The day started with the Punto going in for its annual service and MOT and ended after a diagnosis including the need for new oil sump and clutch with us ordering a new Kia Rio 2 for collection after the holiday …
The Punto lasted us for 10 years and it was originally bought with the Multipla cash following my redundancy from Yorkshire Electricity.
Rachael did the taxi service to get me to and from work for the rest of the week.
Rachael and I went to this wedding reception on Sunday evening at a hotel in Huddersfield. Good to catch up with Alan and Audrey. Loved the hot beef baps and curly chips.
Isaac continues his love of X Box playing and has that as his theme for his party at The Edge Project base opposite the church.
Great time of games including air hockey, pool. table football and several X Box 360 games. Hot dogs and muffins for tea and an amazing Angry Birds themed-cake.
Ballet run with Isobel.
Did the annual weeding of the back yard and emptied the house of all the stuff for the tip. Usual ironing in the afternoon.
Rachael out to a hen night in Sheffield while the kids and I feasted on lasagne with garlic bread and a tasty cheesecake.
Isaac sang in the choir including solos at 4 performances of “Oliver” this week. We went to see him tonight with Jean, Michelle, Emma and Charlotte. Hilary, Tracy and John A went on the Thursday.
Great performance and really good seeing Isaac giving it loads.
The paper has essentially changed neither its ownership nor its character during its long life
Guardian article
The Guardian 190th anniversary – in pictures
Naval commander who persuaded Margaret Thatcher that a task force could be sent from Britain to recapture the Falkland Islands
Guardian obituary
Wikipedia entry
Martin Webster possessed an instinctive ability to tell a story with clever camera use and a keen knowledge of sport
Guardian obituary
Stuart Storey tribute
A newly discovered archive will illuminate his relationships as well as the emergence of his later thought
Guardian lead article in the regular In praise of … series
Sir Geoffrey Chandler, who has died aged 88, was one of the earliest mainstream business figures to champion the lately fashionable idea of corporate social responsibility. As a senior Shell executive in 1976, he swam against the corporate tide to instigate and introduce the company's first Statement of General Business Principles. This was well ahead of anything other multinationals were even contemplating at the time and – despite Shell's misdemeanours since then – represented a cutting-edge acknowledgement that companies have a moral duty to behave responsibly on social and environmental matters.
Guardian obituary
Producer and Chic mastermind Nile Rodgers tells Paul Lester about jamming with Hendrix, flatlining after a cocaine binge with Mickey Rourke and walking on 'Planet C'
….
That's instead of the usual product plug, and Rodgers has good reason to plug his product – a four-CD box set containing some of the most influential and beautiful music of the last 35 years, hits such as I Want Your Love, Le Freak, My Forbidden Lover and Good Times, Sister Sledge's Chic-penned Lost in Music, We Are Family and He's the Greatest Dancer, Sheila & B Devotion's Spacer and Diana Ross's Upside Down and I'm Coming Out.
Guardian article
The evocative theme music for the long-running television series All Creatures Great and Small and the orchestral accompaniments on Top of the Pops were among the many accomplishments of the pianist and composer Johnny Pearson, who has died aged 85. With a background in classical music and jazz, Pearson had a long career that spanned light music and easy listening.
Guardian obituary
Interesting to read that he arranged number 1 hits for Cilla Black.
The importance of typography, and design more generally, is now widely accepted. It was the virtue of the typographer and teacher Paul Stiff, who has died aged 61, to ask unsettling questions, such as does it work?
Guardian obituary
Test cricket remains something to glory in, a peerless contest of teams and individuals
Guardian lead article in the regular In praise of … series
A fan of Patsy’s after SCD and knew about her marriages to Jim Kerr and Liam Gallagher.
Guardian article in the weekly Guardian My Family Values series
How Tesco chief Sir Terry Leahy changed the way Britain shops
Sir Terry Leahy steps down after turning Tesco into UK's dominant supermarket and world's third largest retailer
Guardian article
Advertised in an edition of The Guardian.
