Monthly Archives: May 2009

Catchup to 11 May 09

Bloggers know that Catchup is made from only 7 natural ingredients!  And it’s been a slightly quiet week at t’Voice as our various contributors have been abroad or busy at work.

It was the week in which the party launched its new Party Election Broadcast, the Mirror tried to find ways in which supporting the Gurkhas is bad news for the Lib Dems and Mark Pack found fault with the timeless design classic that is the polling card.

My second entry into the Golden Dozen brought news (mainly good) from Sheffield and (not so good) Ashfield. Alix decided that blogs don’t need money (with my bursar hat on, I’d like to point out that this needs at least a couple of hundred quid a year to pay for hosting). And Lord Rennard had a problem with toilets and mice.  Or something.

Most comments this week was Stephen’s article gazing into the future to see what comes our way after June 4th, closely followed by Alix’s view that Gordon Brown should not resign.

Guest contributors this week included a monumental contribution from the internet’s favourite fluffy elephant, Prateek Buch on the Post Office and the co-op movement, Joe Taylor on the Tories going mad,  and Steve Pitt suggesting we stand for something other than elections. Lorna Spenceley gave a campaigning masterclass, and Andrew Lewin shared his thoughts on defending against a rising blue tide.

It’s not too late to join in the Weekly Meme – 7 Reasons I joined the Lib Dems, and in numbers – this week Golden Dozens #115 and #116 graced our screens. (I’m in #116 – did I mention?)

Just the one entry in CommentIsLinked@LDV: Caroline Pidgeon’s views on Boris Johnson’s first year.

Tweets on 2009-05-10

  • Arrived at #mcn1 and wending way to digital britain. Ooh. DAB discussion. #
  • Ooh, #mcn1 are putting on some live theatre for us. Interesting. Hopefully. #
  • In Nottingham’s Lacemarket on a Saturday night – something I’ve not done for years. People are still spending lots on nights out. #
  • Sort of planned to go straight to bed but found myself watching mad brilliant Bill Bailey Guide to Orchestra. #
  • @dr_nick trying unsuccessfully to persuade P to use mobile/Google calendar so we can share diary. #

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Life expectancy

Good news: this website thinks I’ll live until I’m 77.5 years old.  Which is plenty as far as I am concerned. Assuming I entered all the answers correctly.

Bad news:  I’m already 40% through my allotted span.

The website did have some helpful tips about how I might increase my life expectancy by 2.61 years:

Analysis Results

Not smoking is a great choice! Your life expectancy is maximized by not smoking
If you have 2-3 drinks per day, your life expectancy would be -0.01 years longer
If you do not drive, your life expectancy would be 0.13 years longer
Having a life free from major stress has maximized your life expectancy
If you become a conditioning exercizer, your life expectancy would be 0.52 years longer
If you consume all 5 types of food everyday, your life expectancy would be 0.00 years longer
If you do not have any sexual partner, your life expectancy would be 0.38 years longer
If you sleep 7 hours a day, your life expectancy would be 1.57 years longer

If all of the above choices are adopted, your life expectancy would be 2.61 years longer

I don’t think any of those are worth the time they give you!

EDIT: The same website has told P he’ll live longer than me, despite having a 6 year head start!

