Jane: It's a Fine DayThis is the record that Opus III were sampling, covering or something between the two. Sovering, perhaps. Or campling. Introducing interviews with Edward Barton and Jane Lancaster, who respectively wrote and sang It's a Fine Day, Bob Fischer explains: It's a Fine Day, the acapella single written by Edward Barton and sung by Jane Lancaster, is both haunting and enchanting in equal measure. Turned into a daytime Radio 1 staple after evening plays from - inevitably - John Peel, it later became the sampled source material for a deluge of 1990s dance hits: including the Pete Waterman-backed Opus III, who ... (more) |
Tom Arms' World ReviewSir Keir Starmer should be Britain's Foreign Secretary. His handling of foreign policy is first-class. Unfortunately, for a country's foreign policy to be effective, it needs a strong economic and political base and Sir Keir — as Prime Minister — has failed to produce that. But the world economic crisis created by Trump's attack on Iran and Iran's closure of the Straits of Hormuz means that the British Prime Minister now must focus on world affairs. He has decided that he — along with French President Emmanuel Macron — should take the lead in trying to find a diplomatic solution ... (more) |
The North Sea mythThe Guardian reports on research that has found that opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK's reliance on gas imports. The paper says that the Jackdaw field, one of the largest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace only 2% of the UK's current imports of gas, which would leave the UK still almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and a few other sources. They add that the Rosebank field, also in Scottish waters but mainly containing oil, would displace only about 1% of the UK's gas imports: Tessa ... (more) |
Pineapple Road station, Rhubarb Curve and the Rhubarb ExpressTransport for West Midlands On Tuesday three new railway stations are opening in Birmingham: Kings Heath, Moseley Village and Pineapple Road. They're on the Camp Hill Line, which will see local passenger trains for the first time since the 1940s. Pineapple Road is a great name for a station. There was one on the site between 1903 and 1941 with the name Hazelwell, but Pineapple Road was the most popular choice for the new station in a public vote. A Birmingham World report says its champions thought it was memorable and described the station's better than the other two candidates, ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1499Alexandra Hall Hall warns that Donald Trump's Iran war is bringing the post-war international order to breaking point. "The UN has been completely sidelined in this conflict. The US, who helped design the institution after World War 2, no longer pays either its dues, or even lip service to its founding charter, including the requirement to resolve international disputes by peaceful means." "The cumulative effect is an ecosystem that looks, from the outside, exactly like what it is: a set of institutions that have come to prioritise their own stability over their original purpose. Outsiders do not see idealism when ... (more) |
Observations of an Expat: Nuclear QuestionsThe nuclear deterrent must be at the centre of Europe's security policy. For nearly 80 years that deterrent has been in the hands of the US through its membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Britain and France have also had nuclear arsenals. But they do not come close to countering the stockpile of Russian weapons. Their purpose is to give heft to the political power of the two former European colonial powers. That is changing. It must change. Trump's repeated threats to withdraw have made it necessary. The most recent is the most worrying. The US president went ... (more) |
Latest voting intention and leadership ratings opinion pollsWelcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with the latest MRP projections and party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Find Out Now 18% (nc) 15% (-1) 10% (-2) 20% (nc) 26% (+2) -11% (4th, vs Ref) 1-2/4 GB ... (more) |
The Kardomah GangThe Kardomah Gang, Kardomah Boys, or Kardomah Group was a group of bohemian friends - artists, musicians, poets and writers - who, in the 1930s, frequented the Kardomah Café in Castle Street, Swansea. Regular members of the Gang included poets Charles Fisher, Dylan Thomas, Bert Trick, John Prichard and Vernon Watkins, composer and linguist Daniel Jones, artists Alfred Janes and Mervyn Levy, the broadcaster Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Mabley Owen and Tom Warner. As Wikipedia says the café was located opposite the offices of the South Wales Evening Post newspaper where Thomas and Fisher worked. This was where the group drank coffee: ... (more) |