Concrete Achievements

Blog

  • New Cabinet Secretary

    Congratulations to prominent Manchester United fan Gus O’Donnell, who has been appointed Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of The Home Civil Service.

  • Ichabod, the glory is departed

    Jonathan Crowe over at the Map Room covers the second volume in an atlas of the 1946 US railway network, which sounds fascinating – if depressing in the light of Amtrak’s current woes.

    For a similar view of Britain’s railways, past and present, you could try:

  • Boundary disputes

    The villagers of Sompting are cross, because the new road sign in their village suggests that some of them have been annexed by the expansionist forces of neighbouring Lancing. Today Sompting, tomorrow – Portslade! Link: Brighton Argus.

  • The need for U2

    I’ve just been watching an interview with U2 on BBC2’s the Culture Show. When I was a callow yoof, I used to get rather tired of musicians getting all political (this was under Thatcher, so there was quite a lot of it about). Just concentrate on the music, I thought.

    But listening to Bono and the others talking about the moral necessity of debt relief just now, I realised how wrong I had been. U2 are the voice of the people, or as near as damn it. We have outsourced our political sensibilities to pop musicians. At least they wear cool shades.

  • What happened to Metro-Land

    This blog was briefly called Metro-Land, but has now reverted to its former name, the Lewes Chronicle. (www.metro-land.org still works, as well as lewes.typepad.org)

    It was renamed Metro-Land when my wife got a job in that part of the world, and we planned to move to Amersham, on the end of the Metropolitan line. However, due to a mismatch between the hours her employer needed her to work, and the hours during which reasonably-priced childcare was available, she had to withdraw from the job, and our move was cancelled (16 hours before the removal men turned up).

    So, it’s been a weird couple of weeks, and our eyes are now open to the extraordinary cost of childcare. Our current plan – now our house is on the market anyway – is to move closer to the coast, probably to Lewes or Brighton, and for Jane to try and find some work in the media industry there.

  • A random selection of football clubs…

    …and the history behind their crests.

  • The splitting of Fathers for Justice

    A split within the Fathers for Justice protest group shows up disturbing militant tendencies in the militant wing.

  • A success for Europe, and about time too

    The Swiss have voted to join the Schengen border-free zone, meaning that I won’t have to be woken at 2 a.m. to get my passport out when travelling from Brussels to Italy by train. More interestingly, the UK and Ireland are not members, even though the non-EU Norwegians and Icelanders are. Indeed, the UK & Ireland are the only countries in Western Europe not to be Schengen members now.

    This may not be quite the right time, but is here the place to start a UK-into-Schengen campaign? I’m sick of having to find my passport every time I want to go to Paris.

  • Scotland is a foreign country

    A leading Scottish QC has been making sectarian jokes at a Rangers supporters’ dinner. Sectarianism, it’s hard to get your head round.

  • Map mash-ups

    Several British Google map mash ups:

    Fantastic stuff. O’Reilly Radar via the Map Room.