The Evening Standard flies off with our Headline
of the Day Award. Wizard.
of the Day Award. Wizard.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
The Leicester end of the Ivanhoe Line
It does not show the city's best side, but this footage was taken from the cab of a locomotive traversing the start of the freight-only line from Leicester to Burton upon Trent - the Ivanhoe Line.
It is notable how much derelict railway land there is alongside it.
Lord Bonkers' Diary: The islanders of Rutland Water
Sunday
Guidebooks advise tourists to give the islands on Rutland Water a wide berth lest they be eaten. I am no keener on being boiled in a pot while a bouquet garni floats past my nose than the next man, or indeed woman, but I must say I have always found the inhabitants good fellows In Their Own Way.
Some authorities claim they are related to the primitive tribes of the Upper Welland Valley, but from my conversations with them on committee room practice and the LBW law, I would say their beliefs have more in common with those of the Church of Rutland.
Even so, I am concerned to hear over sherry after Divine Service at St Asquith’s that the Revd Hughes’s curate Farron is determined to go on a mission to these islands. The last thing we want at this time of year is to have to defend a by-election.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Earlier this week...
There is a mosque in Craven Arms
There is an Orthodox monastery beneath the Stiperstones. There is a Buddhist retreat in White Grit.
Now, it transpires, there is a mosque in Craven Arms.
Its imam, Sohayb Peerbhai, told the Shropshire Star:
"We serve a large portion of the Shropshire hills. We have members of our community that come from Church Stretton, Ludlow, Knighton, Clee Hill, Cleobury Mortimer and Hereford, as there’s no mosque in Hereford."
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
The Tyburn: Walking one of London's lost rivers
Our guide is John Rogers, who also showed us The Walbrook.
The Tyburn Angling Society was included in an early Six of the Best on this blog.
Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Stilton Riots of 1819
If this court case had gone ahead, Lord Bonkers would have got to know them better than I did.
Saturday
I still maintain that my great grandfather was fully justified in his decision to call out the militia to quell the Stilton Riots of 1819, but my sympathies are instinctively with those campaigning to widen the franchise. Why, I sat through Ken Loach’s Peterloo the other day, even though I generally find his stuff Rather Hard Work.
It happens that in the early 1970s that I myself wrote a musical called Peterloo! – I added the exclamation mark having noticed the success of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! some years before.
My show, it has to be admitted, was not a great success, but I was proud of its theme song. Imagine my fury when I travelled to Brighton to attend the Eurovision Song Contest a year or two later, only to find that song had been stolen by a bunch of Swedes. They tried to hide their plagiarism by changing its title to Waterloo, but I was not fooled for a moment.
I consulted my solicitors, but eventually decided not to pursue an action.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Earlier this week...
Little support for Tory plan to scrap Leicestershire's district councils
Nick Rushton, the Conservative leader of Leicestershire County Council, has a dream. He wants to abolish all the county's district councils and run everything from County Hall in Glenfield.
But what do the people of the county think of the idea?
Not much, judging by a survey conducted by Oadby and Wigston Borough Council, one of the authorities that Rushton wants to scrap.
Out of the 477 responses received, 424 opposed Rushton's idea. Another plan, which would see two councils covering the whole country, was also decisively rejected.
Oadby and Wigston, which has been run by the Liberal Democrats since 1991, is entitled to take this as a vote of confidence.
But I am pleased at the vote for another reason.
If, when I joined the Liberal Party 40 years ago, you had asked me why I did not support Labour, I suspect I would have said something about it believing too much in centralisation and the idea that big is beautiful.
Yet, in the years since them, those attitudes have been every bit as much typical of the Conservative Party. I am still enough of a Liberal to be glad when they are rejected by voters.
Monday, February 11, 2019
John Bercow on Crackerjack
The best news in today's BBC announcement about children's television was that The Demon Headmaster is to be remade with a super head of an academy school as the villain.
But the media was more interested in the reappearance of Crackerjack after 35 years.
