Liverpool Resurgent Or Phred!
Jacob Epstein‘s sculpture entitled Liverpool Resurgent sits on the front of the Lewis’s Department Store in Liverpool.
When I was at Liverpool University in the 1960s, during Panto or Rag Week, we used to walk down Brownlow Hill to pay homage to the sculpture, who was always known colloquially as Phred.
Only In Liverpool
With all the political correctness these days, you don’t see many adverts like this.
Only In Liverpool
As I will have left Liverpool long before Thursday, I can’t go!
Is there another city in the world, where a large proportion of the population are comedians?
And Now Balls Dithers On English Votes For English Laws
After Miliband’s dithering yesterday on the English Votes for English Laws question, Ed Balls refused to answer the question directly on BBC Breakfast this morning.
In my view, it is essential that this simple measure is brought in as soon as possible. If we don’t bring it in, then I predict the next General Election will be handed on a plate to the ridiculous UKIP.
An Unusual Office Property
I went to see this property at Highams Park, as it was featured in Open House.
The refurbishment is not complete yet, but it would make a lovely small office for a professional, who needed a lot of light. In fact the developers will be using it themselves as part of a favourable deal with Network Rail, that would appear to ensure that the signal box gets sympathetically restored.
Obviously, you’d have to like trains.
There’s more on the signal box and its history on the Highams Park Forum.
One point to note in the pictures is the subway under the tracks, shown in the picture with the train approaching. Was this subway dug under the tracks to stop idiots crossing when it wasn’t safe? And was it dug without disrupting the train service?
We’re Back To The West Lothian Question
A good leader always picks the issue, place and time for their battles to ensure that he or she wins in the end. Planning should be meticulous and hopefully it all works out as they want it.
Compare Margaret Thatcher and her government and military’s response to the invasion of the Falklands by Argentina with other campaigns fought in Iraq and Afghanistan recently. The Falklands was a smaller conflict, but very little was left to chance, although it could be thought of as a close run thing.
Other British Prime Ministers and influential politicians have brought contentious legislation through to law, by making sure they plan and win every battle. Take Cameron’s law on same-sex marriage as a recent example. But then there are many others.
So when Alex Salmond proposed a vote on Scottish independence, I thought if he got it right, he could win.
His mistake was that he didn’t plan and get decent concessions on tax and spending, before he even called for the poll. That way, if Devo max had been successful and acceptable to all parties, after a few years, Scotland would probably have had an agreed separation, in much the same way Slovakia separated from the Czech Republic.
But he pig-headedly called the referendum as early as he could.
And he lost. So we’ve now been kicked back to the West Lothian Question, but with more variables than it ever had before. Tam Dalyell must be laughing from his grave.
It has been suggested this morning that large cities have more powers, something that I agree with.
But Scotland now has the Glasgow Problem, as surely what is good for London, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle must be good enough for the one of the largest cities outside London in the UK.
Alex Salmond, who in a overly-passionate campaign led us to this mess, should resign!
Does London Need Devo Max?
In the Standard today, Labour politician, Margaret Hodge is asking this question and says that London needs it.
She says this about housing.
The capital’s population will be twice Scotland’s by 2030. Yet we already desperately lack the homes and infrastructure we need to meet the needs of 8.5 million Londoners. Our housing crisis dwarfs that of other parts of the country. Some 800,000 new homes are needed by 2020. Yet in the year to May, only 16,800 were built. Despite London’s great successes, we are becoming ever more grotesquely unequal. Inner London is increasingly only accessible to the very rich.
I would agree with some of what she says and go further to say that all cities and conurbations should have more powers.
The trouble is that it would change the political map of the UK for ever and think of all those bench warmers in Westminster, who would be out of a job.
But I do think that competition between cities would create jobs and better places to live. Some provincial cities need a real kicking to bring them into the twentieth century.
It would also be very good for London, if when they wanted to build something like Crossrail 2, they didn’t have to go cap-in-hand to the Government and compete with other necessary projects elsewhere.
If say London financed Crossrail 2 from its own resources and population, would anybody outside the capital have a right to complain? I don’t think so!
Why Are Polling Stations Called Polling Places In Scotland?
As I watch the BBC News, I have noticed that polling stations, seem to be called polling places in Scotland.
It’s just like with what you call bus stands!
A Robust View On Homeopathy In The Times
Professor Michael Baum is an amazing doctor and surgeon, who I have had the pleasure of meeting.
In The Times today, he has a letter published about accreditation of homoeopaths to the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA).
He writes this memorable sentence.
From now on they will be able to check if their homoeopathic doctor is a fully trained quack or simply someone masquerading as a quack.
I do not believe in anything that can’t be scientifically proven by rigorous methods. The three at the top of my list are religion, homoeopathy and many of the zanier and animal-unfriendly aspects of Chinese medicine.
The Tyranny Of Shopping
Today’s shopping showed how sometimes, it can be a complete pain. I went up to Islington and bought this today.
The Tyranny Of Shopping
My trouble in some ways is that I’m particular in what I like.
1. Bread has to be from Marks and Spencer. Waitrose’s especially is made from cardboard.
2. Only Sainsbury sell my preferred Black Farmer sausages, which go so well in a sausage casserole I’m making.
3. Marks and Spencer doesn’t sell cannelloni beans.
4. I prepay for The Times and getting rid of the voucher can be difficult in some supermarkets.
5. Etc. etc.
So in the end, I ended up going to all of Waitrose, Sainsbury and Marks and Spencer, buying a few items in each.
At least at the Angel, the three shops are close together. In Sainsbury, all I bought was the sausages.
Last week, I went to Waitrose at Canary Wharf to try to get everything in one visit, but they didn’t have the sausages, as they’d sold out and their own gluten-fre ones are tasteless.
Should We Have A Margaret Thatcher Square?
The Standard reported last night that Madrid has named a square after Margaret Thatcher and that there are calls to do the same in London.
We definitely should not, but then we don’t generally name squares, roads or buildings after politicians. Tastes change and one person’s hero may one day be some other person’s ogre.
Or as in the case of Jimmy Saville, there may be the darkest of secrets. The problems of erasing his memory are described here.
The Anonymous Widower 