday

Here in Rutland we always had our own currency, but the idea has been slow to catch on elsewhere despite the spirited advocacy of our own David Boyle.

A few months ago, finding him rather depressed at this slow progress, I suggested to Boyle that he should go on the electric television to spread the word; I recall handing him a cutting about a new show called Britain’s Got Talent. The rest, gentle reader, is history.

Though the studio audience was at first hostile, Boyle won them over with his oratory. Then the cinematograph film of his appearance became an overnight sensation and was widely viewed (I am informed) upon the Moving Internet in America. He was invited on to all the television shows there and, though (much to the bookies’ delight) he was defeated in the final by a group of dancers in woolly hats, he is now a celebrity across the world. It can now be but a matter of time before every village prints its own money.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

I had that Nick Clegg in the back of my cab once

Mr Gladstone's Willy amused Queen Victoria

In Richard Deacon's The Private Life of Mr Gladstone from 1965 we catch a glimpse of William Henry Gladstone, who went to school at Geddington:

In the late 'forties Mrs Gladstone, who was a great favourite of the Queen, sometimes took her children, Willy and Agnes, to Windsor Castle, and the Queen told Gladstone later that "their frank demeanour and childish pranks" made her "laugh heartily".

There was a favourite of Queen Victoria in my family too.

Cats "exploit" humans by purring

So says the BBC.

I think we all knew that, didn't we?

Talking of cats...

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Sense on MPs' expenses

Liberator 334 is with subscribers and Liberal Democrat Voice has a summary of this issue's contents.

All of which means it is time to spend another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Monday

We Bonkers have never been flippers – though in the Roaring Twenties my daughters were certainly flappers. You will not find me claiming that some wretched basement flat in Pimlico is my principal residence so that I may charge the upkeep of Bonkers Hall to the hard-pressed taxpayer.

I do not claim for cleaning out my moat: I clean it out myself. (Or, to be precise, the Well-Behaved Orphans clean it out – the Rutland alligator is not as dangerous as the books make out). Nor do I call upon public funds to house my ducks: they (or at least those who have escaped the attentions of the alligators) are buying their own homes through a thoroughly Liberal housing co-operative.

At times like this, I remember the wise words of my old friend Lord Hazlerigg, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire, when someone proposed paying allowances to county councillors: “If a man hasn’t the brains to earn his own fare once or twice a month into his county town, I don’t think he’d be much help in administering the spending of a million of money.”

When Clegg ran Sheffield

Not Nick Clegg, but Sir William Clegg. According to Wikipedia:

Clegg was the leader of the Liberal group on Sheffield City Council from 1895. In his early years, he campaigned for the municipalization of the tramways in the city, and then for the construction of council housing in the city. He was able to ensure that an estate was built at Wincobank, and a project to build 400 houses was begun in 1909. He also acted as the major financier of the local Liberal group.

Clegg was considered to be on the right of the Liberal Party and was associated with the Liberal League. He was opposed to socialism and was hostile to the Labour Party. From 1909, he began co-operating closely with the Conservative Party group on the council, and in 1920 the two parties formed the Citizens' Association, Clegg being its first leader.

He pursued low-tax policies at the expenses of cutting services and running up debts. He was an opponent of David Lloyd George's policies. The Association lost control of the council to Labour in 1926, who removed him from the aldermanic bench.

William Clegg played football for Sheffield Wednesday and England, as did his brother Charles who became president and chairman of the Football Association and was known as "The Napoleon of Football".

Their father, William Johnson Clegg, served as Mayor of Sheffield and was a solicitor who made his reputation helping the victims of the flood caused by the failure of the Dale Dyke Dam in 1864.

England vs Pakistan 1979 and the genius of Mike Brearley

Today's nerve-shredding finish, which saw thousands of Welshmen cheering every forward defensive by the last English pair, was a reminder that test matches produce more drama than the limited overs game can ever do.

Either limited overs matches are close, in which case they are exciting at the time but soon forgotten, or they are not, in which case they are rather dull and soon forgotten.

But there is a limited overs game I attended 30 years ago that I still remember, and that is because it did not feel like a limited overs game at all.

When I was a student at York in 1979 I went to Leeds to see the England vs Pakistan World Cup group game.

It was a typically seam-friendly Headingley wicket and England, batting first, made only 165 - the highest scorer was Graham Gooch with 33. I remember Sikander Bakht bowling very well for Pakistan.

What followed was a display of the tactical genius of the England captain Mike Brearley. He had four frontline seamers and he bowled them out to take wickets. Mike Hendrick's figures were particularly good: 12-6-15-4.

