Recent Posts

Technology, UK Politics

Labourlist must not blog in a void

As covered by Iain, Bob, Guido, ConHome and the Spectator the new Derek Draper blogging initiative Labour List has now seen the light of day with a soft launch. So what should be made of all of this? The list of people contributing to Labour List is impressive. There are […]

EU Politics, Technology

Let’s complain like it’s 1998

I don’t normally frequent the websites of the European Court of Justice and the European Ombudsman. Yes, I am an EU geek, but not that much of an EU geek. But a friend asked me some questions today and hence I visited both sites. You could argue that the ECJ’s […]

EU Politics

It took 4 days for the Czechs to make a mess

Why am I not surprised about this? The Czech Presidency has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as ‘defensive’. Hmmm, I think not. I’m not looking forward to the Czechs in the chair for the next 6 months. Bring back Sarko, all is forgiven. [UPDATE] They don’t even know who’s who […]

Observations

10km in Walthamstow and Hackney Marshes

Just back from an excellent morning run – 10km from Leyton through Hackney Marshes, then Walthamstow marshes (almost as far as Tottenham Hale) and then back. There was a sprinkling of snow on the ground, and the grass in the marshes was hard and icy. But where else in London […]

EU Politics, UK Politics

Wipe out the carrot

So the UK carrot crop is going to be wiped out, according to Martin Evans, Chairman of the British Carrot Growers’ Association quoted in The Observer today. The EU wants to tighten rules on what pesticides can be used on crops, the UK government doesn’t agree, can be outvoted under […]

EU Politics, UK Politics

Shockingly bad EU article in The Observer

I have a simple rule for my own blog: I don’t write about things I don’t know something about. So there’s no US politics here, and nothing about the credit crunch – others are much better qualified to write about those sorts of things. Oh how I wish print journalists […]

EU Politics

EU – any hope for positive surprises in 2009?

Every fifth year is decisively different for the EU: election years. And this year is one of those years. For the 40% of the population that will go to vote it’s a relatively minor event, but in Brussels itself election years are very different. MEPs try to cram a few […]

Technology

Upgrade work complete

The upgrade work for the new blog is complete. Here is a quick summary of the changes… Running on WordPress 2.7, with a new theme based on Hybrid / Leviathan New Sportblog added, with excellent mapping like this thanks to the excellent XML Google Maps plugin for WordPress Twitter updates […]

Observations

New focus for 2009

There are going to be a few changes here at this blog over the coming few weeks as, from a professional point of view, 2009 promises to be a year of major changes. I’ll be starting a Limited Company in the web design business together with a number of others […]