Killer Corrie Quotes (No.2) - Albert Tatlock on Annie Walker

Next Monday sees a great tram crash in Coronation Street. It sets the scene for a dramatic week of deaths, a wedding and a birth - just a normal week in suburban Manchester then!

It will culminate with the soap celebrating its 50th birthday next Thursday, 9th December with a live 1 hour episode.

To pay tribute to the world's longest current runnning soap, I'm blogging a quote a day from Corrie's past up until the big day.

'Uncle' Albert Tatlock (Ken Barlow's uncle through marriage) was the old grouch on the street and when his real-life alter-ego Jack Howarth passed away in 1984, so did Albert. The year before, 1983, saw the introduction of Percy Sugden who would fill Albert's grumpy old shoes perfectly.

Annie Walker was the long-time matriach of the Rovers Return who didn't suffer fools gladly.

So, quote No.2...

"Annie Walker'd attend her own funeral if God let 'er" - Albert Tatlock.

A Russian World Cup? England, Get Over It.

It would've been nice to have seen a Football World Cup in England I must admit. 44 years and waiting and it will be another generation until there's another opportunity.

But, please....calm down!

It really isn't the end of the world. The Universe hasn't come crumbling down on us.

There are actually rather more important things that we need to get right, right now. We're told that a World Cup here would've brought hundreds of millions of pounds into the British economy. Well, that's as well as maybe but there was no guarantee that we'd got it in the first place so we haven't actually lost anything. Indeed, the FA paid £15m in bidding for the tournament and as this BBC article shows, English Councils paid £2.1m themselves as a part of the bid.

FIFA Bias?

I think there can be little doubt that Sepp Blatter, the FIFA President had little enthusiasm for an Enlgish World Cup. Certainly, his association with these Isles have always seemed to have been luke warm to me. The Panorama revelations of last week certainly didn't help and would've given Sepp more power to his elbow.

Panorama has in my opinion, every right to publish what they felt were the facts. Admittedly however, I think it would've been wiser for them to have held back just one week until after yesterday's result. They could still have told the world about their investigations but not imperilled England's World Cup chances whilst doing it.

But in a way, that's by-the-by. England only got 2 votes out of the 22 in the end and were unceremoniously knocked out in the first round of voting. I doubt they'd have got much more even if it wasn't for the controversies that surrounded the vote.

Horizons New - Eastern Europe & the Middle East
FIFA are clearly keen on expanding their World Cup vision to new, untapped commercial lands. Their giving the 2010 World Cup to South Africa was controversial at the time but it turned out to be an excellent competition with security concerns allayed.

Not we're looking eastwards at Russia for 2018 and quite incredibly, Qatar in 2022.

Did Russia use their 'resources' to ensure that they won the vote? Quite probably. What about Qatar? It's as much of a gamble for FIFA as choosing South Africa had been or as it had been for the IOC when they chose China to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

The questions about human rights will arise from the Qatari bid and indeed the 'mafia' culture that is said to exist in Russia should've held more sway with those who voted right? Well, clearly not. The commercial call is a powerful one and breaking into new territories has been the way with FIFA for some time now since they broke into Asia with the Japan/South Korea World Cup in 2002.

Chin Up, Move On

This is the world we live in. FIFA are looking further afield and there's no point getting too het up about it. Until they decide to look again at the more 'traditional' footballing nations to host the game's centrepiece then there's no reason why England need care or bother.

Because at the end of the day, if England are good enough to win the World Cup, then like the likes of Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain they will be able to win a World Cup on foreign soil.

Or is that the problem...do English fans only think they can win the World Cup in their own country as they did in 1966? Maybe there's a deeper sense of insecurity there than they'd care to admit...

Women lead the liberal way forward in Ceredigion

It’s been a good week for the liberal cause in Ceredigion as I've reported today in a guest blog post on the Welsh Lib Dem blogging site Freedom Central.

First of all, we chose our Welsh Assembly candidate for the May election last weekend. We have very wisely chosen Cllr Elizabeth Evans from Aberaeron – head and shoulders the best candidate for the job. For the past 5 years she has worked as the Senior Caseworker for our local Welsh Lib Dem MP Mark Williams. She has grasped the cases that have come through his door with a professionalism but also with a empathetic ear that is crucial in the job.

She was also elected to Ceredigion County Council in 2008 as the member for her home town of Aberaeron and has been an insightful and active representative since her election. She followed her grandfather by becoming Mayor of Aberaeron last year and is now the Chair of the County Council’s Economic Development Scrutiny Committee.

Her past experience as a self-employed businesswomen and in retail and her recognition for her European credentials as a past recipient of the Welsh European of the Year award as well as her long-serving commitment to her local community shows that she is a dedicated and tenacious character.

She will carry the liberal flag in Ceredigion with pride and with great distinction.

By-Election Success!

We also had a County Council by-election last Tuesday (yes, Tuesday!) where the Welsh Lib Dems managed to gain a very positive 15% swing from Plaid Cymru.

The Ciliau Aeron ward was vacant after the previous Plaid Cymru Councillor, Moelfryn Maskell, was disqualified by the Adjudication Panel of Wales for breaking the Code of Conduct. He was elected in 2008 with 544 votes as opposed to 151 for the Welsh Lib Dems and 117 for an Independent. This time round, they won with a greatly reduced majority scoring 365 compared to 247 with a nominal Conservative presence on 43.

