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We spent some time staying with friends in what I thought was Surrey this week- except that their local council has decided to call itself Elmbridge, presumably on the basis that it sounds nice, as there doesn’t actually seem to be a place called Elmbridge in the vicinity. But hey, why should that stop a…

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Stones’ Angie in German poll rowIf you thought British politicians were desperate to appear hip, check this out. How pathetic can you be? What’s more, the major political show on German TV – Sabine Christiansen – routinely introduces its weekly topic to the strains of an apt 60s…

This is brilliant, isn’t it? What’s the betting that the father’s reason for stumping up an obscene amount of money for his son’s education was that he would learn some discipline? 400 offences, eh? That’s some going…

This article seems to confirm what common sense would suggest – that allowing longer opening hours at pubs leads to social problems. In the process, it also gives a good kicking to the current management and government obsession with targets, so that’s a bonus for all of us who have to labour under their yoke.

My council has now decided that every time its logo appears, it will carry the strapline “Working together for excellence”. So, what does that mean? Who are they working with? Themselves? And how are they defining excellence, given they were rated “poor” by the Audit Commission? It rivals for fatuity Lancashire’s “A place where everyone…

BBC NEWS | UK | New drink laws ‘lead to violence’It doesn’t take genius, or a judge, to work this out. You have to question why a government originally elected as providing moral leadership (remember the ethical foreign policy that lasted, ooh, five minutes) is promoting this self-evidently disastrous policy in the face of common…

BBC NEWS | Education | Chaucer’s tales become rap songs This depresses me. Why does everything have to be made “relevant”? The excuse given here is that Chaucer’s language is difficult to understand. Yes, it is. Get over it. These children will go away saying they’ve “done Chaucer” – but they haven’t, no more than…

This blog has just returned from a holiday spent far away from internet access for the most part, and all the better for it. Boris the Topsyturvydom mascot cat seemed to enjoy his stay at the luxury cat hotel, but, like me, is glad to be back, as is his companion Phoebe, who makes her…

normblog: Apologists among us Norman Geras has some serious things to say about the reaction of some to the London bombings. I share his view, and like him, was appalled at the sentiments expressed in the article in today’s Guardian by Dilpazier Aslam, which seems to suggest that the bombs can be excused as an…

I’m described as an “amiable Mancunian bear” here. Well, I suppose there are worse things to be called, but the diet starts here…