 |
| Photo of Falmouth © Colin Babb |
O’Connor is a wanderer. Originally from San Marcos, California, he has spent the past two years hopping around, crashing with friends here and there, making a quick trip to Europe last year to play some shows, but mostly embracing a life of rootlessness. "Couch life is a little awkward sometimes," he tells me, thinking out loud about how he never gets to be alone. We talk and walk aimlessly in circles around the park, past the park’s usual characters who play chess, shoot the shit on benches, skateboard on the basketball court.
"I wear the same thing every day because it simplifies life for me," he says. "It lets me just focus on how I feel on the inside. When I started doing it, part me was frustrated with this feeling that you’re supposed to change, or give up on your dreams. So I’m just not changing."As to the burden of this song:
"Growing up on the internet gave so many of us a voice that we wouldn’t really have otherwise," he says. “But recently, it makes me more and more uncomfortable. Because it feels like on social, some of the values are the opposite of what I value and care about as an artist.
"As an artist, all I care about is figuring out what’s true to me, and saying that. Regardless of how it’s going to be received. So much of Twitter is people saying things that they don’t feel, based on how often it’s going to get favorited or retweeted. It just gets in the way."
A cash-strapped local authority has imposed emergency spending controls as it faces "severe financial challenges".
The section 114 notice bans all new expenditure at Northamptonshire County Council, with the exception of statutory services for protecting vulnerable people.
Last month the government said an inspector would look into allegations of financial failings at the authority.
The notice is to be discussed at the full council meeting on 22 February.It's been clear for some time that Northamptonshire has serious problems.
The ultimate recourse of the CFO remains the section 114 powers of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. These are not to be taken lightly and should be used very carefully and only after great consideration.
Section 114 requires the CFO, in consultation with the council’s monitoring officer, to report to all the authority’s members if (in broad terms) there is, or is likely to be, an unbalanced budget.
This would include situations where reserves have become seriously depleted and it is forecast that the authority will not have the resources to meet its expenditure in a particular financial year.
The issue of a section 114 notice has serious operational implications. Indeed, the authority’s full council must meet within 21 days to consider the notice. During that period, the authority is prohibited from entering into new agreements involving spending.Councils are the only public bodies required by law to set a balanced budget every year.
All Conservative members of a town council have resigned after "bullying, abuse and harassment" of the former chairman and her family.
Jane Pearce stood down from Desborough Town Council in Northamptonshire two weeks ago amid claims of abuse against her family from members of the public.
It began after a 400% increase in council tax in 2016, when the annual levy rose from £19.10 to £96.98.
Now all 10 Tory councillors have resigned from the 12-person council.As I wrote at the time of the increase, "If ever a town gave the visitor the impression that it needs some money spent on it, that town is Desborough".
Lancaster Square is the town square in the centre of Conwy. It hosts several festivals and events each and every year. In 2013 it held the start of the famous Wales Rally GB.
In the centre of Lancaster Square is a statue of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth (or Llewelyn the Great) who stands proudly above a fountain painted in his heritage colours.
The writing that is in scripted on the fountain says that Llewelyn founded Aberconwy Abbey in 1186, some even say that Llewellyn founded the town himself.
The bronze statue was created by a man named E.O Griffith in 1898 and was commemorated to introduce the towns water supply.
Llewelyn was said to be born in Dolwyddelan Castle in 1173 and raised in Powys. By the age of 10, Llewelyn had begun his military career and in 1201 he had successfully conquered Gwynedd.
In 1209, Llewelyn became the first Welsh leader to join an English King on a campaign outside Wales, they would join together and try to defeat William I of Scotland.I took this photograph of the statue on holiday in 2010.
The Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) once hired the ‘Black cab rapist’ then working as a stripper, for an infamous cabaret social.
John Worboys, then know as ‘Terry the Minder’, performed a striptease for Tory members, alongside a female stripper named “the exotic Vashanti”
The event at Hertford College was attended by a young Sally Bercow (then Illman), wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow. She was blindfolded on stage before Worboys suggestively placed a banana in her hand.
According to a report at the time, prominent Tory backbencher Jacob Rees Mogg “heartily approved of [the event].By accident or design, it is impossible to read the website's image of the 1989 Cherwell front page where the story was first reported.
the Senior Proctor of the University refused to recognise OUCA as an official society, banning the Association from using the ‘Oxford University’ title in its name. The Association were also prohibited from holding events at Hertford. The ban apparently remains in place today.This story has also made The Sun, which has lots about Sally Bercow but does not mention Rees-Mogg.
review the case of two Lib Dem councillors who were suspended from City of York Council's executive by David Carr.
Cllr Ian Gillies, the new Conservative leader who is set to become council leader next month, was responding to a question from The Press about the futures of Cllrs Keith Aspden and Nigel Ayre following the ousting of Cllr Carr as Tory leader.This affair has always been a little mysterious, as the allegations against the two Lib Dem councillors have never been made public.
The Press does say North Yorkshire Police have announced they will not be investigating them.
“It’s only a matter of time before we come back in Montgomeryshire. It was a Lib Dem stronghold – we will be back.”That's what Vince Cable told a meeting at Welshpool Town Hall on Saturday.
“The split between leave and remain hasn’t changed very much. It’s moved a little bit towards people who think leaving is a bad idea, but it’s not shifted a great deal.
"If they were to set for another vote, this time on the facts, it will be for about Christmas time.
"I think once people are clearer about what Brexit means, a lot of the negatives that were not really brought out in the last campaign, I think we will stay."I knew having a photo of Welshpool Town Hall would come in useful one day.