The game ended with Phil Edmonds and Geoff Boycott bowling at the Pakistani tale and England squeaked home, bowling them out for 151.

A lesser captain - indeed almost any other captain - would have fitted Edmonds' overs in somewhere in the middle of the innings, taken the pressure off the Pakistani batsmen and lost the game.

Brearley, incidentally, had a habit of giving Boycott a bowl in tests in those days. His theory was that opposing batsmen hated the thought of getting out to him so much (he bowled gentle medium pace with his cap turned back to front like Benny Hill's Fred Scuttle) that it made them cautious and slowed the scoring rate.

Psalm 79 from the Isle of Lewis

Something different for this Sunday's video. The unearthly sounds of Gaelic psalm singing come from Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and remind us just what a strange and diverse place the British Isles are.

As a bonus you get some pictures of the island's landscape including the moon over the stones of Callanish. I have visited the Outer Hebrides a couple of times and long to go back.

MetaFilter describes what we are listening to:

In Presbyterian Free Church's across Lewis you can here some of the finest examples of spiritual Free Heterophony in the world, where the psalms are sung a cappella (without musical accompaniment), and led by a precentor (literally ‘one who sings beforehand’).

In Gaelic psalm singing, the precentor leads the praise by commencing the tune, which he sings along with the congregation for two lines of a four-line stanza. On the third line, the precentor sings the line solo, which is then repeated by the congregation; this occurs for each line until the end of the item of praise.

The result is a unique musical event, full of the traditions of Celtic religious culture, and deeply moving in its praise of God.

The site also repeats the story that the Black American style of worship has it roots in Gaelic psalm singing. This is an atractive idea, but probably too fanciful.

Another Youtube video explains the difference between Hebridean "lining out" and the Black American "call and response" style.

So the blues probably don't come from Stornoway.

Four centuries in a county championship innings

The ECB website says:

Kent became the first county in history to score four centuries in a championship innings against Surrey during Sunday’s run-spree at The Brit Oval.

Surely this can't be the first time it has happened?

Later. It's not. It also happened in Warwickshire v Yorkshire 1896 for a start. And I shall not be surprised if four is not the record.

Charles Darwin: Very gradual change we can believe in

This T-shirt design comes from Mikero.com. You can buy one through Zazzle.

Thanks to an old post by Paul Belford for the tip. He also has some nice pictures of Snailbeach.

Tory MPs to refer Andy Coulson to party's ethics committee

From the Sunday Times:

Rebel Conservative MPs plan to refer Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s chief spin doctor, to the party’s sleaze watchdog over his role in the illegal phone hacking row.

Some Tory backbenchers believe Cameron took an excessively tough stance on the expenses scandal. Now they hope to exploit the row over Coulson, the former News of the World editor who resigned when the paper was caught hacking into royal aides’ phones.

Yesterday, Lord Tebbit lent his voice to the Tory rebels. “Cameron has talked a lot about ‘detoxifying’ the Conservative brand,” he said. “Perhaps he should now think about a ‘detoxification’ of his own office.”

If this comes to anything - and it does feel like Sunday paper talk - it will be because the Tory old guard (the owners of moats and duck houses) think that Cameron has thrown them to the wolves while protecting his inner circle.

13 doctors demand inquest into Dr David Kelly's death

Intriguing news from tomorrow's Mail on Sunday. A group of doctors are mounting a legal challenge to overturn Lord Hutton's finding that Dr David Kelly committed suicide. No proper inquest into his death was ever held.

The newspaper says the doctors have:

compiled a detailed medical dossier that rejects the Hutton conclusion on the grounds that a cut to the ulnar artery, which is small and difficult to access, could not have caused death.

It will be used by their lawyers to demand a formal inquest and the release of Dr Kelly's autopsy report, which has never been published. It will also be sent to Sir John Chilcot's forthcoming inquiry into the Iraq War.

The 12-page opinion, a copy of which has been seen by The Mail on Sunday, concludes: "The bleeding from Dr Kelly's ulnar artery is highly unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death."

We advise the instructing solicitors to obtain the autopsy reports so that the concerns of a group of properly interested medical specialists can be answered."

The Lib Dem MP for Lewes, Norman Baker, has written a book on the Kelly case.

Steve Marriott and Stanley Unwin interviewed in 1984

Deep joy.

Bradgate revisited

I went back to Bradgate Park today. The ruins of Bradgate House, childhood home of Lady Jane Grey, are open to the public on Saturday afternoons, though that didn't stop the visitor centre closing at the first sign of drizzle.

