Memnison Journal

Re the UK election: Excellent brief explanation on what a hung parliament means Probably the funniest political video of the UK 2010 season (Labour candidate)

BBC: “The Labour candidate for Bootle on Merseyside has had the tip of his finger bitten off by a dog while out campaigning. Joe Benton, 77, was taken to hospital after the animal bit him as he pushed an election leaflet through a letter box. Mr Benton has been unable to vote for himself as [...]

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/05/sdp-liberal-alliance-broadcast

In the US, coverage from the BBC starts at 3:55 pm EDT on CSPAN3 and goes to whenever.  Polls go from 7a-10:30p in the UK; translate that into your own time. If you want a goofy idea of how these things will go, watch this youtube of Monty Python’s Election Night Special (Tarquin fim tim [...]

YouTube: Mr Bean running on the Bean Party ticket does ‘I wanna Be Elected’ as a video. Especially for all those in the UK getting ready for next week’s election. And yes, I did take the Torygraph’s poll, and it suggested I’d vote for the UK Liberal Democrat party, for what that’s worth.

In Northern Ireland (and I’m sure my readers will correct me), the political system is way unrelated to the rest of UK politics – its own microcosm. You have a multiple divide in politics there – ethnic, religious, class, minority/majority issues, republican versus monarchist, and who smote who first and last. When you get these [...]

An online, detailed map of Henry VIII’s London and Westminster.   (pre 1530s) Add in an 1801 map of the area, with some country detail.  Also, an 1801 London map, and a 1799 one.

Dame Vera Lynn, still around and reminiscing.  Great stuff, especially for those who follow the period.  She’s got a autobiography coming out… “It did remind me what things were like, though. I was living in a grass hut some of the time, with two buckets outside the door. On one occasion I had to sleep [...]

Coming Anarchy also highlights multiple historical places with the same name; Albania, Iberia, Alexandria,  various African nations, and Guinea.  They don’t have one for Galicia, but they ought to.

From the Coming Anarchy site: projected maps of Europe in the future and the former Yugoslav areas, along with their tag on microstates.  Personally, I strongly doubt some of this; France has been doing a thorough stomp of its minority groups (linguistics-wise, especially) for the last 100+ years to Make Everyone Parisian, and the Bosniak [...]

Like nobody had ever heard of Russians using hookers to lure Western diplomats into compromising positions.    Sheesh. The more I hear about the whole Senator Ensign story, the more I think that sex aside, the man should resign his office because he’s a crook and an idiot.    Getting your bazillionaire parents to pay off your [...]

No, this isn’t an advertisement as such.  Both the US and UK versions of Amazon are running DVD sales, and I’m listing out my ooh-that-would-be-interesting list for my purposes (and your edification, in case you have similar interests). Note that I have multi-region / NTSC and PAL reading DVD players in the house, and that [...]

I’m really amazed at the rapid speed I’m making through the VHS tapes.  Part of that is that there’s a lot of the BBC stuff that is now available; I was absolutely shocked to find that the Tim Curry ‘Life of Shakespeare’ was available on DVD (I sweat blood finding the VHS). (Yes, I’m very [...]

…the idea of torturing people for information is a very very horrible, slippery slope: London cops accused of waterboarding suspects. From The Times report: The torture claims are part of a wide-ranging investigation which also includes accusations that officers fabricated evidence and stole suspects’ property. Oh, it’s all very well to not say anything when [...]