As we head into a winter of malcontent (hopefully not as severe as the previous two) , death spreads it’s inevitable grip. While few tears will be shed on Gaddafi’s 9mm dispatch from this mortal coil, the media has been consumed with recent untimely appointments with our maker.

Dreams of horror

The most disgraceful anecdote concerns the inexplicable case of Joyce Vincent, highlighted in Carol Morely’s docu-drama Dreams of a Life. Joyce was a 38 yo Afro-caribbean whose body was found, as bailiffs entered her flat. The Gothic backdrop to this was that her body

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Can this ship be genuinely turned around?

Although we have this squeeze on household income we must not feel despondent all of the time. However, one of the think tanks, National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), sees that there is little sea change. Its monthly estimates suggest gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 0.5% in the three months to September, compared to a revised 0.4% in the quarter to August. According to it, it is on a par with 1918 levels. On a personal level, all I hear about in October is corporate greed and serious clouds

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Building Access

Last week I was travelling home when I happened to stumble upon a new commercial building sign, designed to signpost visitors to and from the building. The sign, however, made me wince. Here is a picture of it.

Invisible Disabilities Are Commonplace

In short, the way in which the word ‘Visitor’ was isolated from ‘Disabled’ and 'Contractors' indicated that the sign writer and initiator believe that Disabled Visitors are not classified as Visitors, but rather belong to a disabled species of human that need to stand out from the non disabled. The truth is that we cannot distinguish between non disabled and disabled visitors as easily

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Well into the silly season, as the British Parliament disappears for its annual deplacement,  journalists struggle to fill the void for their column inches. However August 2011, has indelibly etched itself a place as the month of revolution.

Gaddafi vs Cameron

Two weeks ago Britain was consumed by a series of inter city riots that led Cameron to hastily put on his socks and return from his Tuscany sojourn, after three days of burn baby burn (disco inferno). A couple of weeks later  we have the denouement of the Gaddafi’s gangsta mafia, as the Libyan rebels swarm his bunker in Tripoli, following

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Dear All What an ugly urban Britain! Beware of the stereotype: The riots and looting that swept large parts of London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol are said to be an explosion of bitterness and rage against government cuts, some have said poor parenting skills and the combined issue of social inequality. Spanish Protests are sophisticated by comparison. In Northampton we are unable to measure the extent of this explosion.   Thankfully, it was only rumour mongers were out last Tuesday claiming that riots were taking place in Wellingborough and Northampton.  I stood at the desk bewildered as a colleague

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I watched the Select Committee with that increasingly sinking feeling you get, viewing an over hyped cup final. Billed as judgement day , the arch uber villain Mr  M was to  finally face his unalloyed epilogue. What we got was worthy of a restoration comedy of manners, where Mr. Magoo’s Oscar winning portrait of demented ignorance,  went unchallenged, culminating in the welcomed pantomime of a bungled pieing (albeit disrupting the poignancy of Corby’s Louise Mensch's questioning).

Select Committee?

Over 40 years Murdoch has contemptuously dealt with all comers,  reserving his highest disdain for politicians, whom he routinely threatened with exposure (when they

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Dear All The Census 2011 results will be out mid year next year after much population collection of data, segmentation work, analysis and cross tabulation goes on by enumerators and statisticians directed by the Office of National Statistics.

Genealogy

Personally I think I always like to visit such weblinks as it is interesting to examine the life and death accounts of our forebears. It is an interesting fact that in the middle ages, childbirth had a major adverse effect on female mortality rates up until 1900s - life expectancies in 1500s for example were about 60 years

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