Mass in 40 Parts: a masterpiece, 400 years late
How do you play and record a lost Renaissance mass? I Fagiolini and I found out.
Twenty or so years ago, the musicologist Davitt Moroney came across a reference in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris to a 40-part mass by a composer he had never heard of, someone called "Strusco". Forty vocal lines in one piece of music? It had been done – in 1561, the Florentine court composer Alessandro Striggio had written a motet with 40 individual parts at the behest of his employer, Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, to celebrate the visit of two Catholic dignitaries, en route from Rome to Paris. And in 1571 Thomas Tallis, inspired by a visit Striggio made to London in 1567, had written Spem in Alium, another work for 40 voices – but it was still a strange thing to uncover. Most choral music is written for a few individual vocal lines. You can have as many singers as you like on each, but there are still only those few lines. In Verdi's Requiem, the choir may be 200-strong, but there are just four parts.
Guardian article
Guardian review
Observer review
Wikipedia entry for Alessandro Striggio
A shocking double attack in Norway with the 2nd one at a political youth camp
BBC report
Guardian article
Our girls are big fans …
Hilary Duff's gone. Miley Cyrus is going. But Disney has a new star groomed. Welcome to the Selena Gomez phenomenon
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When the Sun Goes Down is her third LP of amiable powerpop in less than two years, which says something about how assiduously she's exploiting her time in the spotlight. The same period has also produced a Disney TV series – Wizards of Waverly Place – and no fewer than six movies, ensuring that fans have plenty of Gomez in their lives. Naturally, she's also busy tweeting and Facebooking, and has lent her name to the inevitable perfume and fashion ranges.
Guardian article
Videos for the singles from the album:
Master of figurative painting who related to his subjects' characters through stark portraiture
Guardian interview
Guardian artist page
Wikipedia entry
My top five Lucian Freud paintings
Despite background the 15-year-old girl is already country's number two player and has competed at World Chess Olympiad
Guardian interview
Viewed by 400m people a month all over the world, Wikipedia has become the go-to website for anybody wanting to find out anything. Its founder Jimmy Wales talks to Aida Edemariam
Guardian interview
Main subjects this evening were Madisons Cafe profitability and the financing of the Edge Proiect.
Sarah Brown, 47, was born in Buckinghamshire. Having gained a psychology degree from Bristol University, she went on to launch a PR firm, Hobsbawm Macaulay. In 2000, she married Gordon Brown, who was prime minister from June 2007 to May 2010. She is president of the charity PiggyBankKids and patron of Wellbeing of Women, Women's Aid and Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres. She is also global patron of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. Her memoir about her time in Downing Street, Behind The Black Door, has just been published. The family live in North Queensferry, Fife.
Guardian article
Previously blogged about Natalia when I heard about her charity work for the Naked Heart Foundation which helps to build playgrounds in Russia.
When you become a mother, you think less about yourself and care more about the world. I believe in a higher purpose. As a parent, it's heartbreaking to see other children suffering. I started my charity in 2005, after the Beslan tragedy [the 2004 school siege in which at least 339 hostages were killed]. We built our first one in my hometown of Nizhny Novgorod in 2006. The children absolutely loved it. It's important they can get lost in play, even for a few minutes.
Guardian article
Attended this with Jean.
Hannah got a 100% attendance award.
This was Canon Gordon Dey’s last official engagement with the school as he retires from St Christopher’s Church (where the ceremony was held) and stands down as Chair of Governors. An amazing job he has done over 20+ years in both roles. He got a wonderful gift of a handwritten bound St John’s gospel with each verse written by a member of a staff or a pupil. Very emotional when that was announced …. (this year was the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of The Bible).
Big fan of Martin Sheen after his portrayal of the US President in The West Wing. Even more so after hearing his recent Desert Island Discs.
