Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tweets on 2009-05-02

  • Ooh, interesting. We’ve just had our Euro election polling cards. #
  • @karinjr heh, apparently it was totally incoherent. There has been much mocking since 🙂 #
  • @thoroughlygood I once did something similar to Rita Chakrabarti at a press conference. #
  • @thoroughlygood in fact, it was at this press conference: http://tinyurl.com/dxbtd5 #
  • @thoroughlygood it’s my other half with the obvious love of @AcornAntiques. The phrases rub off after a while. Slice them finely, Mrs O #

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Tweets on 2009-05-01

  • I think I’ve seen 67/250 of the films on the list http://250.s-anand.net/ (via @owenblacker @jenblower) #
  • @qwghlm R fathr n hevn, ur great, we’ll do what you say, feed us, forgive us and we’ll forgive, don’t tempt us, save us. #
  • #BBCR4 broadcasting the full list of soldiers killed in Iraq. Taking a long, sombre time to get through the all the names. #
  • Wowed by a single, bright, crepuscular ray in South Notts. #
  • Thinking about all the stuff I have to do before I can start drinking. #
  • Two nights ago I woke up shouting and woke the house up with me. #

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Tweets on 2009-04-30

  • @adambird I should hope so – according to their promos it takes months to learn to chop vegetables properly. Can’t afford high turnover! #
  • @jamesgraham soyez le bienvenue! bonnes vacances! (PS how busy is the train today?) #
  • @helenduffett bet it’s cold down there too #
  • Staring helplessly at the computer screen unable to work out why the work isn’t doing itself. Bah. Sniffle. Bleurgh. Oink. #
  • Not sure whether I prefer “snoutbreak” or “armagammon” #
  • @onthehour 4 o’clock? Already ? It can’t be! #
  • Wow. “Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg organised the drubbing” according to #BBCr4 headline #ghurka #
  • Nottm MPs Simpson and Palmer amongst Lab #Ghurka rebels. Shame on Heppell and Allen. http://tr.im/k2l0 #
  • @owenblacker Still strangely fond of “snoutbreak” mesen. #
  • @madamemish Speed restrictions, hence need for engineering works. Target is “Nottingham in 90” http://tr.im/k5v6 #
  • @tonytheaker don’t forget a tin opener 🙂 #

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Tweets on 2009-04-29

  • Trying to resist the temptation to type “@jamesgraham you mean you don’t already?” Curses! Failed! #
  • Finding it very hard to believe the govt wanna tear down a successful windfarm and replace with with a nuclear power plant http://tr.im/jUTg #
  • The number of Actimel pots and catfood tins soaking in the sink betrays how long it’s been since we last washed up. #
  • I can’t hear right and my nose is blocked. Blaming #swineflu. #
  • Spicy curry will show those swine who’s boss! #
  • Walls sausage ad seems to be saying they make sausages out of the two best bits of small children. #
  • Lego Silence of the Lambs – The Musical! (NSFW) http://tr.im/jYon #
  • Don’t wanna be Obama’s Elf: http://tr.im/k0I8 #

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Random thoughts on litter picking

Last Monday, I went to help with an event organised with a school and residents association in my ward. They were litter picking over lunchtime, with lots of children and residents on hand to help out.

A local resident has lots of information and pictures here.

Armed with a black bag and litter picker, I spent about an hour and a half wandering up familiar streets picking up small pieces of litter, and, in no particular order, here are the thoughts that occurred to me:

  1. I probably wouldn’t have been so happy to help if the weather hadn’t been quite so good.
  2. A litter picker is no substitute for a broom.
  3. Lots of the litter is stuff that didn’t exist a few decades ago: tin cans, plastic sweet wrappers.
  4. A sizeable proportion of the litter is to do with smoking or drinking: fag packets, cellophane, cigarette butts, broken bottles, lager tins.
  5. There’s an awful lot of litter, even on streets that look relatively clean.
  6. There’s an amazing amount of stuff stuck in hedges that has probably been there years.
  7. There’s no way councils can remove all of this litter on their own.  There has to be a three part approach – council tidying, dropping less litter in the first place, and communities taking charge of their own streets.

20 Firsts meme

I see I have been tagged by Liberal England in this meme:

First Job
I worked alternate Saturdays in Ludlow Library, helping with shelving books. I wasn’t supposed to use the computers, but they couldn’t keep me away. And I ended up bagsying so many good returns I ended up learning my library card number by heart: R2206005395.

First Real Job
Working in an adult ed centre teaching people to use MS Office and computers.

