prussianblue

Ancram is a good source of trivia. His surname isn't actually Ancram. Family name is Kerr, but he was the Earl of Ancram until he succeeded as Marquess of Lothian in 2004. He could remain in the Commons after that because hereditary peers no longer have an automatic right to sit in the Lords. He's in the Lords now, not because he's a marquess, but because he now also has a life peerage. He's the only marquess in the Lords.

Now two days later we have the death of Alistair Darling, the successful candidate in the neighbouring constituency of Edinburgh Central in 1987.

Belated happy birthday to Franco Nero, who turned 82 yesterday.

I can't read 'liver cancer' without hearing it in the voice of Al Pacino as Roy Cohn in Angels in America.

Influential Luxembourgian architect and urban designer Rob Krier, brother of the even more influential Luxembourgian architect and urban designer Léon, dead at 85. https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/rob-krier-dies-aged-85/5126474.article

Lovely to see some of these faces, especially Carole Ann Ford as I'm working my way through her episodes. However, Tennant aside, is there not a conspicuous lack of the doctors themselves in these celebrations?

It had to be Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-67478628

Coffey claiming that she 'nearly died' due to the stress of high office: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-67415285

Peter Mandelson when he was brought back by Brown? First Secretary of State is by definition senior, even if not one of the Great Offices. Arguably he was the most powerful member of that government!

I was meaning a former PM coming back for a lesser role, rather than the inter-House gymnastics required to do so. Douglas-Home got to do Commons > Lords > Commons > Lords over the course of his career

There's previous for this. Alec Douglas-Home came back to be Foreign Secretary for the entirety of the Heath government.

Antisemitic or anti-Zionist? They aren't the same thing.

Manchin a 'moderate', ha! He's practically a Republican.

The Daredevil has recommended more people for deathlisting than Stalin.

You're selling her short, she's an Oscar winner too (Best Supporting Actress, 1975).

Australia baulked at the cost, no doubt. We do seem to be at a point where you only get a viable World Cup if the vast expense is a) shared between multiple countries, or b) shouldered entirely by an unsavoury autocratic regime desperate for good publicity or a domestic distraction.

Beat me to it. BuffaloPhil's comment re. a carbon-neutral tournament got that bit more pointed. All sorts of PR gymnastics will be required with that host nation

Sad but not shocked. He was always going to be the first to die.

The mighty ranks of Alba now swollen by Ash Regan. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67248844

Library in question is Edinburgh Central Library, so few Tories to worry about around here. Haven't run the council since 1980.

I *may* have hidden Nadine's novels behind other books when I saw them in the library the other day...

You only see what your eyes want to see.

The Chinese prefer forcibly retiring people and letting them live in respectable obscurity to the crude Russian approach to purging.

What's your point, exactly? TQR said *meant* to happen, I said it was for the best it didn't. Neither of us thought it was going to happen today.

Given the storm cutting a swathe across much of the country, probably for the best it didn't happen.