Monthly Archives: January 2010

Tweets on 2010-01-31

  • Don't know what it is about train journeys to London that makes my Nokia N95 crash and reboot at least twice each way. #
  • No time to go see the new frieze (@ St Pancras Train Station) http://4sq.com/8YKccy #
  • I'm at Somers Town Coffee House (Chalton Street, Camden Town). http://4sq.com/bUerQF #
  • Erm Stephen? RT @stephentall: there is a distinct but slim possibility I might be on time for @libdemvoice meet-up for 1st time ever. #
  • Conversation moves from ironing rosettes to marrying comatose grannies for tax breaks. Next "is there anything like atheism?" #
  • Paperclip… OR FRENCH TROMBONE? @paultrollope #
  • Back on train. Sitting opposite a Mac Book Air. Never seen one in wild before. #
  • Cor, the moon is spectacular again tonight. #
  • There's a dancing small boy in a green hoody at the other end of the carriage. Never seen anyone so happy to get to Leicester. #
  • Eek! Train interior looks quite fresh and new – but fire extinguisher still says BR on it. #
  • Nottingham now *really* code. #
  • Really really code – -3 outside, and bedroom is only 12 deg! Electric blanket and kitteh company to keep me warm tonight. #

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Tweets on 2010-01-30

  • I think 40 winks are indicated. Bbl. #
  • Another selection completed. Another dreadfully poor showing from RON. #
  • Loves that one of the popular search phrases that lands on @libdemvoice includes "evil eu plot" http://bit.ly/bE3jNm #
  • @jamesgraham Start your day with a bowl of new Nutty Dav-os! in reply to jamesgraham #
  • @Alexander_Ball It's not February yet! Put the booze down! in reply to Alexander_Ball #
  • "I'll just wait until I have kids, call them Robinho and Kaka," Mr Atkinson, who currently does not have a girlfriend. http://bit.ly/cAzEZp #
  • Like sitting on the fence? You'll love Fence Friday « Flickr Blog http://bit.ly/cn3KRk #
  • Got this feeling Newspaper Club will be useful to politics or blogging or @libdemvoice – just not sure how http://bit.ly/cuvZQu #
  • Heading into That London for a planning meeting. Lovely sunny day but cor, it's what Nottm folk pronounce "code". #
  • I'm at Nottingham Station (Station Road, Nottingham). http://4sq.com/9G81rq #
  • I just unlocked the "Newbie" badge on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/9bE9R3 #
  • Loadsa Police at the station today, including "evidence gatherers" with fluorescent orange tabs and video cameras. #
  • today's first challenge – which of these 20 bits of card I was sent counts as ticket as far as the hated barrier is concerned? #
  • @bykimbo cypher Bletchley, shurely? 🙂 #
  • And my next challenge: my seat reservation is for a seat that doesn't exist. 26, 28, 29, 31, 32. But no 30. #
  • First #uktrain announcement longer than the travel time between first two stations. #
  • And now the first unscheduled stop in a field. Congestion at Trent Junction? Three trains pass… #
  • What *are* those irritating beeping noises they have on trains? Arpeggios and the first notes of the Mexican Hat Song? #
  • @VizTopTips Daleks can cut through your puny human steel! in reply to VizTopTips #
  • Well, haven't quite managed to tweet away the grumpy so will have to rely on alcohol to provide the happy mask. #

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Tweets on 2010-01-29

  • Hey, whaddya know. My P60s *were* in the filing cabinet all along, just at the back of the tax file not the front. Grr. #
  • @alixmortimer every year the tax return and christmas cards mock me about my mental pledges to get them done earlier 😦 #
  • Three hours after cooking it, I finally get to eat my herby lemony chickony tea. And a wee drinkette to go with it? One tiny tinny? #
  • RT @willhowells: My CD of The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is all scratched and refuses to play. It's typical of broken Britten. #
  • @JonBall I trust that payout will be liable to Rennard Tax! 🙂 in reply to JonBall #
  • Today's That was a typo, but I liked it – "Newflanged" – as in that newflanged Lib Dem website that seems to be a replacement extranet. #
  • Watch the lolcatters nitpick Shakespearean Lolcat language http://bit.ly/avHBjG – such fun! #
  • iPad vs Blu Tak http://bit.ly/9roD4x #
  • Printing off the Compulsory Forms in advance of a hustings tomorrow. #
  • @bykimbo more on the tweeting Cornwall councillors http://ldv.org.uk/17750 , http://bit.ly/79m0yj , http://bit.ly/9tJC1y #
  • Blimey, loadsa people seem affected by today's XKCD http://xkcd.com/695/ #
  • @floatyhev is that like "I'm a Celery, get me out of here!" ? #

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Tweets on 2010-01-28

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Three “disgusting, eco-fascist, bullying” questions for Conservatives

Cast your world-weary, battle-hardened, politico and political eyes over this disgusting filth spewing from the keyboard of swivel-eyed maniacs working through the night on behalf of some disreputable campaign to send vile messes to hard working Tory PPCs:

Can you clarify that:

You accept that climate change is caused by human activity?