First Role in Politics
Volunteer, office of Nick Clegg MEP, 2001.

First Car
An ill-fated white Rover bought for a few hundred pounds. The clutch died a few dies later, and finally the crank shaft dropped out of it during the Leicester South by-election, and it was uneconomical to repair.

First Record
When Freddie Mercury died, and Bohemian Rhapsody was getting a lot of airplay, me, my mum and my little brother went to buy the CD of it from Woolworths in Leominster. It was the first pop CD that got played in my Dad’s hifi.

First Football Match
I don’t think I’ve ever been to a football match.

First Concert
I suspect I was in concerts before I went to them. Or maybe it was the Simon and Garfunkel tribute act in Ludlow in about 1995?

First Country Visited
We were frequent visitors to Wales throughout my childhood – but first went proper abroad to France in 1989.

First TV Appearance
I don’t think I’ve been on TV. I was vox-popped for Newsnight at party conference, but I suspect I was too loyalist for broadcast. “Are you happy with the Lib Dems being a redistributionist party?” “Absolutely.”

First Political Speech
First major one would probably have been proposing an amendment to abolish Council Tax at Nottingham City Council. The Labour party weren’t impressed.

First Girlfriend/Boyfriend
Miguel, I suppose. I once travelled all the way to Warwick Uni for a date, only to be stood up by him. I later discovered he’d been whisked away to hospital for an emergency appendectomy.

First Encounter with a Famous Person
Little and Large in panto?

First Brush With Death
Playing hide and seek in Ludlow Castle, rushing around a corner to hide to discover there wasn’t a floor. I nearly plumeted to my death!

First House/Flat Owned
This one right here up a hill in Sherwood, Nottingham.

First Film Seen at a Cinema
First one I can remember is Jungle Book, but my mother has a story of me in Bambi loudly asking “Mummy, why are you crying?”

First Time on the Radio
I read out some doggerel on BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester, on the subject of salmonella.

First Politician I Met
Can it actually have been Nick Clegg?

First Book I Remember Reading
It would have to have been one of the Famous Five books.

First Visit to the London Palladium
Like Jonathan Calder, that is a pleasure I still have in store.

I don’t really tag people – if you want to take part, feel free.

Tweets on 2009-04-27

  • I’ve lost my label-making machine under a pile of unfiled papers. #gtd #fail #gtdfail #
  • Sunny afternoon has ended. The sky has closed in, the pressure is dropping, and now it feels like rain. #
  • Ooh, wow, it looks like they’re beginning to dismantle the Nottingham Wheel. #
  • @smuttley do you not like t’wheel? I didn’t manage to go on it this year. #
  • My Twitter personality: popular inquisitive fair My style: chatty coherent WRITER http://twanalyst.com/alexfoster #

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Tweets on 2009-04-26

  • Just passed @miketd’s weekend refuge and suprised not to find village blog URL on roadsigns yet. #
  • Afternoon mini bellringing outing in’t Peak District. Trying to read OS map and drive. Hartington first. #
  • Ooh, National Trust tea-room, you say? Don’t mind if I do. #
  • Being asked to stop making the “Oh my Ilam in de sun” joke. #
  • Ee, but the countryside is grand. Safely home in city now. Necking a pint of coffee before heading out to see In’t Loop. #
  • @miketd sadly ringing tour was too tightly timed for tempting tea diversions. Hope PDMG is looking good in all this sun! #

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Tweets on 2009-04-25

  • Saw a poster for Little Shop of Horrors the other day. Ever since, have been humming… Subsequent to the events you have just witnessed… #
  • Similar events in cities across America – / Events which bore a striking resemblance / to the ones you have just seen – began occurring. #
  • Popping into Waterstones for an OS map. The travel floor is calling to the wanderlustful side of me. #
  • @dr_nick http://www.littleshopthemusical.co.uk/ – don’t look like anywhere near Soton and Nottingham closes tomorrow! #
  • Spontaneous decision to see Little Shop of Horrors in Nottm before it closer. Seats available in all areas. #
  • Ooh, excellent set. And Sylvester McCoy as Mushnik! #
  • Trying to think of a non-bitchy way of putting it… But who cast the endomorphs? Couldn’t they afford thin actors? #
  • @dr_nick the stage show doesn’t have a happy ending 🙂 the little plants were wireless robots, they did a show of “look no hands” #
  • Everyone coming out humming “Suddenly Seynour.” The full size plant was awesome! #
  • Reading about grid references. Seems I live in SK, one of only 2 100km squares with no coast at all: http://tr.im/jEvy #

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