75 years since the bombing of Guernica

Picasso – Guernica 1937
On the afternoon of Monday 26th April 1937 , the Basque market town of Guernica was almost completely destroyed by bombs dropped by Franco’s fascist allies.
After much shameful prevarication from the British government 4000 Basque children were accepted as evacuees and brought to Britain aged 5 to 12 under the condition that they were to be returned to Spain as soon as possible and that their parents were not to accompany them. In order to console their children, mothers told them that it was ‘only for three months’.
www.basquechildren.org

The Oaklands Estate - Cubitt House, Clapham Park London

View from living room window – open quadrangle below

 

  The Oaklands Estate on Poynders Road comprises nearly three acres and is located just south of Clapham Common. The name "Oaklands" is taken from the large house and grounds, which formerly occupied the site. The scheme was designed by the London County Council architect, E. P. Wheeler, who was responsible for many of the inter war public housing estates. Built during 1935 and 1936. This project was one of the first to qualify for the Government subsidy payable under the Housing Act of 1935, introduced to provide housing for the relief of overcrowding. 'Up with the houses and down with the slums' was the Labour Party slogan in 1934, when for the first time the Party, gained control of the LCC.
   Slum clearance and new public housing had been taking place for decades but the demand for land from private builders and local opposition to the presence of public housing meant that the L.C.C. rebuilding programme was only able to operate effectively in a few areas. Almost half of the L.C.C.'s new tenement blocks constructed in the 1930's were put up in only four boroughs Southwark, Lewisham, Wandsworth and Lambeth. These boroughs were politically sympathetic and land was still available at reasonable prices.
E. P. Wheeler designed Oaklands Estate in true 1930's Cunard ocean liner style with strong sweeping balconies curving round the facade. A strikingly moderne style which was at its peak of popularity by the mid 1930's.
       The layout of the scheme is in the form of two open quadrangles, so that the living rooms generally have a southerly aspect and overlook Poynders Road. The blocks are five storeys high, with the top two storeys designed as maisonettes. The total accommodation comprises 185 flats, of which 25 have two rooms, 113 three rooms, 42 four rooms and 5 five rooms, housing, originally, approximately 900 people.

The ZX Spectrum – 23rd April 1982 Celebrating 30 years

Since the launch of the ZX80 computer two years earlier, a restless British inventor Clive Sinclair was interested in an affordable  home computer for the masses. It could be bought at WH Smith for £125

We had one – amazing, need I say more!

Esk Valley Railway to Whitby – North East Yorkshire 30-03-12

Stone horse trough in the foreground

No plaque to this statue in front of the YHA - Looks like an ancient Greek statue of a relay race runner passing the baton.

Whitby Abbey

Whitby haddock and chips – the best we have tasted for years!

David Hockney Exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts

David Hockney - 'Woldgate Woods, November 2006. Oil on 6 canvases. 182 x 366 cm. Photo : Richard Schmidt

The Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major exhibition of new landscape works by David Hockney RA. Featuring vivid paintings inspired by the East Yorkshire landscape, these large-scale works have been created especially for the galleries at the Royal Academy of Arts.

'David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' spans a 50 year period to demonstrate Hockney’s long exploration and fascination with the depiction of landscape.

The exhibition includes a display of his iPad drawings and a series of new films produced using 18 cameras, which are displayed on multiple screens and provide a spellbinding visual journey through the eyes of David Hockney.

When will we ever learn – a sad day for our NHS - Tuesday 20th March 2012

NHS services face radical restructuring after the ‘Health and Social Care Bill’ passed its final hurdle in parliament. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

After 14 months of bitter debate in Parliament and huge protests throughout the UK, the public's concern culminated in an eleventh hour bid with a 600,000-strong petition to drop the Bill, organised by campaign group 38 Degrees and presented by former Social Democratic Party leader Lord Owen.

He demanded the Bill be stopped until the risk document was published as "risks go to the core of this legislation."

He shocked fellow peers by saying that many people consider David Cameron's promise that there would be no top-down reorganisation of the NHS "a flagrant lie." Peers defeated Lord Owen's bid to pause the Bill 328 to 213.

An emergency debate called by Labour had the potential to delay the Bill until an internal assessment of risks had been published.

The Commons defeated the motion by 328 to 246 - a majority of 82. No Lib Dem MPs sided with the opposition, with the most vocal critics choosing to abstain.

Spring in Middlesbrough - North East Yorkshire

A late batch of Seville orange marmalade made 10th March 2012!

