Ironic Tweet of the Year

It was Sunday 26 July. I was staying in Canterbury and had been down to Hastings to see Liberator's Stewart Rayment and family.

Waiting at Ashford for my last train of the day, I sent this tweet:

Must be careful not to get off at the station before Canterbury

— Jonathan Calder (@lordbonkers) July 26, 2015

Lovers of the film A Canterbury Tale will recognise the reference. The action of the film is set in motion when Sergeant John Sweet (US Army) mistakenly gets off his train at the station before the city.

Shortly afterwards the Canterbury train arrived, I caught it and then this happened and I had to get off before Canterbury...

BBC News - #Train #derailed after hitting cows on line in #Kent http://t.co/FBtiFoY2df #TCEP #History #Business #Medicine #Railways #Chilham

— Chaucer University (@ChaucerUniv) July 27, 2015

Christmas traditions at Bonkers Hall

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Lord Bonkers writes exclusively for Liberal England:

"We always decorate the domestic staff for Christmas."

Footbridge to replace level crossing in Market Harborough

On 23 December this press release was posted on the Network Rail website:

A level crossing in Leicestershire which was closed earlier this year due to safety concerns is to be replaced by a new footbridge. 

Little Bowden foot crossing was closed back in August after a risk assessment determined that the amount of time people were asked to stand at the red light varied too much for it to be safe. Train movements in the area meant that on some occasions the red light would be triggered by an approaching train which would then reverse into a nearby siding and therefore never arrive at the crossing itself. 

Network Rail determined that the variation in warning time– although working entirely as it should – meant that those using the crossing may grow to distrust the warnings and decide to cross when it was unsafe to. 

Now Network Rail is applying for planning permission to allow a bridge to be built at Little Bowden, which crosses the Midland Main Line and sees around 200 trains a day pass through it, with the crossing set to remain closed permanently. 

Designs for the bridge are currently being discussed with Leicestershire County Council, with the new footbridge potentially in place within the next 12 months.

These workings that trigger the crossing lights without ever arriving at the crossing must be track machines arriving from or leaving for the North at the sidings by Market Harborough station. And I imagine they generally take place early in the morning or late at night when few people are using the crossing.

While the railway enthusiast in me mourns the loss of more traditional infrastructure, I can see why Network Rail is uneasy about this crossing, particularly as houses have recently been built close to it. They did annoy people locally, though, by closing the crossing a year ago without notice or consultation.

In fact the wonder is that it has not already been replaced. Network Rail has spent money erecting bridges to eliminate crossings along the line here - at Braybrooke, Great Bowden and Kilby Bridge, that must see far fewer people crossing than the one in Little Bowden.

And it least it may make a new location for photographing the line.

Merry Christmas to all our readers

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is an anonymous 18th-century poem and this setting is by the 20th-century British composer Elizabeth Poston.

Between them they manage that combination of the sacred and the pagan that makes Christmas work.

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Joanna Ferguson announces the relaunch of Liberal Youth's blogging platform The Libertine.

"Measurement, Bob says, is the big challenge facing the outdoor education industry. You can measure a child's progress in maths, spelling, grammar… so we tend to hone in on those things. But it’s so much harder to quantify how much more confident or empathetic or happy a child is this term versus last. So we don't prioritise these things, and so nor the activities that develop them.'" Dominic Collard speaks up for outdoor education.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein spent some time teaching in an elementary school in the Austrian mountains. Spencer Robins looks at that period's influence on his thought.

"Self went on to argue that understanding the age of buildings was a key to understanding the built environment. Elderly people were better at it, he said, because they had often seen the buildings being constructed. Young people less so." Steven Morris follows Will Self on a psychogeographic walk through Bristol.

Dave Walker is puzzled by an undeveloped plot in South Kensington. Someone Twitter said it had been earmarked for a new Iranian Embassy that cannot now be built because of economic sanctions.

London Traveller follows the Ravensbourne River through a surprisingly rural landscape from Bromley South station to Caesar's Well.

Father Christmas on the Grand Union Canal

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Taken at Brentford, where the canal joins the Thames, in 1934

Christmas Day television in 1977

Looking forward to BBC1's offerings for Christmas Day evening, 1977.