The house was built around 1500 and as Guy Paget and Lionel Irvine say in their Leicestershire:

Bradgate House is remarkable for two things: it is built of brick and is one of the first houses of any size which was designed for comfort with no idea of defence.

The use of brick is remarkable not just because it so early but also because the house is surrounded by granite quarries.

Today the remains are covered with signs telling you not to climb on the walls, but apparently they do not apply to peacocks.

Exciting news from Shropshire

From the Shropshire Star:

More than 500 customers were evacuated from a Telford supermarket this afternoon when...

Go on!

...a member of staff accidentally activated a fire alarm.

John Yates: Evidence first, inquiry afterwards

From Alice in Wonderland:

'No, no!' said the Assistant Commissioner, 'evidence first - inquiry afterwards.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. 'The idea of having the evidence first!'

'Hold your tongue!' said the Assistant Commissioner, turning purple.

'I won't!' said Alice.

'Off with her head!' the Assistant Commissioner shouted at the top of his voice. Nobody moved.

'Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!'

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

'Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; 'Why, what a long sleep you've had!'

House Points: Calder's Second Law of Politics

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Dyed in the Wool

Calder’s First Law of Politics is that if all the parties agree on a new law it is bound to turn out to be a disaster. My Second Law is that the more power the government takes for itself, the more arbitrary the exercise of that power becomes. This is why, with Labour’s effective nationalisation of childhood, we see children taken into care on apparently flimsy grounds whilst others die at the hands of their parents despite countless visits from public-sector professionals.

The same thing happens in the legal system. Labour has created numerous new criminal offences, yet this week we learnt that nearly 1000 offenders released on licence, who should have been sent back to prison, are still at large. They include 19 convicted murderers.

A word of advice to Alan Johnson, the new home secretary: concentrate first on keeping murderers locked up and spread your wings only when you have got that right.

Certainly, Johnson gave no sign that he offers a break with the recent past at home office questions on Monday. There was no sign of his being the fresh new face some Labour optimists still believe can win them the next election.

He washed his hands of any responsibility in the case of Gary McKinnon – the Asperger’s syndrome sufferer facing extradition to America for computer hacking. And he offered a dogged defence of identity cards, including the unconvincing claim that the “need to prove identity is a constant daily occurrence”.

Nor – to continue this column’s new theme – should you expect any better from the Tories. Angela Watkinson, wanted firmer action against antisocial behaviour. As Matt Foot recently pointed out n a letter to the Guardian 99 per cent of applications for an ASBO are granted:

they are extremely difficult for anyone to stop, as the only test for the court is whether there is evidence that someone behaved in a way "likely to cause alarm", and hearsay or gossip is allowed as evidence. An ASBO can then ban you from doing anything anywhere for the rest of your life. If you breach the order, you face up to five years in prison.

It’s scary to think what Watkinson may have in mind.

Leicester Unitarian Chapel, East Bond Street

This is Leicester Unitarian Chapel - or "Great Meeting" - in East Bond Street, now hidden away behind the new Highcross shopping centre. As its website says, it is the oldest complete brick building in the city and one of its most important surviving buildings.

In the 19th century the city was known as "radical Leicester" and the city's first seven mayors following the overthrow of the corrupt old corporation in 1835 were Liberals and members of the congregation at East Bond Street.

When it was first built the chapel it was a brick cube and it still retains an early American feel. However, later in the Victorian era it was given a chancel and stained glass to make it more of a conventional church. As the picture above proves, the trees at the front make it difficult to photograph satisfactorily.

Next door to the chapel is a 19th century Unitarian school and a modern extension has been built over part of the old graveyard. You can have a coffee and browse secondhand books there on Saturday mornings.

More photogenic is the large wooden building at the rear of the chapel which, I have been told, used to be used for storage by a furrier. It looks agricultural and, sitting looking at it from the chapel's graveyard, it is easy to imagine you are in a churchyard in rural Essex.

The Murmaids: Paper Sun

It doesn't quite make it as a Sunday video, but this is rather wonderful. A cover version of Traffic's Paper Sun by American all-female trio The Murmaids, complete with a video of Swinging London.

There are a lot of other good videos to explore on the page too.

For the Traffic version of Paper Sun, see earlier on this blog.

Much Wenlock Olympian games take place this weekend

Photo by Sabine J Hutchinson
http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk

The Shropshire Star reports:

Shropshire will create its own sporting stars this weekend when the county plays host to the 123rd Wenlock Olympian games.