Tweets on 2009-05-09

  • Weird media phone request: “What does Clegg think of Ashfield cllrs?” *I* dunno, you’d have to ask him! #
  • Wtf? Turned radio on. Gardner’s Question Time? On a Friday? What is this horror #bbcr4, you know how we feel about change! #
  • @jonxyz no time to get to the tent shop at Beddgelert? 🙂 I probably won’t be seeing you this weekend 😦 #
  • @chriskeating slow, shallow fry with onions, carrots, garlic, apple, mushrooms, cider, cream, peppers #
  • @chriskeating lots of cider. Tiny amount of cream / creme fraiche. #
  • Trying to decide on a honeymoon destination. I’m not sure, but I’m #tendingtropics #
  • @adamrio on streets or in gym? what sort of bodily consequences you expecting? #
  • @joswinson on “Bra-gate” http://tr.im/kQA9 – I know it’s wrong to snigger, but “strapline” pushed me over the edge. #
  • @dr_nick haven’t decided IF I’m going on holiday yet, let alone where / when / how much. And half the fun is planning it myself! #
  • 12seconds – Scary long bellropes http://tiny12.tv/WD56Z #
  • Dear America, just because you’re having Mother’s Day this weekend doesn’t mean the rest of us are. http://tr.im/kR4i #
  • @documentally lie in confirmed – media camp is 2pm #
  • @dr_nick you’re ready for invites already? #
  • Selling our old tat at car boot sale at Robert Shaw Primary. #
  • Made our first sale! Bouncing tigger and colander for £1.20. #
  • Sandwiched between a brightly coloured stall selling girls’ clothes and a huge van with hardware. Our stuff looks out of place. #
  • @documentally oh, bugger I must have been thinking of the unconference? #
  • Hmmm. When you take into account our entry fee and bacon cobs, so far we’ve made -£5.80 so far. Still loads of tat left! #
  • @mithomas20 no worries! #
  • Taking spare bric-a-brac to Cats Protection – and nosing around the pens to see who needs a home. #

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7 Reasons I joined the Lib Dems

Stephen has started off an excellent meme, so I’ll just join in.

  1. The Lib Dems agreed with me on gay rights.  Specifically, at the time, the age of consent.
  2. A friend of mine ran the DELGA website at the time.
  3. The Lib Dems also agreed with me on student finance, which was important when I was going to university, and still is now generations of students are graduating with massive debt in an uncertain world.
  4. The Lib Dems also agreed with me on Europe.  Like or not, that’s the continent we all live in, and it makes sense to work with our neighbours.  There are important changes needed to make it work much much better, but on the whole, stronger together, poorer apart FTW.
  5. Finally The Lib Dems agreed with me on the importance of protection the environment.
  6. I just wanna be me!  The Lib Dems are happy letting people be themselves.  The Tories want us all to be consumers and the Labour party see us all as workers.  It’s only really people of liberal persuasion that are happy with everyone being different and special in their own unique way.
  7. I met Nick Clegg MEP at a meeting and I was really impressed.

Good grief, whaddya know?  As someone who now thinks of himself as not very hot on keeping up to date with the minutiae of party policy, it’s almost all policy reasons that made me join in the first place.

I also worried I might struggle to get to 7 reasons, but it all flowed quite easily once I started.

Liberty’s Crown

I read via JMG that it is once again possible to visit the crown gallery of the Statue of Liberty.

If I were ever to visit the States, and if while there I fitted in New York, I’d definitely want to do that. I’m a bit of a sucker for tall buildings – eg see this post about Paris. The first time I took P to Paris, I had a “Heights of Paris” tour planned in my mind. That was when I discovered he has vertigo. And when I was in Munich for a week last summer, I climbed a mountain, the Olympic Tower, the church in the city square, and the statue of Bavaria. Probably because P wasn’t able to come with me.

Inside and outside Bavaria
Bavaria Statue     Bavaria Statue

But there’s the whole am-I-ever-going-to-NY/the USA question.

For someone who loves travelling, I’ve actually never been that far from home (either culturally or physically). Although I have been outside the EU, it has only been to countries that have, erm, subsequently joined the EU. The furthest afield I have ever been was Cyprus.

But even if I did get further afield, would I want to visit the States? As a teenager, I was vehemently anti-American, a position I have radically dialled back from as time has passed, due in no small measure to meeting lots of lovely American people, and realising that actually I choose to spend much of my leisure time happily consuming American culture.

Obviously I had a personal ban in place of visiting the US under Bush, should I reverse that now that we have a more sensible president?

As an avid consumer of US TV there are of course dozens of places I would quite like to go.  Can you see Frasier’s flat from the Space Needle?  How about the chances of bumping into Denny Crane on the streets of Boston? Or buying a few rocks of crack from Omar in Baltimore (or would that just get me a one-week-only guest slot in Homicide?)? New York, home to Law and Order and CSI: New York and countless other films would make an interesting stop, but I’d also wanna do SF, LA and all the other places with two letters in CA.  You couldn’t miss Washington (home of The West Wing).