It looks thin today, but then I have a feeling it may have looked a bit thin at time too.

Oakham Reserves match abandoned after ugly crowd scenes

The Rutland & Stamford Mercury wins Headline of the Day with this disappointing story.

Two policemen and the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, 1948

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"Yes, Dickie, but I don't think this gentleman is very interested in policemen. Uncle Alf - that's Mr Ingles - told me this morning that he likes to have a few policemen around at this time of year. He said they reminded him of Christmas, but I can't think why, can you?"
Malcolm Saville Wings Over Witchend (1956)

The shorter Polly Toynbee

We're all doomed.

Six of the Best 559

Flashbak has some great photographs of British coal mining taken between 1930 and 1950.

Chris Sayer presents his choice of the 20 mightiest small bookshops in the UK.

The children's writer Peter Dickinson has died. Britain is No Country for Old Men pays tribute to him.

"Arguments take place in online forums as to where exactly the house stood. Some are determined that there is a bit of old wall remaining and that they have stood in the back yard of the house. Others argue (plausibly) that the street alignment was changed on rebuilding, making a drain cover the location." Sarah Miller Walters on !0 Rillington Place - the house and the film.

Trisha xx has been to see the new Star Wars film and gives it five stars. Did you know, incidentally, that Daisy Ridley is the great niece of Arnold Ridley from Dad's Army?

"A truly wonderful film of a summer holiday in Bude in 1955," claims Paul Walter. And he is right. It really is wonderful. No doubt it will appear on this blog after a decent interval has elapsed.

In praise of BBC Radio 4 Extra

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Since I got myself a digital radio I have fallen in love with a new station: BBC Radio 4 Extra.

I suppose you have to be of a certain age to appreciate a station based on the archives, but who would want to listen to the Today programme when you can go to work cheered by an episode of Round the Horne?

This morning Julian and Sandy, as Bona Mediums, were demonstrating their gift of second vada.

Another programme I have heard on it recently is Alick Rowe's play from the 1980s Crisp and Even Brightly,which Stephen Tall has written about today.

In some ways, with its varied, interesting schedule, Radio 4 Extra resembles that other resort of the insomniac, BBC World Service, before it was transformed into a rolling news service. And it's certainly more fun than the World Service is today.

Why A Box of Delights was not filmed

Back in November 2009 I got excited by the news that Mike Newell was to direct a film of John Masefield's The Box of Delights with a script by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

But the film never went into production and I have now found an interview with Newell from 2012 that explains why.

Lousia Mellor from Den of Geek asked him about it and got a depressing reply:

Something close to our hearts is your planned adaptation of John Masefield's The Box Of Delights. What's the status of that at the moment? 

The script is there, I would love to make it but I think there is a problem with The Box Of Delights and the problem is that… I don’t know what children expect. 

I know what adult Hollywood producers think they expect and it is that the story should be much more intricate and much more special effect-y and have comedy and [waves hands around] terrible surprises, and to look overegged in general. 

The Box Of Delights is a story from the 1930s about a boy who has wished on him something that is almost a curse, which is a box that can allow him to do certain things, and is being struggled over by two powerful figures from the past. 

And you know, I’m from a certain generation, and I am the age I am and for me, it’s partly an answer to your thing about why didn’t you juice up Great Expectations. For me, the story of that book, just the way it is with the story of Great Expectations, is sufficient. 

It’s a really good story, it has a really strong human sense of good and evil and exploration and peril and all sorts of wonderful things but I think it’s in trouble because it isn’t Transformers.

A sad conclusion, but at least we have the BBC adaptation to watch.

The Wisbech to March line

Filmed on a sunny, windy day in January this year, this video follows the remains of the railway from Wisbech back to March.

I suspect all those level crossings are a large part of the reason it was closed to freight trains in 2000. (Passenger services had gone in 1968.)

The good news is that there is a strong campaign to reopen the line.

The allegations against Greville Janner

What do to about Greville Janner?

Trying a dead man is surely an absurdity out of the Middle Ages, yet handing the affair over to Justice Lowell Goddard's general inquiry risks seems an inadequate response.

Could a separate, immediate inquiry be held in Leicester?

