Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks

It’s been ages since I featured a music video here, but during the last week I’ve steeped myself in some old Fleetwood Mac albums and spent a fair bit of time listening to Sheryl Crow on Spotify, so what better entertainment than watching them both together performing Gold Dust Woman in 1999?

Incidentally, if you use the Firefox browser, can I recommend the Download Helper extension which allows you to grab videos from nearly all of your favourite video sites and convert them into a format (on the fly if you like) that you can use i.e. .wmv for Media Player, .avi, .mp4, .flv, etc so you can then export the videos to your phone or video enabled .mp3 player – very cool.

So if you are having trouble sleeping you could get yourself a set of David Miliband videos and let the South Shields MP send you off, how cool is that?

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David at Davos

An interesting video featuring the Foreign Secretary and South Shields MP David Miliband talking about the rights to universal primary education for children worldwide. A laudable aim, but the video is more interesting as an illustration of other things (a) Miliband’s desire to embrace modern technology by talking to a webcam enabled laptop, (b) his usual wooden performance which detracts from the important message, and (c) the media huddle finding someone more interesting behind him!

I cannot fault him for trying to espouse his sensible education message in relation to oversees development, but a quiet corner, an empty office, or hotel room, might have made a world of difference to the effectiveness of his delivery.

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Six candidates will contest South Tyneside Council seat

This should be an interesting by election on February 25th, although it is not one where I expect to see the seat change hands (stranger things have happened, of course), I say that because Cllr. Khan reveals on his Twitter pager that Ken Stephenson, the Labour Party candidate was not really the man they wanted to field. Whether or not the voters in Primrose, Jarrow prove to be that much bothered by the choice of a Low Simonside (which is virtually South Shields country) man to represent Labour will be far more interesting to watch, along with the size of the turnout as we get closer to a general election, and the effect of the two Independent candidates fighting to mop up votes along with the Conservatives, Lib-Dems, and the BNP.

The list of candidates with valid nominations at the close, noon today is:

Pete Hodgkinson – British National Party – Protecting British Jobs
Anthony James Lanaghan – The Conservative Party Candidate
Aaron Luke – Independent
David Alan Rice – Independent
Ken Stephenson – The Labour Party Candidate
Susan Heather Troupe – Liberal Democrats

The BNP were the first out of the starting blocks some weeks ago in Primrose so one would hope and expect that the other parties counter the arguments between now and the election date , to prevent the racist message being perceived as acceptable. Other than the two Independent candidates all of the others have previous experience in door knocking and facing the electorate in South Tyneside.

David Alan Rice has been in touch with the Corner Shop and sent me this delightful (cough, splutter) picture of himself alongside Cllr. Steve Harrison who is backing his bid to succeed. Mr. Rice had this to say:

I was born in Jarrow, Prudhoe Grove, Primrose 1960 and educated at Jarrow Central School after which I joined the armed forces, served with distinguished service during the Falklands war and in jungles of Central America.
I have been married to my lovely wife Carol since 1986, I have one son Aidan who coaches and plays Rugby, and I am a firm believer of charity within the community and the care and respect due to older residents of the borough who like my mother are suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s.
At present I am self employed doing Domestic and Commercial surveys.

I am truly Independent not aligned to any group unlike the ‘Alliance’

Any other pictures of candidates with large “stones” will be gratefully received(….err…. perhaps the Stones in pint glasses might look better though).

The election has been called to fill the vacancy in the Primrose ward following the sad and untimely death of veteran Labour councillor Barrie Scorer.

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I’ll be away from this keyboard most of today listening to a foregone conclusion, visiting my child’s school, or doing some errands in South Shields, and further updates will be done this evening (look for a surprise in the Primrose by election nominations).

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25 year old Tom Appleby to stand in general election

South Tynesiders are getting ready to settle their minds over who might represent the borough’s two constituencies at the next general election, with the Labour Party and the Conservative Party firm in their minds on their candidates, the other parties are now finishing off their selection process.

