The Dam Busters' training was a spectator sport for Great EastonEyebrook Reservoir Dam: John Fielding Being a well-prepared visitor, I brought the Harborough District Council leaflet about Great Easton with me yesterday. And here's an interesting snippet from it about a nearby reservoir: For several months in 1943 up to a dozen Lancaster bombers regularly used Eyebrook Reservoir as a training ground prior to setting off on the famous Ruhr "Dam Busters Raid". Initially the low flying night flights caused considerable disturbance to the surrounding villages. However local residents, who recognised their sleep would be interrupted, regularly congregated around the lakeside to witness the spectacular rehearsals. Discover Rutland says: Practice ... (more) |
Maybe Europe is winning after all?Today when I should have been enjoying the non-monetary benefits of Wimbledon Common I was instead getting depressed by The Economist, which I listen to as I walk. It isn't difficult to be depressed: the world is full of shitty news. But the particular theme that got me this week was the way Europe had regulated itself into "American vassalage". Thanks to a longstanding habit of stifling its companies with rules, red-tape and risk-aversion, the Old Continent is now utterly reliant on the New for its high-end digital services, its energy, even its payment systems. The UK and Europeans are ... (more) |
String Driven Thing: It's a GameSomeone posted a track by String Driven Thing on Bluesky the other day and I wondered why I knew the name. And then I remembered this. It's a Game was covered by the Bay City Rollers in 1977 and provided them with their last top 20 hit. But I already knew the song, so this original version by String Driven Thing must have received airplay in 1973, even though it didn't make the charts. String Driven Thing began as a folk trio, but were encouraged by their record company to adopt the folk rock sound that you hear on It's ... (more) |
Tom Arms' World ReviewUnited States Mid-term election fever is starting to grip America. And it comes at a time when American's trust in their electoral system – the cornerstone of any democratic state – is plummeting. It is still six months before Americans troop to the polls to elect a third of their senators and all the members of the House of Representatives. But the candidates are busy at the hustings. This is mainly because American elections are a two-stage affair. Stage one the parties vote to decide who will be their candidate and in stage two the winners of the "primaries" compete ... (more) |
#interrail2026 - starting with a near facepalm...So, here I am, on the 09.41 from Ipswich to Liverpool Street, about to embark on another "epic" train journey. And yet, I nearly fell at the first hurdle... You know how it is. Working out what to pack, making sure that you've got the right cables for your various bits of IT, checking that your passport is valid, all of these elements that, if missed, might cause inconvenience at some unwelcome point in a trip. But, I was somewhat better organised this time, and was packed the day before leaving - Ros's organisational skills might be rubbing off at ... (more) |
The Falklands are under threat again and we can't rely on America to save usI'll be honest. When I first started researching hypersonic missiles and the Falkland Islands, it felt like a subject more suited to a defence think-tank than a Lib Dem blog. But the events of the past 48 hours have changed my mind and I think they should change yours too. Argentine President Javier Milei has declared that he is doing "everything humanly possible" to return the Falklands to Argentine hands. That alone would be manageable. What is far more alarming is the backdrop: a leaked Pentagon memo has proposed withdrawing American diplomatic support for British sovereignty over the islands as ... (more) |
Opinion polling in wartimeThe Gallup team polling Britons during the Second World War on their views: [IMG: Gallup pollsters in wartime] A pollster next to a destroyed building. Taken from Behind the Gallup Poll by Henry Durant, 1951 (intermittently available from second-hand booksellers). (more) |
Deep cuts in services needed to deliver Refom and Tory tax cutsWith Reform still challenging Plaid Cymru for first place in next month's Senedd elections it is only right that there should be greater scrutiny of their policy proposals. Nation Cymru reports that an analysis of party manifestos undertaken by Cardiff University academics has found that tax cuts proposed by Reform UK and the Welsh Conservatives would require deep cuts in public services and would disproportionately benefit better off earners. The news site says that the report by the university's Wales Governance Centre states that the Welsh Conservatives propose lowering the basic rate [of income tax] by 1p in the pound, ... (more) |
Great Easton: Leicestershire ironstone and thatchI ventured out into the Notswolds today. By changing at Corby, you can reach Great Easton by bus (though only on Wednesdays and Saturdays). It's a pretty village, though perhaps without quite as much character as Hallaton or Medbourne, and it still has a pub and a little coffee shop. So it was well worth the visit. (more) |
The Joy of Six 1509"Orbán built a glittering façade of think tanks, conferences and podcasts on a brittle framework of prefab ideas and exorbitant contractors' fees, only for it all to collapse in the blink of an eye. Not in anything its personalities actually wrote or said, but in the history of its decline and fall, does the Budapest scene express that sentiment most Christian: omnia vanitas, memento mori." Franz Pokorny looks at the impact of the death of Orbánism on the European right. Dan Reed, who directed the explosive documentary Leaving Neverland seven years ago, has come to a sad conclusion: "People don't ... (more) |