A Cracking bit of Britcosmic

I've just finished reading "Century Rain" by Alastair Reynolds, and it's a cracking read if you like SF. I was surprised and intrigued to find it's not connected to any of his earlier books. Don't read the blurb on the back cover, it would be more fun to plunge in without knowing exactly what happened to the Earth and exactly where some reproduction jazz 78s are coming from.

I mentioned this book to a Tory councillor yesterday and he said he might buy it as a Xmas present for a certain Mr Davis. Is this a scoop - David Davies is an SF fan? If so , he rises slightly in my estimation.

Round One

The planning application from Asda for a 'neighbourhood centre' was turned down at our planning meeting last Thursday . In fact I moved refusal, my ward colleague Ron seconded it , and we won the vote by 12 votes to 9 with 5 abstentions. As you can see, it was a tight vote.

Why did we go for refusal? It's a long story.

Afterwards, the guy from Asda apparently said to the guy from the local chamber of trade. "Round One to you, but we'll see you at the appeal...."

A (fairly) satisfied customer

My colleague Ron just received the following email which shows that we are (nearly) getting things right in our ward...

Firstly we want to say how much we appreciate receiving Focus which we find extremely informative and useful. However we have received 3 copies in as many weeks at our home !! 2 were received on the same day.

Perhaps you would have a word with your distributors to point this out and save time, money & sore feet!

Many thanks & thanks to all our Lib Dem councillors for their hard work & efforts which are appreciated.

Blogger's Block

It's been a hectic couple of weeks, with a really busy time at work, a Focus to write and get out, a Saturday lost through illness and a lot of ward issues coming up. So there's been no postings from me for a couple of weeks and I'm currently bereft of ideas. Maybe it's a case of Blogger's Block.

So I thought I'd write a bit about some of the sites I link to....

Baghdad Burning has a desperately sad piece, about many things but in particular Iraqi POWs held by Iran back in the Iran-Iraq war. Do read it.


Nick Barlow provides a link to some pretty classy satire

Edis Bevan has written some good stuff on international issues recently , especially on piracy. The real piracy that navies are supposed to deal with, not the copying of DVDs or software.

John Hemming has some interesting info on MPs who didn't take participate in that crucial parliamentary vote last week - for example, George Galloway.


BAGnewsNotes has a slightly worrying analysis of Senator Bill Frist: ''It was, of course, a heinous and dishonest thing to do. And I was totally schizoid about the entire matter. By day, I was little Billy Frist, the boy who lived on Bowling Avenue in Nashville and had decided to become a doctor because of his gentle father and a dog named Scratchy. By night, I was Dr. William Harrison Frist, future cardiothoracic surgeon, who was not going to let a few sentiments about cute, furry little creatures stand in the way of his career.

Kim Ayres has lost 66 lbs in 9 months and he horrifies his wife by wanting to swim in the sea...


Ophelia casts a professional and approving eye over the BBCs "Rome"


...and David Wang's Mum has Dengue Fever. Get well soon ....

Ah well, time for bed