http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/weblog/ en-us 2008-02-08T20:45:52+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000039.html So Peter Hain spent over £100,000 to finish fifth out of six for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Presumably much went on mailings to electors. I've seen no figures of money spent in the LibDem leadership election, but the... Politics Richard Hall 2008-02-08T20:45:52+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000038.html What is Archbishop Rowan Williams on about? He knows much more about theology in general and about Islam than I can ever know, but - 1. There are so many varieties of Sharia Law, relating to branches of Islam and... Practical Theology: Economics and Politics Richard Hall 2008-02-08T18:55:17+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000037.html Monday's Guardian today lamented the lack of diversity in ten new judges - all white males, only one from a British state school, three from from Oxford, two from Cambridge. But this does not mean the selection was not based... Richard Hall 2008-01-28T14:17:08+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000036.html 25 years ago, Mary's Uncle Syd gave us a black bottle of German wine: 1982 Albiger Petersberg Auslese Anbaugebiet Rheinhessen For some reason we didn’t drink it soon after. It was marked “Qualitatswein mit Pradicat”, but what was its real... Food and Drink Richard Hall 2008-01-24T20:45:12+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000035.html So Menzies Campbell, the one I voted for, has gone. I think he would have done well had an Election come now; his maturity and decency would have contrasted favourably with the shallowness of Cameron and his band of Old... Politics Richard Hall 2007-10-16T12:42:12+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000034.html Have returned from seven days in Aalborg (Denmark) as the guests of our old friends Anne Karin and Hans Petersen. The main highlights were converse with them and their daughter and second son whom we had last seen when they... Travel Richard Hall 2007-09-27T12:24:44+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000033.html The Three Choirs Festival: Gloucester 2007 This was probably – we're not quite sure – our 16th Festival since 1991. We stayed from Tuesday to Saturday at Linton Farm, just off the A40 near Highnam, about 5 miles northwest of... Music Richard Hall 2007-08-23T12:45:34+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000032.html The Day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. In last week's "Church Times" Paul Oestreicher expressed the now conventional view that this was a war crime (200,000 died in an instant and thousands more later) – and calls... War and Peace Richard Hall 2007-08-07T11:42:45+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000031.html Nick Cohen in the introduction to his "What's Left: how liberals lost their way" (review to come) remembers his childhood in a political family in the 1970s. For political reasons, his mother would not buy oranges from Spain, Portugal, South... Personal History Richard Hall 2007-05-28T16:49:19+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000030.html Simon Schama in his "Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution" (BBC, 2006) tells us many things that are new - to me at least. I knew that escaped slaves fought for the crown, but I didn't know... Practical Theology: Economics and Politics Richard Hall 2007-04-30T22:35:52+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000029.html BBC Lunchtime News main item was today's rise in and extension of London's Congestion Charge, and plans to introduce road pricing into other cities (not yet but in some years time). This news was introduced as something more to "hit"... Economics, General Richard Hall 2007-02-19T17:35:41+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000028.html Looking through my files I realised that I had never done anything with this review I wrote over three years ago. It still seems topical so here it is! John Atherton: Marginalization, SCM 2003, £14.99 Eric James in his review... Local Economy: Social Exclusion Richard Hall 2007-01-31T22:52:43+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000027.html The obituary of Bruce Kenrick in today's Guardian brings back memories. It is as the founder of Shelter in 1966 that Mary and I remember him (a fact which the obituarist believes not many do). Shelter was a charity set... Local Economy: Social Exclusion Richard Hall 2007-01-19T15:56:11+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000026.html At the end of 2005, according to the Government "Annual Business Inquiry" published today, there were 75 thousand people employed in Slough, 57% male and 43% female. Perhaps subject to small boundary changes, the total is four thousand, 5%, down... Local Economy: Employment Richard Hall 2007-01-17T21:57:38+00:00 http://www.richard-hall.co.uk/archives/000025.html There's a lot of bigotry about. Often from those who reckon to be against bigotry. Some examples: 1 Today in London a demo demands that a ballerina of the English National Ballet should be sacked because an undercover reporter from... Practical Theology: What's Going On? Richard Hall 2007-01-12T18:35:03+00:00