This interview with Sean Hodgson, whose conviction was quashed after 27 years in prison, is immeasurably sad.
"I miss the crowds. Always been used to having crowds around me for the last 27 years - well, 31 years. And you got to go to bed at a certain time, and you've go to do this, and you've got to do that ... I don't miss it, but I don't know where it's all gone. It's so liberal outside. Nobody tells me to go to bed here. I can go wandering the streets all night if I want." And do you? "No. I go to the shop maybe. There's an all-night shop round the corner." Are you finding freedom kind of lonely? The leg, still for a while, begins rocking, rocking. "I am, yeah." Did you expect that? "I expected it to be different. And it is different."
Tags — General Interest
YouTune continues, and having travelled through the pinnacle of my adolescent life, we reach its teenage nadir: 1999:
— If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next, by The Manic Street Preachers
All I'll say is that this was the first song on the album I played continuously whilst driving 3 hours from Kent back home, having just been broken up with. Everyone's got a story like this and a song to go with it. This just happens to be mine.
Tags — Music
One biographical subject whose posthumous life has been spectacularly potent is Jane Austen, whose modest tally of six novels and 41 years has managed to spawn a hydra-headed global industry. Claire Harman, in her deft, elegant exploration of the cult of all things Austen, starts at the beginning, in Steventon parsonage. She reveals that, far from being a solitary secret scribbler, Jane was merely one of several Austens hungry for literary fame. James, her elder brother, was considered the writer in the family, although his sluggish poetry suggests that this had as much to do with his position as a golden older boy as with any talent. What's more, Jane was frank and unembarrassed about her unladylike pleasure in the material side of authorship. On selling the copyright of Pride and Prejudice, she wrote to her brother Frank that she had now earned £250, "which only makes me long for more".
From this article by Kathryn Hughes on a book looking at writers' posthumous careers.
Tags — Literature
Forgive me if I've told this here before (I can't remember whether or not I have, a peril of long-term blogging), but the first time I became aware of my mom's age, she was 32. That was in the lounge in 5 Cawston Street, Bulawayo, and I would have been either five or six years old. In any case 32 is an age that became, as it were, parental for me. Now, when I arrived in Manchester, having just ceased to be a student, and took up my job as a junior lecturer, I was 24. And 24 I have, naturally, remained - despite becoming a bit more mature and much wiser. Imagine my perplexity, therefore, in having two daughters who have both passed the age of 32. It's bad enough to have children as old as your mother. But when they're also older than you, you wonder if you're losing all your concepts..
No need to apologise, Norm: even if you had told that one before, it would be worth listening to a second time.
Tags — General Interest
He'll probably say it was done tongue in cheek, or in order to undermine the proposal put forward, but Guido's suggestion that people just tell a blind man that something is one colour when it's actually another is, well, unsavoury.
He might think he's being funny; actually, he's being discriminatory:
Disability-related discrimination[:] This form of discrimination refers to treatment of a disabled person that [a] is unlawful because it is for a reason related to a disability; [or b] is less favourable than the way in which others, to whom that reason doesn’t apply, are treated[.]
Tags — General Interest
I recently suggested some things I'd like to see on Twitter. Little did I know what I was getting myself in for, as @bobcatrock nicely captured:
[T]he first twitterapp is free.
For I've discovered Twitterapps, collated by the seemingly marvellous @infobunny, within which you can find out pretty much whatever you want. Some basic stuff is below (for my account), but — if you've got a Twitter account — give it all a try yourself.
Tags — General Interest
On Channel 4 news recently, William Hague said that the "debt crisis" would be solved by ministers putting taxpayers' interests first.
In other news, William Hague has been putting taxpayers' interests first as follows:
— Hague's six-figure earnings shown (2005)
— William Hague doubles salary by earning at least £65,000 in just two months from public speaking (2009)
If you're interested in exploring how William Hague has been putting taxpayers' interests first, have a look at the Register of Members' Interests for Mr Hague, courtesy of They Work For You.
Tags — Politics
YouTune continues, and reaches virtually the pinnacle of my adolescent life: 1997:
— Lost Myself, by The Longpigs
There was a brief summer when I was cool. It was amongst an admittedly small group of contemporaries in an area where no one knew me, but I was cool. For a bit, anyway. And during that hazy period, I listened to The Longpigs. My God — I love that song.
Tags — Music
The Conservatives have suggested that Academy status should be extended to primary schools, and not just secondary.
They're right, though aren't applying the principle to the correct schools: it should be weaker primary schools that can move to Academy status, not ones that are good already.
Unfortunately, Labour has opposed this. Conor Ryan points out the problem:
A clever Labour response would have welcomed the Tory embrace of Labour academies, but argued that part of the deal should be that those given academy freedoms had to work with a poorly performing primary school. Labour ought also to question how the Tories' - correct - support for synthetic phonics would work with complete curriculum freedom.
Instead we get an uncharacteristically sour contribution from Jim Knight which would leave the listener thinking that academies were not a Labour success story, but a Tory plot[.]
I hope you don't think council magazines are threatening the future of local newspapers? I only say this because:
Claims that council magazines have been threatening the future of local newspapers are unfounded, according to new research published today.
And why's that? It's because:
A comprehensive survey by the Local Government Association has found that the majority of council publications are distributed on an infrequent basis and are produced to inform residents about services.
That is to say, they're shit. I mean, have you ever read a council magazine?!
For some more intelligent discussion on the topic of local news sources, I recommend Documentally, from whom the clip below — on how to save local news — is taken:
Tags — Newspapers