I don't suppose it will match the glory days of Leslie Crowther and Peter Glaze, but at least young people will know how to respond when you say "Crackerjack".
And today's publicity has reminded me of the existence of this clip from the programme.
Lord Bonkers' Diary: Nick Clegg's new job
Friday
Who should I bump into in London today but our own Nick Clegg? Curious to know what he is doing with himself these days, I treat him to lunch at one of my clubs.
He turns out to be full of his new job, telling me how Satan’s chief operating officer Mephistopheles called him while he was walking in the Alps last summer and invited him to fly to Hell to meet Satan himself. "I said to them, if you're prepared to let me into the inner circle, in the black box, and give me real authority, then I'm interested."
Clegg describes Satan to me as "a shy guy" and "thoughtful", before adding: "The thing that persuaded me to do it is Satan and Mephistopheles asking the right questions for the right reasons – about things like the barrier between free speech and prohibited content, wellbeing of children, integrity of elections, AI and giving people control over their data."
Let us put churlish thoughts aside and hope that Clegg can do for Satan what he did for the Liberal Democrats.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Earlier this week...
Dominic Shellard: The man from De Montfort says goodbye
Absolute scenes at Leicester's other university.
On Friday the Leicester Mercury that Sir Ian Blatchford, the chair of De Montfort University's board of governors, resigned back in November.
Today it was announced that Dominic Shellard, the university's vice chancellor had left his £350,000-a-year post.
And then it was revealed that The Office for Students is investigating "regulatory matters" at De Montfort.
This one, if local rumour is anything to go by, will run and run.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Northampton St. John's Street station from above in 1934
The photographs in the Britain from Above collection are great if you are hunting for long-vanished railway stations.
Have a look at the bottom of this 1934 short of Northampton town centre and you will see a railway station.
It is Northampton St. John's Street:
The station was a large elegant building of a light sandy-coloured limestone was constructed above street level on red brick arches with retaining walls which carried the line above Cattle Market Road as it meandered southwards past Northampton Cattle Market and then across the River Nene.
An imposing train shed covered the central part of the two platforms.
It was closed as a cost-cutting measure by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and its services were diverted services to Northampton Castle, which is the town's station that remains open today.
Lord Bonkers' Diary: Delivering Focus by drone near Gatwick
A mistake on my part? Not at all.
Though most villages in Rutland now use the Gregorian calendar, it is a local version that can vary in important respects from the calendar used in the rest of the world.
This is but one example: Lord Bonkers has more than once been involved in an unfortunate confusion of dates with HM Revenue & Customs arising from the same cause.
Wednesday
If we Liberals are to return to government before we grow much older, it behoves us to make full use of today’s modern technology. Thus it is that you find me in Sussex for the maiden flight of the Bonkers Patent Delivery Drone.
If all goes well, it will fly from door to door, dropping off the latest issue of Focus. More than that, if anyone is in the habit of refusing delivery, it will lie in wait behind the hedge until he goes out. Why, it could be the Bonkers Patent Exploding Focus of the 21st century!
When I discovered that the village I had chosen for this trial lies close to Gatwick Airport, I feared that the coming and going of jets would turn flying my new invention into something of a challenge. I can report, however, that the skies have been empty for some hours now, which has made things much easier than I had expected.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Earlier this week...
Mr Bloe: Groovin` with Mr Bloe
Isn't this great? Groovin' with Mr Blue reached number 2 in the UK singles chart in the summer of 1970, but I have no memory of it.
The track has a complicated history, as explained by Wikipedia. It was originally a B side recorded by the American band Wind. The BBC once played the wrong side and a British producer heard it and wanted to release it as a single over here.
He could not get the rights, so he recruited a band of session players to record a new version. Despite the fact that they included Elton John on piano, he was not happy with the result and tried again. That second British version is the one here - there's more about this complicated history on The One and Only.
The harmonica was played by Harry Pitch, who coached John Lennon before the Beatles recorded Love Me Do and later played the theme tunes to both Shoestring and Last of the Summer Wine.
