Wednesday 22 April 2009

Budget day

Is it good news or bad news for you, your friends and family, or the country in general?

Intute collect the best resources on and about the budget hereand the BBC's Budget 2009 page reports the news and reactions.

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Westminster Police have just reminded me that today's the queen's birthday. The real one, rather than the official one that gets celebrated with the Trooping of the Colours in June. 

41 gun salute in Green Park at noon, and happy 83rd to Elizabeth II.

Thursday 9 April 2009

We could listen

On Tuesday, we had the privilege of Anne-Marie Fyfe reading at my workplace.  Especially having been to a couple of readings by novelists this year where the audience was reminded that performing skills and writing skills do not come evenly matched, it was really lovely to hear someone read their work so well.

You can read one of the poems she read for us, Curacao Dusk, on the Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition website, or if you'd like to listen, there are recordings of her reading some of her poems at poetcasting.co.uk

Tuesday 7 April 2009

Still moments

Sometimes, I really do just fall in love with my city that little bit more. 

Like yesterday evening, walking across Trafalgar Square in the warm evening sunshine, when it was busy but not crowded, when it was populated by pavement artists, and buskers, and a b-boy crew showing off for the crowd, and guys practising skate tricks, and tourists, and locals, when it was impossible not to smile.

Like yesterday evening, walking down the Thames Path in the cooling twilight, listening to the rubbish barges clashing against their moorings, and voices spilling out from the pubs, and smelling the chlorine under Cannon Street, and sharing the path with no one, when it was impossible not to smile.

Like yesterday evening, walking home from the tube station, past the tiny historic cottage orphaned amongst the 1960s council flats, past my neighbours' kids bikes piled in the front gardens, past my neighbour sitting out on his front step with a cigarette and a wave, to my front door, when it was impossible not to appreciate living in this place.

For all its problems, for all its downsides, I do just love this place.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

G20 - drive-by-blogging

Map-based coverage of G20 related events and protests; from the Telegraph via GoogleMaps and from the BBC.

For more in-depth information on the meetings themselves, go straight to source at http://www.g20.org, or for even more detail, you could read Macroeconomic Stability and Financial Regulation: Key Issues for the G20 (Dewatripont, Freixas and Portes, eds)