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Lumiere — A Festival of Light

by Richard Elen 23 November 2011
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Last week­end I was lucky enough to get up to Durham, in the NE of Eng­land, to spend a cou­ple of nights expe­ri­enc­ing the lat­est event from Arti­choke, titled Lumiere. And a mag­nif­i­cent event it was too.

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Christmas(ish) At Beamish

by Richard Elen 23 November 2011
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A visit to Beamish — “The Liv­ing Museum of the North” — is always an excel­lent expe­ri­ence, but espe­cially so at Christmas.

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75 Years of BBC Television

by Richard Elen 5 November 2011
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Wednes­day 2nd Novem­ber saw the 75th anniver­sary of the open­ing of the BBC Tele­vi­sion Ser­vice. To com­mem­o­rate the event, the BBC held a spe­cial cel­e­bra­tion at Alexan­dra Palace, where the Ser­vice opened. I was lucky enough to get an invitation.

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“Hattie’s Map” Unveiled At Last

by Richard Elen 8 August 2011
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The mak­ing of “Hattie’s Map” – a trib­ute to a local res­i­dent, unveiled recently in the heart of the NW Cam­bridgeshire town of Somer­sham, in the form of an aer­ial map of the Parish with his­toric places of inter­est – cre­ated by yours truly.

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Nuclear Power You Can Trust?

by Richard Elen 21 June 2011
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Cur­rent nuclear power tech­nol­ogy is prob­a­bly safe – safer than fos­sil fuels in both the long and short-term. But can we trust any­one to build and oper­ate nuclear power sta­tions safely? Prob­a­bly not. Here’s news of a pos­si­ble alternative.

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Re-learning basic life skills

by Richard Elen 19 June 2011
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Learn­ing to tie your shoelaces — for the third time.

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Peripatetic Dining with Alice

by Richard Elen 15 May 2011
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I recently attended Artichoke’s “Din­ing with Alice” at Els­ing Hall in Nor­folk – a won­der­ful com­bi­na­tion of the­atrics and al fresco din­ing in the grounds of a mar­vel­lously trans­formed 15th-century manor house.

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UK Local Elections 2011: Goodbye Compromise

by Richard Elen 6 May 2011
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Why did the Lib Dems do so badly yes­ter­day? The short answer is “prob­a­bly not what you think.“

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Time to change the voting system

by Richard Elen 26 April 2011
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On 5 May in the UK, we’ll have a choice: whether to keep the “First Past The Post” vot­ing sys­tem, where the per­son who gets the most votes in an elec­tion wins – even if under half those who cast a vote actu­ally voted for them, or instead opt for the fairer “Alter­na­tive Vote” (AV) system.

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A sad day for virtual Frank Lloyd Wright fans

by Richard Elen 3 December 2010

The Frank Lloyd Wright Vir­tual Museum in Sec­ond Life is widely regarded not only as a won­der­ful reviv­i­fi­ca­tion of the legacy of America’s great­est archi­tect, but as one of the major points of inter­est in Sec­ond Life and one held in high regard by archi­tects and those of an artis­tic bent, many of whom are drawn to vir­tual worlds. Now the FLVW is being forced to close as a result of a deci­sion by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foun­da­tion to end their licens­ing agreement.

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