One major decision still to make is where we go on honeymoon.  How about a coast-to-coast roadtrip? Actually one of the key considerations about our honeymoon has got to be, how happy is that country with gay people?  And whilst New York and California are probably OK, you’d have to drive through a lot of states that are much less keen on us.

Countries I would quite like to visit but am probably unlikely to

  • North Africa, eg Morocco
  • Israel (eg the Holy Land)
  • Iceland

Countries I really ought to get around to visiting not least because I have friends living there

  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • erm, the US
  • Greece

Countries that really are just too far away

  • Australia / NZ

Tweets on 2009-05-08

  • @austinrathe where in Herefrodshrie? #
  • Google’s prediction for Eurovision currently has the UK in the top ten <hollow laugh>: http://www.google.com/landing/eurovision/ #
  • 12seconds – Haircut 2009! “before” video http://tiny12.tv/BZPWM #
  • @thoroughlygood I haven’t heard our own entry this year, so don’t know if it’s any good. Just recently, we haven’t been in top ten much! #
  • @thoroughlygood Impressive! Somewhere I maybe still have the disastrous attempt I made at lip-synching Scooch. #
  • 12seconds – Haircut 2009! “after” video http://tiny12.tv/0673J #
  • Have now heard UK Euroviszh entry. Blimey. That’s a rather blatant “Oh, pleeeeez vote for me, pleeeeez! But it’s MY TURN! <petulant stamp> #
  • @thoroughlygood Wine? In your dressing-gown? Darling, how decadent. #
  • Waiting for @helenduffett’s DNS to propagate. #
  • @timprater I’m afraid they’re one of those unresponsive 9-5 ISPs 🙂 #
  • Positive haircut reviews at home and at residents meeting. “Takes ten years off you!” #
  • Good grief – there are 13 different parties successfully nominated for the East Mids Euro elections. #
  • Ooh, interesting, searchable database of listed buildings. All sorts of weird things are listed! http://tr.im/kLPi #
  • A C Grayling is a man? What next? A S Byatt a woman? #
  • Pleased to see the listed building nerdiness is not confined to me. #
  • 12seconds – Random banana men http://tiny12.tv/JX05R #
  • Hmmm, that’s a bit creepy – last night’s blog post on listed buildings showed up in the Council’s own media monitoring email. #

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Go read Millennium’s Crunchy Diary

Millennium Dome, Elephant has the latest instalment of his Credit Crunch diary over on Lib Dem Voice today – and it’s well worth popping over and reading all 3,400 words when you get a spare moment.

In the meantime, here’s a fluffy extract:

And then any credit [hoho pun] Mr Frown MIGHT have gained by being seen to be working towards SOME KIND of SOLUTION [at G20], however misguided, was then drowned out by the Conservatories wailing ON and ON and ON about some smears that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED. In fact, if anyone smeared the Conservatories it was THEMSELVES and their not-remotely-housetrained semi-detached associate in the blogosphere. Oh you know who I mean. Irritatingly, it was Mr Frown who was left with the STAINES.

The underlying significance of this story is that the Conservatories, Mr Balloon, Mr Oboe and all the little Etonians you can’t remember, had nothing, literally NOTHING, to say about the most significant economic crisis of the decade, in fact NOTHING to say about ANYTHING except:

“wah wah wah, Gordon won’t say sorry for the nasty things that his friends didn’t say about us. Boo hoo hoo we’re really upset.”

Cat feeding question – vote now!

I'll get you next time, cuckoo

Cat is refusing to eat duck and heart cat food… he’s not eaten since 5pm because he doesn’t like the new flavour of food. He’s frantically demanding food, but won’t eat what he’s got. And there are starving lions in Africa!

So should we (click the answer you want to vote for)
Mini poll bar
Mini poll bar

Listed buildings: oh, who am I kidding?

So, I said half an hour ago I wouldn’t spend this evening looking up which are the Grade II* listed buildings in Nottingham as I am too busy.

And yet, here’s the list:

 

 

Wollaton Hall

 

 

Churches

Universities

So, erm – lots in the city centre. Lots of churches.  Nothing for Nottingham University, but two for NTU – one of which I once voted to demolish! The Playhouse is the most recent one,  I think.