How the cult of celebrity has taken over Britain

Was in Derby today for work and visited the Intu Centre and came across a small exhibition of the history of the shopping centre.  In 1975 when the centre was orginally built this man formally opened it:

When it was revamped and enlarged in 2007 this woman opened it:

Is German supermarket Lidl attacking Moscow with Vodka?

You might think so if this 'exclusive' brand is anything to go by:

Viz: It's curtains for Al Qaida

Viz (even though it's not as good as it used to be) has today produced this marvelllous piece of satire:

Only pizzas are delivered

Only pizzas are delivered is sound advice contained in a jargon busting document issued by the coalition government in the summer of 2013.

It's advice those around Clegg should have taken when launching the party's summer campaign earlier this year which I criticised in similar terms at the time.

And it wasn't just the jargon strewn language of the summer campaign that was a problem - it was its poverty of ambition.

Sadly, this poverty of ambition (along with some more Whitehall speak) is apparent in the party's pre manifesto - which is a collection of timid technocratic proposals - designed to keep the wheels of Whitehall turning slowly under another coalition government.

However, the public have had four and a half years of timid coalition government and so far have taken every opportunity they can of punishing the Liberal Democrats for their role in it - something those around Clegg fail to understand while continuing with their busted strategy.

They have just a few short months to change tack if 2015 is not to go down as an historic and wholly unneccessary rout.


Happy New Year!

David Steel on Borders Rail

David Steel's thoughts on the closure (and reopening) of the Waverley rail line are featured in these two videos from Borders Rail:

It also has some interesting updates on the engineering progress of the project.

Friday favourite 138

At last an African charity single this blog can endorse:

Jihadi terrorist estate agent headline of the day

The Surrey Herald reports: 

Jihadi terrorists force Staines estate agent name change

To distance itself from the Jihadist terrorist group, an award-winning estate agents in Staines will change its name from iSiS to Oasis

Waverley route - tracks reach the Borders for first time since 1970s

With track laying now reaching the actual Scottish Borders I stumbled across this progress video.  Hopefully the promised David Steel interview will be available soon.

A last trip round Kingston's Hawker factory

The Hawker factory on Richmond Road in Kingston was the first building I saw when I moved to Kingston in 1990.  Its massive Art Deco facade was a dominant feature of the area and its bulldozing in 1993 remains one of the worst decisions of the planning inspectorate.  But I stumbled across this film recently showing the factory after its closure - which quite strangely only hints at the granduer of the main building just at the end of the video.

Jesus found in Kingston pub

I took this photo in the toilet of the best pub in Kingston this evening...