Blog
Conservatives plan to protect young foreign brides
My mother Loula (pic) was a wartime bride from Greece when she married my English father at 16, he was eight years older and stationed there as a soldier. She arrived in the UK alone on a ship and couldn't speak English following their very brief...
Conservative women and pensions
I'm kicking myself that I shall be away next month when this important pension summit is held by the Conservative Women's Organisation. It is such an important subject, one which fills me with dread if I think about it very long. In fact, I tend to...
The missing – Sarah Benford
Police have launched a murder hunt following the disappearance of Sarah Benford, even though her body has never been discovered. Her story was also re-enacted on Crimewatch. Sarah went missing from a children's home in Northampton in April 2000, when she was...
Can journalists converse online too?
Continuous rail delays and a fire on the underground, followed by a snail's pace taxi crawl in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic, meant that I arrived breathless and late and missed half the seminar on the politics of online journalism yesterday. The...
The politics of online journalism
I shall be participating in a seminar later today about the changing face of journalism as social media becomes increasing popular. The seminar topic is Citizen or Consumer – the politics of online journalism, organised by POLIS, the journalism and society...
Hi honey, can you speak up before I run out of oxygen?
I wonder what the roaming charges were for British mountaineer Bob Baber when he called his wife from the top of Mount Everest and set a new world record. I agree with Neville that it was a very impressive piece of marketing by sponsors Motorola. Bob had...
The vicar, the loos and an unholy row
Tom Ambrose, a vicar from Trumpington, a parish on the edge of Cambridge, could be ejected over his attempts to put modern loos in the 14th century church, a plan which has upset some parishioners who obviously have very strong and well controlled bowels. The...
The missing – Lee Boxell
The parents of Lee Boxell haven't changed anything in his bedroom since the day he vanished from their lives in September 1988 when he was 15. He would be 34 now - and his broken hearted mother wonders if she has walked past him in the...
When tea for two can cost more than you bargained for
Funny the things we get het up about. American television reporter and presenter Michael Manning could not see why he had to pay for a tea refill. While free coffee refills are part of the unspoken American constitution, the issue of whether the same applies to...