The games - which were founded by Dr William Penny Brookes in Much Wenlock in 1850 and are widely regarded as the forerunner to the modern Olympics - have attracted more than 1,250 entries from athletes from as far afield as Norway.

This year also marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Penny Brookes who originally launched the games to “promote the moral, physical and intellectual improvement” of Much Wenlock residents.

The four-day event will start tomorrow and run until Monday.

Happily, the Wenlock games are bound to get more publicity in the run up to London 2012.

And this gives me an excuse to point you to an article I wrote about them in the New Statesman last summer.

Full details on the Wenlock Olympian Society website.

Stuart Syvret arrested and charged on Jersey

A democratically elected politician arrested and charged for something he wrote on his blog. Surely it could only happen in a tinpot dictatorship?

Not so. It happened on the "Crown Dependency" of Jersey today.

Senator Stuart Syvret wrote on his blog yesterday afternoon:

I have just learnt that I’m required at Police Headquarters at 5.00 pm this afternoon where I will be arrested and charged with supposed breaches of the Data Protection Law.

I don’t know if I’ll receive unconditional bail – if not, they’ll keep in the slammer overnight – if not longer.

As it turned out, Stuart was released and told to attend the Magistrate's Court on Thursday 16 July. Channelonline tv has interviews with him and his lawyer.

Crown Dependency? Maybe the Queen should pull the royal finger out and do something about what is happening in her name?

Bob Russell should know there is only one Lord Bonkers

Writing on the Sky News site, Jon Craig reports the spat between Lord Hanningfield and our own Bob Russell:

The Lib Dem MP harrying his Lordship is Bob Russell, the rather eccentric but tirelessly campaigning MP for Colchester who used to be a journalist on local papers in Essex and a sub-editor on London's Evening News and Evening Standard.

Eccentric? Certainly. Bob has handed me a dossier on Lord H, who's a former pig farmer, with a Bugs Bunny cartoon and "Lord Bonkers" on page one and the headline "A Lord with his snout in the trough!" on page two.

Why then, you might well ask, does Bob Russell think pig farmer Lord H is such a swine? Because Essex County Council wants to close two secondary schools in Colchester, that's why.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of secondary school reorganisation in Colchester, there is only one Lord Bonkers.

News of the World scandal will harm David Cameron

This morning's Guardian breaks what could be a huge political scandal.

The newspaper claims that Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

In particular, the Guardian says the story "poses difficult questions" for:

• Conservative leader David Cameron's director of communications, Andy Coulson, who was deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World when, the suppressed evidence shows, journalists for whom he was responsible were engaging in hundreds of apparently illegal acts

• Murdoch executives who, albeit in good faith, have misled a parliamentary select committee, the Press Complaints Commission and the public

• The Metropolitan police, who did not alert all those whose phones were targeted, and the Crown Prosecution Service, which did not pursue all possible charges against News Group personnel

• The Press Complaints Commission, which claimed to have conducted an investigation but failed to uncover any evidence of illegal activity.

It will also pose a difficult question for David Cameron. How can he possibly continue to employ Coulson?

The BBC quotes a spokeswoman for David Cameron as saying he is "very relaxed" about the story:

"The ramping up of this story is ridiculous - this is about a payment made well after Andy [Coulson] left the News of the World," she said.

But this defence is laughable. The payment was made well after Coulson left the paper, but it was made because of the actions of News of the World journalists while he was editing it.

And as Andrew Neil explained on Newsnight yesterday evening, it is inconceivable that Coulson would not have quizzed his reporters about their methods when they came to him with big stories.

An editor has to be able to judge the truth of a story and how defensible it would be in court. The way the story was come by is central to both these questions.

The irony is that Cameron might well be better off without Coulson. The Conservatives made their come back precisely by ceasing to appeal to the baser instincts of Sun readers and courting the liberal middle class voters they have lost over the last two decades.

But if he insists on trying to hang on to Coulson, David Cameron's squeaky clean image could well be tarnished.

The Brampton Valley Way and a sign in Polish

The railway line between Market Harborough and Northampton opened in 1859. If enlightened opinion had had its way in the 1960s and St Pancras had been closed, then it might today be the main line from the East Midlands to Euston.

Partly because the line was built to branch line standards, with sharper curves and steeper gradients than a main line, that plan came to nothing. So the line closed to passengers in 1960 (though it was used by a Euston sleeper to Scotland until 1973) and to good traffic in 1981.

The last working on the line (apart from demolition traffic) was a special train from Northampton to Market Harborough and back in August 1981. I was on it.

