This is song and video from the Texan group Bowling For Soup. They are best known for having a slightly comic feel to their music, but this is one of their serious productions – about a father and son, and then a grandson.
Incidentally, the actor playing the father is Lee Majors, from the Six Million Dollar Man.
Public Health England is a new government organisation – dealing with public health.
In this video John Newton, Chief Knowledge Officer at Public Health England, introduces Longer Lives — a new web-based tool which allows local people to see how their areas perform on early deaths from major killers, like heart disease and cancer, and how it varies across the country.
We’ll be looking at the Longer Lives website again in the future – here’s just a taster of the info there, which shows that Essex isn’t do that well in preventing premature deaths from cancer:
But we are doing better with heart disease:
Here’s some intriguing colour film of London in 1927:
Claude Friese-Greene, one of the earliest British pioneers of film, filmed a series of short clips around London documenting major attractions of the city nearly 90 years ago, specifically in 1927, using a primitive color process developed by his father William Friese-Greene…..It’s like a beautiful dusty old postcard you’d find in a junk store, but moving.
Hat-tip: Deathandtaxes
Lib Dem Brentwood Councillor Karen Chilvers has just been on the ITV quiz “The Chase”. See how she got on here.
Another change in the national planning rules is supposed to help retain the viability and vitality of town centres. The government will allow a range of buildings to be converted to other uses for up to two years without planning permission. So buildings can have their uses changed to shops, financial and professional uses , restaurants and cafes, or offices, for up to 2 years without needing planning permission.
David Mitchell writes about this today in the Observer, and he isn’t impressed:
Unfortunately, having identified the problem, Pickles’s attempt to solve it is perverse. He’s going to relax the planning rules which restrict how buildings are used. It will be a lot easier to use places currently classified as shops, restaurants, offices or leisure facilities as other things. For example, you’ll be allowed to use empty offices as residential property, convert anything into a school, or open a shop or restaurant in an agricultural building, all without planning permission.
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How is that supposed to help our high streets? They’re full of premises currently designated as shops, restaurants or cafes. For these areas to look and be prosperous, they need to be filled with profit-making shops, restaurants or cafes. We don’t want them converted into anything else, because then those streets won’t be high streets any more. And how is allowing people to open exactly the sort of business that was once the preserve of the high street in any barn anywhere going to drive commerce back to our historic trading hubs? Surely it will have the opposite effect.
By the way, this is the David Mitchell who is a comedy writer and performer. Which gives us an excuse to include one of his sketches:
It’s traditional to show a video on onlineFOCUS on an election day , so here’s a clip from the American TV show The West Wing!
Young lawyer Ainslie Haynes is invited to meet the White House Chief of Staff. She thinks she ‘s facing some kind of reprimand, but she’s actually going to be offered a job…
Whether it’s at the White House or in your local council chamber, politics should be about serving the people.
We’ve linked before to Southend blogger and writer Jack Monroe- especially on issues of poverty and how to feed yourself on ridiculously low amounts of money.
Things are looking up for Jack . As the BBC reports:
- Until two months ago, Jack Monroe was unemployed, and unable to claim all her benefits. She struggled to feed herself and her young son on a budget of £10 a week. Often she ate just a single meal a day.
- She started a blog on how to eat cheaply. In February she became a trainee reporter on her local paper, The Southend Echo. She has just been offered an advance of £25,000 to produce a cookbook for Penguin.
And Jack was on BBC1 at 8:40 this morning , talking about eating on £1 per day – and will be on again at 9:40!
[Youtube added April 29th]
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It’s good to see a shopowner in Rayleigh High Street using a bit of imagination and having a professionally-produced video on YouTube. So well done to “Feathering Your Nest” for doing this.
And credit also to Toby Mountain, whose company created the video. (Toby is also a Conservative District Councillor).
We’re not really begging! But it’s a good video. And if you’d like to ‘put your loving hand out, ‘ take 150 election leaflets , and deliver them for us, we’d be very grateful.
Because seriously, to win county council elections we need to deliver a lot of leaflets.
If you would like to help us, especially this weekend, please email Chris at cllrchrisblack@gmail.com or Pam at jamelapj@googlemail.com !
Chris Black writes:
I won’t be at Wembley today, but:
- My parents got married on a weekday in November 1956 because my Dad was a Southend United Season Ticket holder – and he didn’t want to miss watching a reserve match!
- My Dad took me to my first game when I was 5. I still remember it (just)
So I’ll be thinking of my Dad this afternoon, and hoping the fans have a great day, and that the team BRING THAT TROPHY HOME!
Such Strange Arts are a young band from Rayleigh…. here’s their first video, featuring Amber Satchwell…
Here’s another blog, from 13 year old Megan Long of Hockley – except this is a video blog on Youtube! Megan is on CBBC tomorrow – congratulations! Maybe a media career beckons…
Here she is on her blog talking about that awkward holiday, Valentine’s Day…. and how she made cupcakes for everyone in her class…
We are Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners in Rochford District.
We want to improve local decision-making and we see onlineFOCUS as a good way of keep residents informed and involved.
Please click here to email us .
Ron Oatham
Trevor Parrett
Bruce Smart
Chris Stanley
Pam Waldie
Elena Black
If you want information on a particular planning application, you can find it on the District Council website here.
If you want to know what new planning applications have been submitted this week, click here.
If you want to report a problem, you can email Lib Dems councillors by clicking here.
There's also an independent website called FixMyStreet. It's very good for reporting minor street problems like holes in the road, grafitti or failed streetlights. You can find FixMyStreet here.
Rochford District Council carries out grass cutting on behalf of the County Council.
If you see a grass verge that badly needs cutting, you can report it
here.
This is the official master document for planning policy in our district! To download it, click here
click here. (2.5mb)
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