Tweets on 2009-11-13

  • Councillor quizzing whether serving a new beer in the same glass causes swineflu and spreads herpes. Seems unlikely to me. #
  • @ianvisits it'll be the same people who only eat one slice of pizza. #
  • Street saxophonist outside committee room motoring his way through the Shadows greatest hits. #
  • @cheadlegatley you're already up to speed with your core strategy just months after being elected. That's impressive. #
  • The Christmas tree outside Council House is so big they're having to put scaffolding up to hang baubles. #
  • From a food hygiene perspective, is it safe to make a casserole now that won't be cooked til Saturday? #
  • It's been hammering it down for hours and there's mini floods everywhere. #
  • It's only just poss to get out of my street on foot as there is a massive puddle at bottom of hill #
  • Wonder if anyone else will make it to Liberal Drinks tonight. #
  • RT @VizTopTips: AIR GUITAR players. Become Air-Ukulele players by shortening the distance between your hands. #
  • RT @FakeAPStylebook: writing front-page headlines? make sure they are clear, can be read while spinning and move the movie's plot forward. #
  • Hic #
  • @lloydiejl we have an ice rink and a German Xmas market in the square every year (I haven't been skating since I left university, however) #
  • @lloydiejl *cancels cttes on Friday afternoons in December* 🙂 #

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Tweets on 2009-11-12

  • So do I catch the bus that doesn't go exactly where I want to go but is here or wait for the bus that goes to the right place but is late? #
  • Local government finance training. Thank heavens for expressochoc. #
  • @markpack the Weymouth Relief Road blog (see my blog for a review.) in reply to markpack #
  • With residents at a meeting waiting for the council leader. #
  • I wish I had a pound for every time I've been told "It's like a race track round here!" / "Them cars, they think it's Brands Hatch!" #
  • @dr_nick oh gawd, done no prep yet! in reply to dr_nick #
  • Belated RT @willhowells RT @simonblackwell: No pain au chocolat, no gain au chocolat. #
  • Good lord. This http://tr.im/EMyW leads me to this http://tr.im/EMz2 #atheist #whydoesgodhateamputees #

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Daily View 2×2: 12 November 2009

Good morning. Today in 1990, Tim Berners Lee published a formal proposal for the world wide web. Today nearly twenty years later, here we all are. And isn’t it frightening that 1990 is nearly twenty years ago?!

2 Big Stories

Labour’s plan for ‘John Lewis’ public services

The Guardian is reporting that the Labour party are proposing mutualising public bodies – and the Guardian thinks the concept of mutualisation will be so alien to its readers that the only way of explaining it is by analogy to John Lewis.

Hospitals and schools would be transformed into John Lewis-style partnerships under radical plans that could form a central plank of Labour’s general election manifesto.

Public sector bodies, which would also include leisure centres, housing organisations and social care providers, would be allowed to take control of their own affairs if staff and users voted in favour.

Quite an amazing change of fortune from the party that has spent the last dozen years increasing Whitehall control over – well, pretty much everything.

Valerie Singleton launches six-button computer to get elderly online

The Telegraph has the story.

The screens of new PCs have just six buttons, allowing technology-shy users to surf the internet, send emails and watch videos without having to navigate around cluttered desktops.

My immediate facetious flippant thought is that receiving email from elderly people who have keyboards with only six buttons might well be a frustrating experience for all concerned. Which 20 letters will they omit?

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

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

  • Scrutinising Scrutiny

    • John Ault has news of a Tory council about to disappear up its own fundament:

    Conservative controlled Wealden District Council, has ‘set up a scrutiny panel to scrutinise its scrutiny panels.’

  • Is this available in English?

    • Alex Folkes highlights an unreadable high level strategic document from new Cornwall Council. Not in Cornish, but in management jargon.

    At Cabinet today, member queued up to complain about it and wrung an admission from the Leader that it needed to be ‘in plain English and fit for purpose’. Cabinet Member Carolyn Rule agreed to go away and proof-read it. I hope that she goes further and gets it re-written in English.

    Don’t miss p23!

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.

Tweets on 2009-11-11

  • Having fascinating day. 4 completely different meetings. 2 down, 2 to go. #
  • Ooh, have just walked past the big green cleaning machine. It's very quiet. #
  • Just attended my first paperless meeting. At the end, was handed a sheet of paper as a happy sheet. Actually not as easy as I expected. #
  • Flood gate wheels ARE horizontal! #

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Evan Harris’s blog on #nuttsacking

On Monday, Helen brought you news from the Guardian of the dispute between Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris and Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

Over the last two days, Dr Harris’s blog has been unmissable as he has been posting details of the correspondence on his blog, along with the consequences.

A fisking of Alan Johnson’s speech in Parliament

I was amazed to hear what the Home Secretary said, under privilege, in parliament about a distinguished scientist and sent Alan Johnson the letter below demanding a retraction and apology.