Do you support the target to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020?

Do you support the EU imposing tougher regulation to combat climate change?

Hardly the worst questions a campaigner will receive.

In my brief time working in politics both as an elected representative myself and for MEPs and MPs, I have seen some disturbing correspondence. I have seen candidates shouted down in roomsful of people who have nothing in common with my guy. I have opened scary letters from people who are plainly mentally ill, and been briefed by Special Branch on what to do with suspect packages. During the time I worked for Nick Clegg MEP, Elspeth Attwooll MEP’s office received dangerous acids disguised as cosmetic samples. And let us not forget what happened in Nigel Jones’s office in 2000.

And of course as every elected representative does, I’ve seen mountains of postcard campaigns and boilerplate letters from all sorts of different special interest groups, some of them alarmingly specific. Clearly, you have to decide if and how to respond to each different campaign, judging each on its merits. You can choose to answer. You can write a boilerplate response or find one from party colleagues. You can go the whole gamut from ignoring it to filing it carefully in a database and routinely mailing the correspondent with the latest update on the issue in question.

Posting the name and address of your correspondent on a national newspaper’s blog so that the readers think it’s time to set off a harassment campaign? Maybe not so much.

Daily View 2×2: 28 January 2010

Smoke trails against a black skyGood morning, and welcome to Daily View this morning. 24 years ago, 28 January saw the NASA Challenger disaster.

It’s the date of the death of Henry VIII and the beginning of the Diet of Worms. (If they went to that sort of effort, I hope they lost a lot of weight!)

197 years ago today saw the first publication of Pride and Prejudice and in 1958, Lego bricks were first patented. Today’s bricks still mesh with the original 1958 system.

Birthday bunny hops today go to novelist David Lodge and hobbit-actor Elijah Wood.

2 Big Stories

Boris Johnson to stand down as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority

Over to the Guardian for today’s first story.

In direct contradiction to his manifesto, Boris Johnson has decided he doesn’t have time to be a writer, a mayor, and a Police Authority chair, and so something had to give.

Tory Troll has a bunch of handy quotes and links on the story.

Fathers to get six months paternity leave

That sounds familiar, I thought, when I read the headline.

Turns out the Labour party has borrowed one or two pages out of Lib Dem early years policy.

This is not a fact mentioned in the Telegraph reporting of same story.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

  • A Lanson Boy: Cornish Guardian Expose on Twitter Gang

    • Alex Folkes with news of a Twitter clique gaining influence on Cornwall Council – and with a staunch defence of the practical uses for Twitter for councillors. Hear hear, @alexfolkes

  • Vic d’Albert: Poverty is Labour’s biggest failure

    • Strong words from Vic:

    The trouble is [Labour] have […] thrown millions of pounds at the problem, almost scatter cushion like, without going to the fundamental issues that drive poverty and curse many born into poverty. And coupled with new labours conservative approach to personal taxation, especially in their first Blair Parliament from ‘97, they have undermined their own ambitions to deal with poverty.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

And now? Back to hunting for P60s.

Tweets on 2010-01-27

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Tweets on 2010-01-26

  • The best elastic bands are definitely the #32s #
  • @jonxyz I had that yesterday. How do you fix, beyond changing password? in reply to jonxyz #
  • 7 year-old boy raises 23,613% more than planned with cycle ride for Haiti http://bit.ly/5JLHjR #
  • Interesting, @lordbonkers, sounds like Vince was almost simultaneously on Newsnight and World Tonight! #
  • Proof that tweeting from meetings is a good thing http://bit.ly/79m0yj #
  • @ncclols if only I could comment 🙂 – ps why link to facebook each time you blog? #
  • @VampyrKitten Meeting Alan Rickman is pretty cool. If only I could cancel Christmas! in reply to VampyrKitten #
  • Have just found Nottingham City councillor Mike Edwards on twitter @me4sd – although I think it's more about his parliamentary ambitions. #
  • @jamesmcgraw I like the sound of a sleep cult. in reply to jamesmcgraw #
  • Off to join a sleep cult in Newcastle. #

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Last man standing

It’s now public knowledge that Barry Horne will be joining Sally Anne Johnson as both shake the dust of Nottingham City Council off their shoes.

I have been a city councillor only six years and a bit, and in my time on the Council, we have had a small army of senior management leave the authority, not least three chief executives and one deputy CX.

Now that these two senior managers have joined the club of ex-managers, only one corporate director remains in broadly the same post he was in when I started.

Perhaps more curious: in all this time, we’ve had just one council leader.