Home › Randomly Selected Article or Link ›

Randomly Selected Article or Link

Nine...

16.09.06
at 20:13
tagged with:
...or is it 100(3)...

...is the number of levels of hell and of heaven in the Divine Comedy.

...is the number of Muses.

...is considered lucky in Chinese because it sounds like the word for long lasting,

...but is considered unlucky in Japanese because it sounds like the word for pain or distress.

...is the number of the companions in the Fellowship of the Ring, and the number of Ringwraiths sent to harry them.

...was the number of planets in the solar system until last month.

...AD was the year in which one of my A level Latin poets, Ovid, was banished, probably for writing schoolboy tittilating pornographic drivel!

You can tell a number can be divided by nine if, when you add all its digits together, and then again if necessary until you end up with just one digit, that digit is 9:

e.g. 5204961 is (5+2+0+4+9+6+1)=27, and (2+7)=9

This post displays the international maritime signal flag for 9.

1909 was the year of the Peoples' Budget, in which, of course, a UK Liberal government tried to implement Land Value Tax!

9 is the number that, however unworthily, Iain Dale placed this blog at in his list of 100 top Liberal Democrat oriented blogs!

See the rest of the Lib Dem 100 here, the Tory 100 here, the Labour 100 here and the unaligned 100 here. Or better still, buy the guide if you are not going to a party conference, like me!

Ain't Wikipedia useful, sometimes!
Appreciated this post? Support my blogging with coffee!

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.jockcoats.org.uk/trackback/137

What goes around...

29.11.06
at 00:58
tagged with:

An article on the BBC today about housing and nationalists:

BBC NEWS | Politics | Housing 'key to far right rise':
By Dominic Casciani

Competition for housing is the "frontline" of a battle to prevent the far right's rise, MPs have warned.

Labour MP John Cruddas and Lib Dem Simon Hughes said policymakers had failed to recognise BNP gains were linked to anger over who gets homes.

...reminded me of a scene in "Cathy Come Home" the other night where the women in the hostel are arguing with a black woman that "her type" was getting all the available housing.

Plus ca change...

Appreciated this post? Support my blogging with coffee!

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.jockcoats.org.uk/trackback/27

Planning is an intensely political process

18.10.04
at 15:32
tagged with:

I read recently city councillors saying the planning process is not political. Indeed, it is not meant to be. But it is ever more apparent that it is highly political with a “small p”.



I strongly supported the move to planning decisions taken at area committees, and advocated even more public participation than happens now. I hoped this would enable people (and councillors) to understand why certain decisions are taken, ‘owning’ the resulting decision as a local community and, crucially, bearing the costs of appeals against adverse decisions.

But now councillors appear to make the decisions they think people in the room would like them to make, whether right or wrong, and leave the appeals process to sort it out afterwards. That way they get the voters’ credit for defending local opinion and let the Planning Inspectorate take the blame for decisions that run counter to local feeling.

As a result, more than two thirds of appeals against decisions by the city council are successful; and all appeals against decisions made by councillors at area committees.

Councillors – you are not helping people to understand and own planning issues, merely raising false hopes that you must know are likely to be dashed by Inspectors. You are costing taxpayers money and delaying much needed development (particularly housing) by over a year. With deep regret, it may be time for planning decisions to be handled centrally again.

Appreciated this post? Support my blogging with coffee!

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.jockcoats.org.uk/trackback/315