In Jarrow the Liberal Democrats will be represented by Tom Appleby (pictured) who at 25 years of age will be one of the youngest candidates in this general election, which must be called within the next 13 weeks. Tom is a retail supervisor and is also studying for a law degree at Northumbria University. He is already well experienced in local politics having served as a councillor for the Wylam ward of the now defunct Tynedale district council, along with his older cousin Neil. Tom is keen to work with the three Liberal Democrat councillors currently serving in Hebburn and Pelaw:

“We already have councillors in Pelaw and Heworth in Gateshead and Hebburn in South Tyneside. I will be working with them to ensure the Liberal Democrat message of fairness is heard in the coming election.

“I will also be fighting hard to stop Labour taking the area for granted and to end their decades of complacency.”

A Liberal Democrat candidate has not yet been announced for the South Shields constituency and it is not clear whether or not the South Tyneside Independent Alliance will throw their hat into the ring either.

Via Jonathan Wallace

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[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGaDahB2Ysk]

I have to say that Emily No Mates and Tory Bear are getting much better at this.

Via Guido Fawkes

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Dingle dangled over Jarrow ward

After years of feeding us octogenarians, grandmothers, pensioners, Hammer House of Horrors apprentices, and various Halloween ghouls looking for a way to step up to the House of Commons, the Labour Party in South Tyneside has eventually got the message, we need more totty and less Fairley. After the selection meeting Miss Dingle announced that she was

“pleased to be attempting to represent the people of Primrose but my fight to win the candidacy was not that hard, well they weren’t exactly a bunch of hunks were they?”

They have finally realised that the public really do prefer more attractive politicians.

Mind you, put the three South Tyneside Tory councillors together and you still won’t make a George Clooney (but at least their poster is adaptable).

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Told you it was adaptable (a bit like local politicians when facing a financial crisis)

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I love this poster (So adaptable)

Apparently unemployment in South Shields has fallen consistently since 1997 according to South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Click the picture for Karen Allen’s assessment of South Shields’ unemployment figures.

Apologies for the poor quality of this mash up, they did a better job airbrushing Cameron, but they had more time than I did.

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Jackie Ashley’s words “unworthy”

Tim Montgomery at Conservative Home has a right good go at Guardian journalist Jackie Ashley today for the words she used in this article yesterday, and in particular this quote:

The Tory party’s intellectuals are clambering on the “global warming isn’t caused by mankind” bandwagon with as much enthusiasm as they used to oppose the Maastricht treaty or speak up for apartheid South Africa.

Tim called it “reprehensible”, and “unworthy”, a fairly timid sort of response as the journalists of the left start designing new nasty badges to pin on their opponents in a fashion which Tim suggests shows they have lost the intellectual arguments.

Well after all we have just found out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt and disappear by 2035 as was claimed by the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on the likely impacts of global warming. The man who originally made the claim in 1999,  Dr Syed Hasnain, now heads the glaciology unit at TERI which has sought and gained EU grants and is carrying out the glacier research. It seems his boss has links to a discredited oil company and that he intends to stay as a director of the IPCC to oversee the fifth IPCC assessment report dealing with sea level rise and ice sheets, oceans, clouds and carbon accounting.

Then we learn today that all sorts of natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, droughts, and widespread flooding predictions based on global warming are bogus and guff too.

Experts appointed by the United Nations said rising temperatures were to blame for an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

But it has emerged that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based the statement, made in 2007, on an unpublished report that had not been properly reviewed by other scientists.

The report’s author has since withdrawn the claim, saying there is not enough evidence to link climate change to worsening natural disasters, and criticised the use of his data as ‘completely misleading’.

All this on top of Climategate and the furore surrounding the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. I don’t know who should be the most embarrassed Jackie Ashley,  the IPCC, politicians who decide policy based on falsehoods (including David Cameron who wants us to “Vote Blue to go Green”) or the various cohorts of the left who have decided to follow the climate change cause without question like religious zealots.

Apart from anything else Jackie, I cannot see the Conservative Party’s leadership moving away from it’s stated positions on climate change, there may be some grumbling lower down in the ranks, but the hierarchy still see a Green route to raise taxes!

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