Blackthorn

Pussy Willow

Flowering cherry

In the distance is the famous Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge, opened in 1911 and still in operation. It remains the largest of the Transporter Bridges operating worldwide, and provides a valuable public transport service, crossing the river Tees in two minutes!

Our National Health Service Act 1946 – 2012 and its architect Aneurin Bevan.

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan (pronounced a’nai.rin)15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people. He was a long-time Member of Parliament representing Ebbw Vale, Wales for 31 years, and became recognised as one of the leaders of the party’s left wing, and of left-wing British thought generally. His most famous accomplishment came when, as Minister of Health in the post-war Attlee government, he spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service in 1946, which to this day provides medical care free at point-of-need to all Britons. The principle being that ... no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means. After 18 months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals. Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had "stuffed their mouths with gold". Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister.

“the NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.” Aneurin Bevan

Shame on the Conservative Government - in their new Public Reading Stage for Bills before Parliament. the weasel word is ‘eligible’

Given that 162,820+ citizens signed the petition to drop the NHS Bill, why is it do you think that in the last hour the Backbench Business Committee has voted to block a debate in the House of Commons to Drop the NHS Bill? A Liberal Democrat MP who cast a vote on the committee joined with the Tories to ensure no debate took place. The Lib Dem MP, John Hemming who voted to block a debate on the 162,000+ strong petition argued that the committee should not waste any more time debating the Health and Social Care Bill because other issues such as Human Rights in Russia needed to be debated.

This is one of the very many reasons that this NHS Bill is the grossest violation of democracy the UK has suffered in more than 3 centuries. Only 14% of voters support the bill, the government has no mandate for reforms since page 45 of the Tory manifesto omitted private involvement in the NHS. In addition, this is the least transparent piece of legislation since the Freedom of Information Act, what with the burying of the Risk Register against the Information Commissioner's will & the denial of a debate despite 160,000 signatures.

In August 2010, David Cameron told MPs "One of the points of the new e-petitions website is to make sure that if a certain level of signatures is reached, the matter will be debated in the House, whether we like it or not. That is an important way of empowering people." Sadly, he lied.

By Dr Éoin Clarke (PhD)

Ibiza - Almendros-flor 01-03-2012

The Almond trees are blooming right now in Ibiza! All the photographs below are by our friend Pilar Meira Sanchez who has lived this lovely island for nearly 30 years.

Amazing! – Botanic Gardens Singapore 04-12-11

Found when trawling through old photographs!

Current fear that the NHS will need a huge ‘bale-out’ (read payment to private investors to ‘save’ the NHS) before the next general election!

"Ministers fear that the National Health Service could require an emergency cash bailout before the next general election to enable it to cope with the escalating demands of an ageing population."
The Bill is not even passed yet and they are already making excuses for it's failure.

The elderly are living too long, they just won't die quickly enough. If they had any decency they would just die quietly somewhere. How long till we hear that some child can't get an operation because there are too many old people in hospital. you know old people, the ones who have paid into the system all their lives and are now using the system that they have paid for.
How many more vulnerable groups of people are this government going to pick on, how many more people without a voice are they going to demonize, how many more are they going to crush
Mostly how much more of this bull$hit are we going to eat, how hard does it have to get before people get angry.

The continuing hypocrisy of the Rich

What is astonishing is that they are so consistently let off the hook for it. Nobody bats an eyelid today at a campaign against homelessness, featuring a politician who would sooner sell his own mother than interfere in the exploitative buy-to-let market; or a coffee chain publicising its fair trade credentials while preventing its own workers from joining a union. Both will stand on a soap box and espouse their unflinching dedication to the downtrodden – and both will be given an extraordinarily easy-ride by the media when doing so.

As Clement Atlee pointed out over half a century ago, “charity is a cold, grey, loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.”

Ibiza - Sant Agusti walk 14-02-12

Almond blossoms about to transform Ibiza! Not for us to see since this was our last day on the Island. Nevertheless we have seen an Ibiza that many of the local people know and love.

Almost hidden away – another old well

Small yet striking – a member of the daisy family, just now a carpet of yellow below the almond trees.

Also in bloom now, delicate stems support a small cluster of white heads. Difficult to photograph in the slightest breeze.

Ibiza – Snow in Sant Antoni 13-02-12

Snow arrives – not seen here for over 50 years!

Floodwaters

Built in 1879 and beautifully restored