In Market Harborough itself, much of the route has been lost to new building and road widening. But to the south of the town, starting here in Little Bowden, it has been preserved as the Brampton Valley Way. You can walk or cycle for 14 miles without seeing a car and pass through two tunnels en route. Some of us used to walk through them before they were officially open to the public.

My house is near the start of this path. If you take it and walk for a quarter of a mile or so, you will see a clear track heading off through a field of barley. It takes you to a pond with an island in the middle.

It is obviously man made and may well be of industrial origin: there used to be a brickworks in Little Bowden. But it is unexpected and rather pretty. Any body of water with an island in it will appeal to an admirer of Richard Jefferies' Bevis.

The pond also has a sign - a sign of the times - in Polish. I suspect it says something like "No Fishing", but can any reader translate?

A Useful Fiction quiz: Liveblogging the results

20:38
You join me in The Bonkers' Arms, where the two winners of the latest Liberal England prize quiz will soon be drawn.

Meadowcroft is in his usual corner, Lord Bonkers is holding court in the snug and - since you ask - mine is a pint of Smithson & Greaves Northern Bitter.

20:44
I should probably emphasise that, following our unfortunate experience with electronic systems last time, the two winning entries will be drawn from Lord Bonkers' second-best top hat.

20:51

Apparently we are waiting for a game of darts to finish before the draw can take place. It is being played to Rutland rules, of course.

And those poison tips certainly make for a lively contest!

21:00

While we are waiting, there is a chance for me to give you the results of the quiz.

1. After whom is the Barnett formula named?

Joel Barnett, now Lord Barnett, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 1974 and 1979.

2. Who wrote?:

We are bought and sold for English gold -
What a parcel of rogues in a nation.

Robbie Burns.

3. In which year did the people of North East England vote against the establishment of a regional assembly in a referendum?

2004.

4. Who said of Enoch Powell?:

"Poor Enoch! Driven mad by the remorselessness of his own logic."

Iain Macleod.

5. Which MP is currently 326th in the line of succession to the British throne?

Ian Liddell-Grainger.

Congratulations to everyone who got all five right.

21:06

Good news: the darts match is over. A narrow win for a team of pygmy tribesmen from the upper Welland valley over Bonkers' Arms II there.

The draw will take place shortly.

21:11

The winning entries are being folded and placed in the hat.

In a charming move, the draw will not be made, not by Lord Bonkers, but by one of the Well-Behaved Orphans.

What a pretty little thing she is! And such nimble fingers!

No wonder she captains the orphanage three-card brag team.

21:13

So here we go.

The first winner is...

21:15

I believe it is now the done thing to leave a painfully long pause in such circumstances.

21:16

Anyway, the first winner is:

Dewi Harries

21:18

And the second winner is:

Geoff Dagger from Blackburn.

21:20

Congratualtions to the winners, commiserations to the losers and thank you all for entering.

The good news is that I should have another prize quiz soon - one for the film fans amongst you.

With that it is good night from The Bonkers' Arms.

Those Norwich North candidates in full

BBC News has the list of candidates in the by-election (polling is on 23 July):

• Peter Baggs (Independent)
• Thomas Burridge (Libertarian Party)
• Anne Fryatt (None of The Above Party)
• Bill Holden (Independent)
• Laud Howling (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party)
• Craig Murray (Put An Honest Man into Parliament)
• Chris Ostrowski (Labour)
• April Pond (Liberal Democrat)
• Rupert Read (Green)
• Chloe Smith (Conservative)
• Glenn Tingle (UK Independence Party)
• Robert West (British National Party)

Note that Ian Gibson is not standing.

My A Useful Fiction quiz has now closed

Thank you to everyone who entered. The two winners will be drawn this evening at a simple ceremony held at The Bonkers' Arms.

Good luck!

David Davis accuses British intelligence service of "outsourcing torture"

David Davis has used parliamentary privilege to accuse the British intelligence service of "outsourcing torture".

The former Shadow Home Secretary, reports BBC News:

cited the case of Rangzieb Ahmed, from Rochdale, who was jailed for life for being an al-Qaeda planner.

Mr Davies (sic) told the House of Commons that intelligence services had allowed Ahmed to go to Pakistan.

Once there, they alerted Pakistani authorities who arrested him and tortured him, parliament was told.

Mr Davies (sic) is calling for a judicial inquiry into at least 15 cases where torture of terrorist suspects has been alleged.

Lord Bonkers on coping with thunderstorms

Lord Bonkers writes exclusively for Liberal England:

I hope none of you was too frightened by today's thunderstorms. My preferred method for coping with them involves the delightful Julie Andrews and a large feather bed, but that can be difficult to arrange at short notice.