As to what the allegations are, there is a story in The Times today (and thus behind its paywall) under the headline 'Justice evaded by man with influential friends':

Had the case gone ahead, the court would have heard evidence that Lord Janner sometimes groomed boys for "relationships" and on other occasions acted opportunistically to grope and indecently assault teenagers. 

The alleged offences took place primarily in Leicestershire, when Lord Jenner was driven by his parliamentary interns to his constituency from London, where he preferred to spend most of his time. 

The Times is aware, however, that allegations have also been made concerning assaults on children at the Oasis swimming pool in central London. 

Former interns said that he had little interest in constituency work. One former intern gave evidence that the long drives to Leicester sometimes involved stops at particular children's homes and at service stations. 

That account links with evidence from one of the alleged victims, Hamish Baillie, who says that the MP first approached him when he was playing arcade games at Leicester Forest East service station in 1983. 

Mr Baillie believe that Janner was told his name and where to find him by Frank Beck, manager of the care home where he was a resident for nine months.

The Needle blog adds:

Sources familiar with the ‘trial of the facts’ had told The Needle that about 100 witnesses were due to give evidence against Janner and that the evidence was overwhelming.

Other posts about Greville Janner on this blog include:

• Memories of Greville Janner and the trial of Frank Beck
• Keith Vaz and Greville Janner

Five news stories you don't get anymore

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As you get older the world changes and fashion changes.

So, based on my childhood and teenage perceptions from the 1960s and 1970s, let me present my Five News Stories You Don't Get Any More.

1. Air disasters

Back in the 1970s the loss of a passenger jet with horrific casualties seemed to be a monthly occurrence. Today you hardly hear of them.

The figures in this CNN report suggest that this perception is correct.

2. Formula 1 drivers being killed

Again in the 1960s it seemed to be taken granted that several leading Formula 1 drivers would die each season.

Today that seems unthinkable. When Ayrton Senna died the shock went around the world.

This Wikipedia list of fatalities suggests my memory is a little exaggerated, but the pattern is clear.

3. Balance of payments crisis

When I first became old enough to watch or listen to the news and understand it, Britain's balance of payments crisis was a near permanent story.

By the time I came to study A level Economics we had discovered 'invisible exports' and were less worried.

Today you never hear the balance of payments mentioned.

4. Ever younger children swimming the English Channel

Once skinny little figures shivering in goose grease appeared regularly in the news. Today you never see them.

It turns out that the Channel Swimming Association imposed a minimum age of 16 years in 2000, which means that the record is likely to stay with Thomas Gregory, who made the crossing in 1988 aged 11 years and 336 days.

5. Japanese soldiers emerging from the jungle not knowing World War II was over

This was another popular story. I was surprised to find that two elderly Japanese soldiers were found hiding out on a Philippine island as recently as 2005.

Who knows? There may still be more out there.

Reindeer on the loose causes chaos in Nottingham after escaping from Tesco

The Independent wins Headline of the Day.

The judges particularly liked the comment from "local resident Amanda Walker, 35":

"It was an incredible sight. You get the odd squirrel around here, but never a reindeer."

BREAKING...

This just in from The Press:

Jesus kidnapped in York

Labour MPs want to oust Jeremy Corbyn and make Alan Johnson new leader

I have no idea if the story is true - and Alan Johnson has shown no enthusiasm for being Labour leader when he has been asked to stand or lead a coup in the past - but the Mirror is reporting this evening:

Moderate Labour MPs want veteran MP Alan Johnson to step in as caretaker leader if they manage to oust Jeremy Corbyn . 

Four senior sources including members of the shadow cabinet have said they see the former Home Secretary as the best man to unite the party if Mr Corbyn was forced to step down. 

One shadow cabinet source said it was “a case of when, not if” Mr Corbyn is forced out by disgruntled MPs.

Liberal England: circulating unfounded rumours since 2004.

Trees: Polly on the Shore

Trees were a short-lived 1970s folk rock band. On the evidence of this track they were strongly influenced by Fairport Convention.

You can read more about them on Going Weird.

A 1924 railway poster of Warwick Castle

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Read about the artist Adrian Scott Stokes on Wikipedia.