Random Thoughts: A catch up for May 2013
I can’t really believe we are in June already. I seem to be having problems properly organising my time — and then there never seems to be enough of it. Also been suffering from “the curse of the interesting”. I keep finding new things interesting — but don’t have time/energy to do anything constructive about them. For instance; I’ve been hugely fascinated by the debates and arguments over equal marriage recently, wanted to think more deeply about the issue, and write about it. But haven’t. Too important a topic not to do a proper job and doing a proper job required more resources than available.
However, enough of this whining. This weekend I’ve made an effort to sort out thoughts around bloggable stuff and now I have some posts lined up. So hopefully this blog will see some life over the next few weeks. First here is a catch up of ‘Random Thoughts’ for May.
So, this is the latest in my series of Random Thoughts posts with links, things found on the web and other stuff that has occurred to me between 15th May 2013 and 31st May 2013:
Lemurs on a climbing frame — what more could you want?
In Praise of….. Cllr Erica Kemp!
Any man is wise who praises Erica, but particularly so if he is married to her. Congratulations on her new mayoral duties.
Thomas Cromwell – a very modern politician?
Discussion of Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell and his legacy seems to have been a feature of the last few months. Mainly because of the BBC’s series of documentaries on Tudor history. I discussed the parallels between Cromwell and modern politicians in my review of Hilary Mantel’s ‘Bring Up the Bodies’. Here Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, of Oxford University, and Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary correspondent, do the same.
The suggestion of Peter Mandelson as the best candidate to be a modern Cromwell only partly rings true for me. While Cromwell’s rise from the lowliest beginnings in the back streets of Putney was extraordinary for the time — depressingly, it strikes me that such a rise today would be almost as extraordinary.
An important surprise (Speaker Bercow & SO33)
Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary correspondent, had this interesting post highlighting how a ruling by John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, on how to interpret Standing Order 33 of the rules of the House allowed 3 amendments to be considered in the recent Queen’s Speech debate instead of the expected 2. D’Arcy says;
“This matters quite a lot. It seems the Speaker is not going to interpret the rules, in future, in a way that carves significant factions in the Commons, or the smaller parties, out of debates.”
Both the Tory and Labour leaders need lessons in political geometry
With the caveat that political geometry needs to be seen as taking place in three dimensions; I thought this was a very insightful piece by Andrew Rawnsley on the right and wrong ways to triangulate.
London’s best art deco building – Telegraph
Pleased that I know/have visited several of these. Although reminds me to make that trip to Eltham Palace I keep meaning to make.
Russell Brand on parliament: ‘The whole joint is a deeply encoded temple of hegemonic power’
Nothing particularly profound here — but the man does have a unique way of expressing himself — which I can’t help but be entertained by.
This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.