Tories talking up the Greens in Norwich North by-election

Norfolk Blogger reports:

I had two emails at the weekend from Tories trying to convince me that the Greens were doing well despite the evidence on the streets being clearly the opposite. It was clear that these Tories wanted me to believe something that as a local, living and working in the constituency, was obviously untrue.

What is going on? His analysis is that:

It has been clear for some time that the Tory campaign in Norwich North has been to "play it safe", and hope that their core vote turns out over as evenly split an opposition as possible. However, it seems that their plans are becoming unravelled.

From what I have been told the Lib Dems have got clear traction in this campaign, clearly evident from the number of leaflets being delivered and the number of Lib Dem posters going up, and this has clearly got the Tories worried. One party breaking clear from the pack behind them is their greatest threat. So what is their response ? To talk up the Greens.

Final call for the latest Liberal England book quiz

My latest quiz closes at 23:59 this evening (Tuesday 7 July).

To win a copy of A Useful Fiction by Patrick Hannan just e-mail me the answers to the five questions below:

1. After whom is the Barnett formula named?


2. Who wrote: "We are bought and sold for English gold -/What a parcel of rogues in a nation"?


3. In which year did the people of North East England vote against the establishment of a regional assembly in a referendum?


4. Who said of Enoch Powell: "Poor Enoch! Driven mad by the remorselessness of his own logic."


5. Which MP is currently 326th in the line of succession to the British throne.

The top Lib Dem blogs in the new Wikio rankings

Charlotte Gore has kindly compiled the list of the top Lib Dem blogs in the new Wikio rankings. I have reworked her presentation slightly, putting last month's position in brackets.

6 (7) Liberal Democrat Voice

23 (37) Charlotte Gore

27 (55) Mark Reckons

31 (29) Liberal England

33 (35) Quaequam Blog!

36 (44) Himmelgarten Cafe

48 (34) Peter Black AM

50 (46) People’s Republic of Mortimer

73 (75) Stephen Linlithgow’s Journal

77 (-) Miss S B (Jennie Rigg)

I think having six Lib Dem blogs in the top 36 is pretty damned impressive.

Britblog Roundup 229

Being looked after by Mr Eugenides.

Why parents cheat over school admissions

One of the news stories of last week was the collapse of Harrow Council's attempt to prosecute a mother - Mrinal Patel - for fraud because she lied about her address in order to get her child a place at a particular secondary school.

Following that case, BBC News reported:

Schools Secretary Ed Balls has asked for a report on the problem of parents cheating to get school places.

England's Schools Adjudicator will look at the scale of the problem and whether there are enough powers to tackle cheats - and if they are being used.

This is tackling the symptom rather than the cause.

The reason that many parents cheat to get their children into a preferred school is that too many councils run schools to which no caring parent would want to send their children.

No, I don't have an easy solution. But the first step to tackling a problem is to admit that it exists.

Half Man Half Biscuit: Fuckin' 'ell it's Fred Titmus

With The Duckworth Lewis Method being released tomorrow, it is time for this while it is still the best song about a spin bowler. (Thanks to Hywel, in a comment on that post, for the inspiration.) And here it is, live from Frome.

Half Man, Half Biscuit are a band from Birkenhead, known for their humorous lyrics (and humorous titles in particular) and concern with the minutiae of provincial life.

A 2001 Guardian article by Kevin Sampson gives a good portrait of the band, even if he does think that Fred Titmus is a "fiery Yorkshire pace legend".

As readers of this blog will know, Fred Titmus is a former Middlesex and England off spinner who was evacuated to Rutland as a child during World War II and the subject of a famous anecdote about amateurism and professionalism in cricket.

Lord Bonkers add: In fact, there have been many songs about spin bowlers:

• Single Bedi - Noosha Fox
• The Man with John Childs in his Eyes - Kate Bush
• Norwegian Underwood - The Beatles
• Take Me Home, Wilfred Rhodes - Olivia Newton John
• I'd Like to Teach the World to Singh - The New Seekers
• My Funny Valentine - Elvis Costello

Substitution of the Day

It's hard to warm to South African rugby, but you have to admire the names in this BBC live text report of today's third Lions test:

South Africa have replaced hooker Chiliboy Ralepelle with Bismarck du Plessis.

