The Brighton Argus reports on a more-than-usually public marriage break-up:
Drivers saw the start of the drama last week when a banner was hung over a bridge over the A27 in Brighton bearing the initials JBS and the words: “Wendy, I want a divorce”.
Now it seems Wendy has taken her revenge.
A new banner went up yesterday saying: “No way – you are the cheat! Wendy”.
Picture of the second banner at the Argus’s site.
Paul Steane has an eye-wateringly comprehensive website, at the Enthusiast’s Guide to Travelling the Railways of Europe.
Anna is walking! (admittedly, not in this shot)
Another election in Poland, this time for the presidency, and Le Figaro reports that support for dissidents in Belarus and Ukraine has become a campaign issue.
The Tory conference was way more interesting than normal this year, because they were trying to find a leader. What it most reminded me of was the last day of the Premiership season this year.
Readers with good memories will recall that Norwich City went into the day with their fate in their own hands – a win would have guaranteed they stayed up, no matter what anyone else did. However, they got stuffed 6-0 at Craven Cottage, and suddenly they were back slugging it out in the pack. Meanwhile, West Bromwich Albion, bottom of the table at Christmas, and bottom on the last day, scored an unpredicted 2-0 win at Pompey which – in combination with other results – kept them up and saw Soton, Norwich and Palace relegated.
So, given reports from the bookies, is David Cameron the West Brom of the Tory leadership race? David Davis is certainly the Norwich City, having gone down like a copy of the Morning Star after a lacklustre speech. David Cameron, after a storming Rob Earnshaw performance, is now the bookies’ favourite.
It’s up to Tory party members to make the choice, though their track record is not great. However, Cameron, for all his Eton-and-Oxford life, seems much more like a potential Blair figure than Davis, and doesn’t have the undying hatred of Tory party members to live with, unlike Ken Clarke.
So, is the Tory leadership race like the Premiership? Well:
The Associated Press reports an interesting and readable speech by Al Gore on the problematic interaction of the American media and democracy:
I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America’s fabled “marketplace of ideas” now functions.
Tom Veal’s Stromata Blog takes apart yet another new theory about Shakespeare being the front man for someone else. via MeFi.
Metafilter discusses, disturbingly.
More on that last point, a lovely quotation from Tom Paine.
Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that [the right to choose a government] exists in the nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists anywhere; and, what is still more strange and marvellous, he says: “that the people of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes.” That men should take up arms and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke.
And of course, of Mr Leigh.