Martin Sheen stars in a new film, directed by his son Emilio Estevez, which is about a lost child. Inevitably, finds Joanna Moorhead, the subject of another of Martin's offspring comes up, the troubled Charlie Sheen
Guardian interview
Having been chancellor himself – the zenith of his 18-year run of ministerial jobs under Thatcher and then Major; he left that post having halved the budget deficit – what does it feel like to watch another Conservative do the job? "It's very hard work, the budget – six months of very hard work. And I used to take the view, on budget day, that apart from anything else, one can enjoy it a bit. So if I felt in the mood I gave quite lively budget speeches and quite enjoyed the occasion. I think George enjoyed yesterday."
Guardian interview
A big fan of Nicky Campbell, mainly for his Radio 5 Live work and his often hilarious tweets.
The TV and radio presenter talks about his family
Guardian Family Values article
There was a time when Vince Cable could do no wrong. He was the voice of reason; unafraid to tell the truth and someone who understood public anger. Now, a year into the coalition, his halo has well and truly slipped. Can he restore his reputation?
Guardian interview
A spicy, sticky afternoon treat – perfect with a cup of strong coffee
Guardian recipe
Love his comments on Radio 5 Live’s 606.
Savage, in other words, has left his mark on the Premier League. He spent 11 years in the top flight and admits he has "probably overachieved because there have been thousands of players out there with more ability than me". Yet what the Welshman has lacked in finesse, he has more than made up for with his work ethic and passion for the game. Savage lives and breathes football, which is why retirement, even at the age of 36, has been such a big decision.
Guardian interview
Robbie Savage: 2011 Sony DAB Rising Star Award winning entry
Delighted that Darren Clark won the British Open and glad that the last round was not a nail biter.
Darren Clarke kept his nerve to clinch his maiden major title with a three-shot victory in the Open at Royal St George's.
BBC report
Guardian article
Got a fair amount of sympathy for this tennis proposal!
Imagine if the neophobes at the Lawn Tennis Association were to pioneer a ban on second serves
Guardian lead article in the regular Unthinkable series
Publisher’s book page
Guardian review
Guardian digested read
Caitlin Moran's new book, How to Be a Woman, is a no-holds-barred polemic (with lots of jokes) about modern feminism. She talks about what inspired it, followed by an exclusive extract
Guardian interview
Official site
Press Awards 2011: Times journalist's Caitlin Moran's acceptance speech for interviewer of the year (video)
With Rachael and Isaac at a car boot sale raising money for Isaac’s American trip it was just me and the girls at church this morning, including breakfast at church.
Ronnie E did a songs of praise type service including interviews on what faith means to you with Dave H, Val, Rebecca and Margaret H. Great stuff.
What is it like to live in a Scottish wilderness, with just three other families as neighbours? Ghastly isolation, or blissful tranquillity?
Guardian article about living in Doune on Knoydart
A traditional chestnut-coloured unisex leather satchel, made in the UK by a mother-and-daughter team, has unexpectedly taken the fashion world by storm. The Cambridge Satchel Company has become 2011's accidental multimillion-pound global hit, and is competing for popularity with international mega-league brands.
Guardian article
With its invocations of the Book of Job and breathy incantations about the "way of nature and the way of grace", Terrence Malick's Palme d'Or-winning The Tree of Life begins more like a prayer than a movie. It demands hush and attention but it also craves reverence; it certainly requires calm, a work that needs to be watched, not just recollected, in tranquillity. Observer review
Guardian film site
Wikipedia entry
Terrence Malick: act of creation (Guardian article)
New York Times review
The former Roxy Music synth twiddler's fingerprints are all over hits by U2, Coldplay and David Bowie, but he's most fascinated by musicians who 'don't completely understand their territory'
Guardian interview
Perpetual curiosity and the nature of seeing inform the German photographer's art
Guardian review
Guardian picture stream
Guardian interview
Wikipedia entry
Virtual tour
Exhibition page (Whitechapel Gallery)