Leicester & County Liberal Club, Bishop Street

The first editions of Nikolaus Pevsner's The Buildings of England were written after a flying visit to the county in question. So it is no surprise to come across a passage like this in the Leicestershire and Rutland volume:

One glance in BISHOP STREET at the former LIBERAL CLUB, facing Town Hall Square. it is in the Loire style, but gabled. Brick with stone dressings. By E. Burgess, 1885-8.

When I started working in Leicester back in the 1980s I set out to find the Liberal Club. On the basis of my limited architectural knowledge I decided it must be the building above.

I later learned that this club was the hub of Liberal organisation, not just for the city, but also for the Harborough constituency, which contained parts of what are now thought of as Leicester until well into the 20th century.

And I was right. The building above was the Liberal Club. I know this because in the lobby there is a bust of Gladstone and a plaque explaining the building's history.

Everything was locked when I went back there this morning, so this photo shows the Grand Old Man floating like a ghost amongst the reflections.

Win A Useful Fiction by Patrick Hannan

My latest quiz closes at 23:59 on Tuesday 7 July. To win a copy of "A Useful Fiction" by Patrick Hannan just e-mail me the answers to the five questions below:

1. After whom is the Barnett formula named?


2. Who wrote: "We are bought and sold for English gold -/What a parcel of rogues in a nation"?


3. In which year did the people of North East England vote against the establishment of a regional assembly in a referendum?


4. Who said of Enoch Powell: "Poor Enoch! Driven mad by the remorselessness of his own logic."


5. Which MP is currently 326th in the line of succession to the British throne.

To whet you appetite, Heresy Corner has a review of the book:

This book is more of a jaunt through the ironies of modern Britain rather than a coherent argument - which makes for an entertaining read ("a running commentary") if a slightly inconclusive one.

He's a sharp observer and has some good stories to tell. On page 91, for example, on Gordon Brown's apparent transition from dull but competent Chancellor to failing Prime Minister: "I was told by someone who knew the government intimately that, in fact, he had been useless all along but at the Treasury his more able advisers had seen to it that he didn't get into trouble".

And I enjoyed Hannan's tale of an encounter with Peter Hain, out of office following his failure properly to record campaign donations, which "felt as though I'd somehow stepped into a bereavement".

A fox in the garden

My friend Herbert Eppel sends me this photograph of a fox drinking from the birdbath in his garden.

He also asks if I can mention the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Pro Wind Alliance.

Not sure about that, Herb.

House Points: Labour running out of steam on transport

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Highway jinks

The malaise that grips this government has reached its bony fingers into every corner of Westminster life. Last Thursday’s transport questions provided a good example.

For a start it was Hamlet without the prince. Or, to be more accurate, the Greek myths without Adonis. The transport secretary is Lord Adonis and he cannot be questioned in the Commons, so MPs were forced to deal with his minions. Increasingly, the senior ministers in this government are unelected and – worse – are not accountable to anyone who has been elected either.

Then there was the content of the answers. There is a consensus between all parties about the threat of global warming. And more thoughtful critics recognise that the car has taken over our towns and cities, forcing everyone of the road and affecting our quality of life.

So you might expect the government to be giving spending on public transport priority over road building.

Not a bit of it.

There were two questions involving transport in the East Midlands. One was about the railway line from Leicester through Coalville and Ashby de la Zouch to Burton upon Trent. People have been talking about returning passenger services to it for more than 20 years. Would the minister discuss the scheme with the local MP?

No, said the minister – who, fittingly for someone called Chris Mole, has so far been entirely hidden from public notice. It is “it is primarily a scheme of regional significance” so any funding must come from the region – not that anyone elected that either.

It was a different matter when it came to widening the A14. “The Government are committed to the three-lane widening in order to deliver the improved traffic flows more quickly to the A14 around Kettering,” said the Mole. “The planned improvements are based on the needs of Kettering in terms of growth and development.”

Mr Toad would have approved.

Don’t, incidentally, expect any better from the Tories. Theresa Villiers, their shadow transport secretary, complained of the government: “In their entire term of office they have built less than 20 miles of new motorway.”

If David Cameron tries to hug a husky after that he deserves to get bitten.

Clapton and Winwood on tour

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood have just finished a short US tour.

Jeff Gold went to the final concert, held at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday, and has some superior videos on his blog.

Cat appears on Question Time

I think this is a welcome development. I am sure he made more sense than all those pop stars and comedians they insist on having.

More from BBC News.

New Lib Dem faces in Wikio top 30 political blogs

Jennie Rigg has the sneak preview of the July Wikio rankings for political blogs - and the Lib Dems are doing well.

Congratulations to Charlotte Gore and Mark Reckons, who have leapfrogged this blog and landed in the top 30.

