TV weatherman, who is Bob Monkhouse’s secret love child, rocks up down under

Back in 2007 I blogged about BBC TV weatherman, Dan Corbett, positing that he is Bob Monkhouse’s secret love child:

The slick hand movements. The comedic, chummy mid-Atlantic delivery. The clever little lines. The physical features.

It’s all there.

The little pointy hand gesture at the end is the clincher.

I hadn’t thought about Dan Corbett at all for twelve years, but I suppose in the back of my mind I had wondered:

Whatever happened to the TV weatherman who is Bob Monkhouse’s secret love child?

Well, imagine my surprise when, recently watching New Zealand’s prime 6pm national TV news show, lo and behold, up pops the cheery weatherman in flight above a contor map of New Zealand!

Internal migration in the UK

It’s not generally known that the Office for National Statistics publishes a wealth of data on the subject of internal migration into the UK.

With their data, it is possible to identify how many people moved from one region to another in the UK. Indeed, it can even be narrowed down to local authority area.

As an example, I have done a dump of the data and produced the pie chart above. This shows how many people moved to Devon, and from which region (I’ve used “super regions”) during the period for which the latest data is available – that is the year ending June 2018.

It is interesting that, overwhelmingly, most people, or 81%, who moved to Devon during that period did so from the South of England, that is the South West, South East and London.

New house building stats: Highest building rates are in South Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire

The latest government figures for the completion of new houses show that the highest rates of building are in South Derbyshire, Harborough (Leicestershire) and Rugby (Warwickshire). that is for the twelve months to June 2019.

Here’s a map showing the rate of new builds across the country:

Government statistics also show that “affordable housing” build rates are at historically very low levels. For example, in 1969-70, 306,860 houses were completed in the UK and 47% of these were offered by Housing Associations or Local Authorities. In 2018-19 only 169,070 houses were completed and only 18% of these were offered by Housing Associations or Local Authorities.

In the West Country, Second Homes continue to be a big issue, Exeter blogger Euan Trower notes:

The demand for housing, especially in rural areas, is down to the sickening number of second homes which is killing off the local way of life. A survey in 2011 showed that there were 4000 second homes in the South Hams alone. The Influx of people coming for “a slice of country life” is driving up house prices and driving out local people. The same survey showed that in 2010, the house-wage affordability ratio for Devon was 2.52 points above the rest of England, with that gap expected to rise. Farmer’s barns, the old mill, the old bakery, the old shop, the old forge, they’ve all been converted into houses, many of them only lived in for half the year.

In praise of @MarcusJBall

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Marcus Ball has announced that he can no longer move forward with his legal fight to hold Boris Johnson responsible for his “£350 million a week” red bus statement.

This young man has put up an extraordinary fight over the last three and a half years.

Goodness knows, there are many roads to riches in the legal profession.

Professor Longhair meets Lilly Allen

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I have blogged previously about the odd coincidence which led me to discover the exquisite musical mayhem created by the late Professor Longhair.

To listen to his version of “Rum and Cola” is to properly live life IMHO.

But I made a remarkable discovery yesterday.

I was listening to my “BIG” playlist on Spotify (where I dump virtually anything with vague musical merit) and, lo and behold, I came across one of the Fess’s tunes called: “Big Chief” (play below).

Yes, it’s a bit strange saying “I came across” it, as it’s my playlist and I put everything in there.

But I can’t honestly remember shoving it in there. It just goes to show what great taste I have. 😉

Anyway, I re-heard this tune and was rather puzzled:

Why did Professor Longhair, habitué of New Orleans, copy a Lilly Allen tune? – That’s Lilly Allen of “I believe that is called Al Fresco” and step-daughter of Harry Enfield-fame

– was my initial reaction.

Any road up, after readjusting my eyesight a few times, it turns out, logically of course, that Professor Longhair was sampled by Lilly Allen in her tune “Knock ’em out”.

I had no idea.

….Which just goes to show at what level of ignorance I blithely scuttle through life.

Johnson has deeply split the Tory party – on an historic level

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It is worth standing back and pausing to consider how remarkable the historic split in the Tory party has been under PM Johnson is just a few weeks.

“One Nation” Tories have been the backbone of the Conservative party for a couple of centuries. But now they have been cast out of the party.

This extraordinary split can be seen in the words of two “One Nation” Tories who now sit in Parliament as independents.

The Rise of the Nazis – some parallels today?

Anyone who has flicked around cable TV channels will know that somewhere in the world you can always watch: (1) Friends and (2) Lots of Nazis goose-stepping backwards and forwards on history channels.

So, it was with some trepidation that I saw that the BBC were to air “The Rise of the Nazis”.

I expected yet another compilation of black and white clips of goose-stepping soldiers.