It was bin collection in Meadowcroft today and this one really caught my attention – or rather did its best not to. I thought this was a really clever way of camouflaging a bin in a 1960s unfenced front garden development such as Meadowcroft.
Francesca tells me that the idea is old hat and relatively common. [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Sandy's blog'
The greening of recycling bins?
March 14th, 2012 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water”
March 13th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Sandy's blog
Benjamin Franklin wrote the above in 1746 and it looks increasingly like we are going to be destruction testing his observation.
Yesterday’s announcement of an imminent hosepipe ban for St Albans beginning April 5th is a symptom not a solution.
Every day coming into St Albans, I come to the Jolly Sailor junction of Sandpit Lane with [...]
Tags:Holywell·hosepipe ban·hosepipe ban explained·Jolly Sailor·Mud Lane·St Albans·Stonecross·Veolia·Ver·water supply
High time for a carbon-free railway?
March 10th, 2012 · 3 Comments · Sandy's blog
Excellent motion at today’s LibDem conference on “The Greenest Government Ever”, promoting the absolute necessity of moving to a low carbon society. Low carbon transport has to be part of the policy mix and the original motion addressed electric vehicles, sustainable biofuels, and marine and aviation emissions, but oddly said nothing about railways.
Accordingly I moved [...]
Tags:Arriva·Chiltern Railways·DB Schenker·Deutsche Bahn in the UK·Ed Davey·greenest government ever·HS2·Liberal Democrat conference·Sandy Walkington
Credit Unions and the Post Office should make a perfect mutual marriage
March 9th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Sandy's blog
It often comes as a shock to members of the Labour and Conservative Parties that the Liberal Democrat Party is democratic. Members make policy. One of the ways that this is done is to have a consultative session on a particular topic at one conference so as to get input from grassroots members. These thoughts [...]
Tags:credit union·loan sharks·mutuals·payday loans·Post Office·savings and loan·St Albans·STADCU
What have the Lib Dems ever done for us?
March 7th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Sandy's blog
I worked alongside Mark Pack when I was Director of General Election Communications in the central campaign team for the Liberal Democrats in 2005.
At that time he was leading the charge in the party’s e-campaigning and I acquired a huge respect for his abilities. Since then he has gone on to even greater things, but [...]
Two wheels good – lets just make them safer
March 6th, 2012 · 4 Comments · Sandy's blog
I have blogged previously about St Albans Cycle Campaign. Their member mailings are always interesting. The current one highlights the recent debate in parliament on cycle safety initiated by my friend Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge.
STACC has circulated the parliamentary briefing note prepared for the debate. It has a fund of useful [...]
Tags:cycle statistics·St Albans·St Albans Cycle Campaign·STACC
Philip Madoc
March 5th, 2012 · 4 Comments · Sandy's blog
I am very sorry to learn of the death of actor Philip Madoc, who lived in London Colney. As a child I was gripped by the BBC Sunday teatime serialisation of The Last of the Mohicans, in which he played the wonderfully villainous Magua and had to run around the Highlands of Scotland in little [...]
An Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman went into a bar
March 4th, 2012 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
Having been to Emlyn Hooson’s funeral yesterday, I stayed with friends at Whittington near Oswestry and went to church there this morning. Philip Crowe, former head of Salisbury Theological College, took the service and used last week’s St David’s Day as the hook for a sermon on nationalism, good and bad. He delivered it wholly [...]
Tags:Englishman Irishman Scotsman jokes·nationalism·Norman Birkett·Philip Crowe·St David's Day
Cheesecake and chocolate soldiers
March 4th, 2012 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
Emlyn Hooson who died last week was my first parliamentary boss. He was Liberal MP for Montgomeryshire from 1962 to 1979, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Party for much of that time, and a distinguished QC who had the odd distinction of having to act as defence lawyer for Ian Brady, the Moors murderer. He [...]
Tags:chocolate soldier·Emlyn Hooson·Ian Brady·Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust·Sandy Walkington·Short money
When cars were names not numbers
February 27th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Sandy's blog
We are all supposed to remember the registration number of our first car – mine was PWN 20R, a mottled brown saloon (mottled because of various amateur resprays even before it acquired a massive dent smack in the middle of the boot under my ownership when I reversed into a tree in Granville Road during [...]