Lembit Opik on the box

How is Lembit's media career progressing? I hear you ask.

The Shropshire Star (as ever) has the answer:

The Montgomeryshire MP earned up to £30,000 from TV appearances, writing articles and advising the Caravan Club of Great Britain during the 2008/09 financial year. This is in addition to his annual salary of £64,766 as an MP.

Iain Dale and political morailty

Iain Dale has written the Commons Confidential column in this week's New Statesman. I don't know what the magazine's readers will make of his mundane Tory views, but after Kevin Maguire anyone would read like Proust.

There is one oddity. Iain positions himself as an arbiter of political morality - in Norwich North particularly:

I was up in my old stomping ground of Norwich at the weekend, sniffing the by-election air. The Lib Dems had achieved the remarkable feat on the same day of writing to the Tory candidate, Chloe Smith, saying they wanted a good clean campaign and, in the next breath, smearing the Green candidate, Rupert Read, as an “extremist”. How did they get a reputation as the nice guys of British politics?

This is the same Iain Dale who is still happily accusing the Lib Dem candidate, April Pond, of "whoring herself across Norfolk" on his blog.

Strange.

National Express won't be the last rail company to throw in the towel

It is no great surprise to see National Express handing back the East Coast Main Line franchise.

British railway companies stopped making profits around 1914, yet they were supposed to raise enough from the line to satisfy their shareholders and pay £1.4bn to the government over the next seven-and-a-half years.

I doubt that National Express will be the last company to find there is no future in the privatised railway business.

It is not as if the private railway feels more free. Quite the reverse.

Ever since privatisation railway stations have been festooned with notices warning the companies' customers about their behaviour and threatening them with all sorts of penalties and reprisals if they think they can pay for the company's services on the train.

This is partly the result of giving a private company an effective monopoly and partly because those companies are desperate to raise money to pay the government and their shareholders.

Then this position is overlaid with New Labour's target culture. Never mind if you give your customers a good service, just make sure you meet the centrally decided target.

Which is why this evening it was announced at Leicester that the train I was waiting for would not call at Market Harborough, as advertised, but run not-stop to St Pancras instead. Sod the customers. Just make sure you meet the government target.

All of which explains why the privatised railway has taken far more public money than British Rail ever did, yet has in many ways less concern for its passengers than the nationalised railway did.

So farewell then Mrs Slocombe

Mollie Sugden has died at the age of 86, says BBC News.

There is a good interview with her on Teltronic:

As most fans of the series will know, Mrs Slocombe was always deeply concerned for the welfare of her pussy. The writers got a lot of mileage out of this and it became something of a standing joke. In fact, there was even a book published a couple of years ago entitled Mrs Slocombe's Pussy.

One assumes that there was no Mr Slocombe to care for the feline. "Well it was certainly true that you never knew at one time what had happened to her husband. You always had the feeling he'd just gone off."

Block of ice falls from sky and crushes car in Loughborough

It just goes to show you can't be too careful.

Travis Parrott: I don't have swine flu

In view of my posting about Wimbledon and swine flu last night and a comment left on it today, I had better pass on Mr Parrott's latest tweet:

Can you guys help me out and spread the word that I do not have swine flu, unlike what the Daily Mail claimed earlier. Thanks!

That'll teach me to believe the Daily Mail.

Incidentally, if you follow Travis Parrott on Twitter he will lead you to many top tennis tweeters.

Reminder: Win A Useful Fiction by Patrick Hannan

Remember there is another Liberal England book quiz taking place.

Just e-mail me the answers to the five questions below and you could win one of the two copies that are up for prizes.

First, you may be interested in a review of the book just published on A Pint of Unionist Lite:

"A Useful Fiction" is an attempt to analyse post-devolution Britain, the structures set in place at the end of the 90s and how they have affected the social, economic, cultural and political make-up of the United Kingdom. He sets himself a range of questions, for example- the effects of devolution on central government’s ability to run the nation, is an overhaul of Barnett overdue and is "independence" worth having if it entails becoming poorer to achieve it".

Anyway, here are the questions:

1. After whom is the Barnett formula named?


2. Who wrote: "We are bought and sold for English gold -/What a parcel of rogues in a nation"?


3. In which year did the people of North East England vote against the establishment of a regional assembly in a referendum?


4. Who said of Enoch Powell: "Poor Enoch! Driven mad by the remorselessness of his own logic."


5. Which MP is currently 326th in the line of succession to the British throne.

The quiz closes at 23:59 on Tuesday 7 July 2009.