A fisking of Alan Johnson’s reply

The Home Secretary has now responded to my letter. It is set out below, interwoven with my original letter, and accompanied by comments from me, after consultation with Professor Nutt and Richard Garside

Three more resignations from AMCD

The latest resignations represent a deepening in the crisis of confidence of scientists in the Government – in particular, in the Home Secretary. That they come after Alan Johnson met the ACMD demonstrates that he just doesn’t get it when it comes to the importance of respecting the academic freedom and integrity of independent, unpaid, science advisers.

The latest in environmental activity

Today in committee I learned of  a simple step that local authorities (and private gyms!) can take to save money and energy in leisure centres.

Two simple words: pool covers.

If you don’t cover your swimming pools at night, then chemicals leak out of the pool via evaporation.  So too does heat from the pool. Leisure centres pay a small fortune in heating swimming pools (and indeed one major thing you can do to reduce leisure centre bills is drop the temperature of the water by just one degree C).

In Nottingham, apparently most of the pools aren’t covered, and many of the leisure centres have old, unworking covers.  It’s taken a little longer than it should do to get agreement to replace the covers, but once they’re in place, it should make a big difference with such a little change.

Tweets on 2009-11-09

  • had pleasant journey but the stupid new ticket barriers at St P are leading to fantasies of beating someone to death with my ukulele. #
  • @maggiephilbin @lordbonkers knows all about the Leicester viaduct in reply to maggiephilbin #
  • @kayray I have zoom 2. Is ace for portable news gathering and is highly directional. #
  • Finished me book. Nothing to read on train. My co-passengers seem only to have left the sort of mag with more nude women than words. #
  • Cor, with the diversionary route, it takes over an hour to get from Kettering to Leicester. #
  • Low-hanging crimson moon tonight. #
  • Gave a lift to someone stranded at Parkway. Turned out to be an actor working at @skymirror and we had a fascinating chat on the way back. #
  • Knocking up a quick velouté au poivron to add some veg to diet tomorrow. #

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Tweets on 2009-11-08

  • About to ask the immortal question "Nick Clegg or kittens?" #
  • Well I never. I asked Nick Clegg or kittens and they all said Nick Clegg. Bloody loyalists. #
  • @MarkReckons audacity, every time. in reply to MarkReckons #
  • @helenduffett bout 40. in reply to helenduffett #
  • Took me nearly an hour to figure out how to leave Leicester. #
  • Very full after raclette party with friends who think fondue is evil. #
  • Watching Charlie Brooker's link to vid of C2D at the same time as "How peanut butter is made" made me think the peanuts were screaming. #
  • Using new East Midlands Parkway station for first time. Deserted! Uncomfortably close to Ratcliffe power station. #
  • Glorious, sunny, autumnal countryside. Doesn't quite make up for extra journey time. #

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Tweets on 2009-11-07

  • Damian Thompson is up for a "bad faith" award: http://tr.im/EkiM – Lib Dems might like to see his views on Evan Harris: http://tr.im/Ekju #
  • Bleurgh. Why do my shoulders feel like this all the time? Is it because I'm old? Or poor posture over PC? Will they always feel like this? #
  • @helenduffett no, my shoulders have ached for years now 😦 hence halfhearted Wii yoga, but that doesn't help 😦 #
  • Mind you there's a shop in Sherwood sells back friendly desk chairs. Maybe I should talk to them. #
  • People would rather twitter than talk to John Pugh MP. Personally I think that says more about John Pugh than Twitter… http://tr.im/Eksp #
  • Have bought a nice fondue pot for a song from a charity shop. #
  • Oh, bad heating zone control valve! Now is not a good time for you to stick again! #
  • Good lord, Cllr Collins in his full cycling regalia is a sight to behold. #
  • haggling sandwich shop down from 2.03 to 2.02 because that's the change I have on me. #
  • Hmmm. That's a thought. Wonder if the ringing causes the shoulder aches. #
  • Can anyone help me out with a copy of the old Lib Dem logo – "thin bird"? Can't find one on t'internet. #
  • @lordbonkers that's the current logo ("fat bird"), I'm looking for "thin bird" that was the logo pre-2000. Fewer feathers, thinner wings #
  • @lordbonkers Thanks tho, and stunningly quick! #
  • @lordbonkers much 🙂 #
  • @rfenwick that'll do nicely for my "wake up" slide in tomorrow's Death by Powerpoint. #
  • Librivox has a lot of poems and war memoirs for Remembrance Sunday and 11/11/09 http://tr.im/EnVZ #
  • Getting a rather surprising website when I google "Liberator" #
  • @spam south13jermy #
  • Bizarre dream featuring P, @iaindale and the the Netscape Navigator logo. #
  • Wearing a suit to regional conference. #

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