Highlights
Count Binface and electoral theatre
Don’t be a costumed loon — It’s trivially easy to stand for Parliament in the UK. Any loon can do so. You need ten electors to nominate you and £500 for a deposit – and it’s actually been getting easier. The deposit was introduced in 1918 (£150 – quite a lot of money then). Before […]
I hate this
But does it matter? — I don’t usually say that sort of thing here. I try to be more measured, less personal. I’m talking about the police face recognition vans obviously. This might not surprise you: I mean that I don’t like them. I’m an old git after all, a man who’s written here before […]
Where is my patriotism?
Come, love of country, fill my heart… — I do love Britain. I guess I love England more. London most of all. I hope that in my life I’ve honoured the place I live and not disgraced it or undermined it (I support England and GB in sporting events – I fly a little flag […]
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Can we have some snow please?
Just a little bit (enough to justify the purchase of three lovely, old wooden sledges for instance). We’re ready and waiting. My kids are watching the special weather forecasts like…
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Nifty OSX photo stitcher
I’m having fun with a nicely put-together OS X photo stitcher called Double Take. The Soho hat shop pic is made from three originals stitched together – can you see…
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Another Radio 4 fan
Russell (or ‘Mr Davies’ as I feel obliged to call him since his book came out) has been playing with Squidoo.com and has come up with a Radio 4 lens…
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Tree story
Some really evocative sounds – mostly squelching and chopping, actually – in this lovely Open Country programme on Radio 4 about the astonishing natural and social history of the Oak…
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God versus Santa…
As far as my kids are concerned, I believe in Father Christmas but not in God. Over the years, since they started to ask, I’ve spent a fair amount of…
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On the buses
The Routemasters are like jellied eels or Hawksmoor Churches or those people who swim in the ponds on Hampstead Heath. They’re eccentric and they say something about London’s weirdness and…
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He’s good…
Cameron is impressive (although he needs to do something about the hair) but Tuesday’s PMQs left me sort of quietly reassured. Principally, I think, because his ‘consensus’ rhetoric is a…
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MPs’ salaries
There’s a market at work here. School teachers are underpaid because they like the job, prefer it to working in The City or the civil service. MPs are underpaid (relative…
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Non-Aligned Movement obscure? I suppose so
Ivan, in a comment, says that my Non-Aligned Movement post is obscure and I suppose it is (which is the point of the story, really) but when I was a…
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Non-Aligned Movement Non-Interesting
The Non-Aligned Movement (anyone remember the Non-Aligned Movement?) has decided that it doesn’t get the news coverage it deserves in the Western Media and that the movement needs to do…
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Excited scientists
At the bottom of the Southern North Sea there is a landscape: river beds (including one as big as the Rhine which has been named The Shotton), coastlines, lakes and…