Wikipedia says:
The lack of an obvious performer made the recording mysterious and it became a favourite of Morrissey who was then 11 years old.And you can hear it was an influence on The Housemartins' The Mighty Ship. someone should write a book on the Northernness of Northern Soul.
An Oundle bus stop
Looking for my photograph of Oundle's North Bridge the other day, I also came across this one of a bus stop in the town.
Meanwhile, councils are warning that thousands of bus routes are at risk of being scrapped because of the cost of the free bus pass scheme.
But that is only a problem because of the reduction in government funding of local authorities.
Saturday, February 09, 2019
Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Saucy Baroness Scott
Thursday
A blowy day on Rutland Water as I join the crowds thronging Oakham Quay to watch the day’s ferry sail for the Hook of Holland. The Empress of Rutland is certainly a fine vessel, and it happens that my majority shareholding in Rutland Ferries has proved something of a goldmine of late.
I had a phone call from one Grayling (he managed to cut himself off twice during our conversation and sounded as though he had got his head stuck in the wastepaper basket at one point) asking if I had any ferries to spare. I told him I had, partly to stop him crying and partly because of the extraordinary sum he dropped into our conversation.
If I am honest, the Saucy Baroness Scott has been in dry dock for a couple of years, while the First Lady Bonkers has been grounded on the mudflats beyond the harbour bar for longer than that. Still, I did not get the impression that this Grayling is the sort who investigates the goods he buys too closely.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Earlier this week...
A blue plaque for Richard Jefferies at Coate
Good news from the Swindon Advertiser:
A blue plaque to pay tribute to the Swindon-born poet Richard Jefferies is being planned for 2019.
The museum and place where the poet was born, which was recently re-thatched by Swindon Borough Council costing £30,000, may soon have a new addition to its walls.They may have said it twice, but Jefferies was not a poet.
He is most celebrated as a nature essayist, but I am more interested in his Bevis, which was a huge influence on the holiday adventure genre of children's books, and After London, which was an early work of post-apocalyptic science fiction.
Anyway, my photograph shows the Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate in Swindon.
Friday, February 08, 2019
A video in support of the reopening of the Ivanhoe Line
The campaign to reopen this line exists as a Facebook group, but it is a closed one. I will never understand Facebook.
Anyway, this freight-only line was meant to be reopened to passengers with plenty of intermediate stations in the 1990s, but the funding never materialised.
Another page on the line tells us that it is the longest freight-only line in the country and that Coalville is one of the largest towns in the country with no railway station.
Enjoy the video, though it is noticeable that there are more trees after you leave the National Forest.
Lord Bonkers' Diary: Curled up with the Wise Woman of Wing
Tuesday
What better, on a cold winter’s day, than curling up by the Library fire with a good book? My choice today is the new Almanac from the Wise Woman of Wing; I buy it for its herb lore and racing tips.
I turn eagerly to its predictions for 2019 to see how this Brexit hoo-hah will turn out, but find that foreseeing this is beyond even her powers.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Earlier this week...
Tory UFO expert wants to be in charge of Leicestershire's police
Embed from Getty Images
This blog used to have great fun with Rupert Matthews, the wannabee Tory MEP who believed that "the evidence for UFOs and for the humanoid creatures linked to them is pretty compelling".
It makes you wonder what the long list looked like.
This blog used to have great fun with Rupert Matthews, the wannabee Tory MEP who believed that "the evidence for UFOs and for the humanoid creatures linked to them is pretty compelling".
In July 2017 he finally got his wish and things went quiet.
But he will soon need a new job, hence this report in the Leicester Mercury:
Three Conservatives are in the running to try to win back the seat of Leicestershire police and crime commissioner from Labour.
The next PCC election will be held in May 2020 and the Tories are due to select their candidate next month.
Deputy leader of Melton Borough Council Leigh Higgins, East Midlands MEP Rupert Matthews, and Leicestershire County Council cabinet member Blake Pain have been shortlisted for the candidacy.
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