Author Archives: Natalie Bennett

On the sporting front

August 21, 2006 – 7:46 pm

Tis not often a sporting contest in which I am involved makes the “national media” – well The Times cricket blog, whose author just happens to also play for The Times’ team – so I can’t resist a little link. Sadly, it doesn’t record our sterling victory over the Daily Mail on Saturday, but rather our abject defeat. I would add that we very much got the worst of a wet pitch.

And me? Well I did hit a rather nice four through point – as well as I’ve timed a cricket shot in many a while – in fact it skipped through deep point’s legs before he’d even reacted. I was amused by his explanation to his captain: “I just didn’t expect it!”

Permalink | Comment (0)

What blogs can really do

August 21, 2006 – 1:11 am

Next time you’re talking to a blog-sceptic, who says “but isn’t it just a whole heap of self-important, self-obsessed navel-gazing?”, I’ve got the link for you. Over on Blogcritics, a series written by a young (19-year-old) man learning to work with his first guide dog. It will open your eyes.

Permalink | Comment (1)

The missing women

August 20, 2006 – 11:42 pm

This month’s Le Monde Diplomatique has a roundup of the current state of sex discrimination against foetuses and young children. The story itself is behind a paywall, but the raw data is here, and frightening.

The worst figure is in Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces in China, where there are 138 baby boys born for every 100 girls.

Permalink | Comment (0)

A Labour? government

August 20, 2006 – 9:33 am

Really, aren’t they breaching the “Truth in Advertising Act”? A former senior Labour minister calling for an end to inheritance tax. (And I heard a cogent argument this morning saying that Stephen Byers is being used by Tony Blair in his “battle” against his own Treasurer.)

Tory PM, “Labour” government.

Permalink | Comments (4)

Towards a carbon-neutral house

August 19, 2006 – 10:12 am

Matthew Parris sets out his plans. For him obviously money is no object, but it is interesting to see the possibilities explored, and no doubt he’ll report back on how it does.

Permalink | Comment (0)

An aristocratic gardener

August 19, 2006 – 10:10 am

One for the booklist: My Darling Heriott: Henrietta Luxborough, Poetic Gardener and Irrepressible Exile, reviewed this morning in the Guardian.

By the time Henrietta was in her 30s her gilded life had lost its shine. In 1727 she married Robert Knight, the son of the chief cashier of the infamous South Sea Company. Robert was pompous and vulgar, and Henrietta suddenly found herself in the company of men who talked only of money instead of poetry, gardens or art. She found companionship with a young poet, though she insisted that “the passion was platonick”. When the scandal broke in 1736, her furious husband sent her to his Warwickshire estate, Barrells, to “moulder and die”. Virtually imprisoned, she was not to see London, her two children or most of her friends for many years. Gardening helped her to keep her sanity, and My Darling Heriott reminds us of the unrivalled therapeutic value of nature, muddied fingers and the sprouting of seedlings.

Permalink | Comment (0)

« Previous Page — Next Page »

« Previous Page — Next Page »