Sonia Williams, the Welsh Liberal Democrat candidate and a local young mother was full of energy and enthusiasm and it was enjoyable to go out canvassing with her – despite the cold and the rain and the snow! She made a very good impression on the door-step and it showed in the result with the Plaid Cymru majority being slashed, coming down as it did from 393 down to just 118.

So, as we enter the Yuletide season, spirits are high in Ceredigion. We have an excellent, hard-working and popular MP in Mark Williams and we’re now being led forward by a new generation of Welsh liberal candidates. Most noticeably is the fact they’re women.

I’ll raise a glass of mulled wine to that and to the future growth of the liberal cause in Ceredigion.

Killer Corrie Quotes (No.1) - Ena Sharples

Next Monday sees a great tram crash in Coronation Street. It sets the scene for a week of deaths, a wedding and a birth - just a normal week in suburban Manchester then!

It will culminate with the soap celebrating its 50th birthday next Thursday, 9th December with a live 1 hour episode.

To pay tribute to the world's longest current runnning soap, I'm going to blog a quote from Corrie's past each day up until the big day.

My first quote comes from the original Cobbles Battle-axe, Ena Sharples. With her hairnet and her milk stout in the Rovers Return Snug alongside Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst, she has become a legend that has spawned the likes of Hilda Ogden, Blanche Hunt, Vera Duckworth and in other soaps the likes of Lou Beale, Pauline Fowler and Annie Sugden.

So, here goes, quote No.1...

"There's some very peculiar people in this Street" - Ena Sharples.

My Internet Stat Porn Monthly Report (3)

Following on from my first two monthly reports on the usage of this site at the end of September and October, here is my third round of blog figures for anyone who is remotely interested in who reads my little blog. These stats come courstesy of google analytics.

A new beginning
After a busy first few months, November has seen me fall into a more regular and stable pattern of blogging on average just over once every other day. I've 19 blogs posts to my name this month - down from the frenetic start of 30 in September and 23 in October.

Here come the stats...
In November, I had 1,024 absolute unique visitors to my blog - up from the 701 in October and 597 in September. The 1,024 visitors visited the blog on 1,396 occasions (up from 1,107 in October) and viewed 1,991 pages (up from 1,711 pages in October). So although I wrote less blog posts this month, those that I have written have attracted greater interest and this is certainly pleasing.

The busiest day of the month on my blog was Thursday 18th November, when I wrote or just after I had written blog posts on being a curious Lib Dem blogger and on a poor no show from Cheryl Gillan at the Institute of Welsh Politics at Aberystwyth University.

The top 10 stories by direct page views that you've read this month were:
1. Vote Wagner to Win (Chris Moyles agrees!)
2. Has Mark Webber Blown It?
3. Facebook - Not all Muslims are Extremists
4. A NUS Protest Backfired
5. It Shouldnt be Nick Cleggs Choice
6. Peter Kay and Freddie Mercury in Concert - a Stunning Combination!
7. Curious Lib Dem Blogger
8. Elizabeth Evans - A Fresh Start for Ceredigion
9. Will Kate & William pay for my Wedding?
10. Martin Bell, Ceredigion's WI and me

I was helped along this month by achieving for the first time, to my great surprise, my first Liberal Democrat Voice 'Top of the Blogs: Golden Dozen' accoldade. This is where the top blog posts read via the libdemblogs aggregator are accumulated in one place each week. The blog post that got me that accolade was A NUS Protest Backfired.

I was also helped by a bemusing interest in my Has Mark Webber Blown It? post - 2 weeks after I wrote it! After the initial interest died down a couple of days after it was published on October 31st, as is usually the case with blog posts, I suddenly found it being read in increasing numbers from November 14th - the day he lost out of the World Championship in the final race. Ever since then, the post has been read by a varying number of readers on a daily basis and continues to do so. A real 'slow burner' of a blog post if ever there was one!

Finally, my Peter Kay and Freddie Mercury in Concert - a Stunning Combination! blog post caught on by my mentioning of Freddie Mercury. I quickly noticed that it had been posted onto a Queen International Fan Club Online chat room and much traffic has come from there since.

So thanks to you all!

Of all of the blog visitors, 15.04% were through direct traffic (up from 12.92%), 61.10% came from referring sites (down from 68.93%) and 23.85% via search engines (up from 18.16%).

My top 10 referring/search engine sites for the last month were (with change from October):
1. Google (+1)
2. Facebook (-1)
3. Lib Dem Blogs (No Change)
4. Lib Dem Voice (+1)
5. Blogger. com (+1)
6. Twitter (-2)
7. Queenmembers.com (New Entry)
8. Mobile Facebook (No Change)
9. Freedom Central (No Change)
10. Peter Black's Blog (-3)

The visitors to my little blog came from 60 countries this month - up from  40 in October and double the 30 in September (with a cumulative total of 76 countries having supplied visitors to my blog to date).

The top ten countries for November were as follows (with position change from September & % of total views):

1. United Kingdom (No Change) 73.7%
2. United States (No Change) 10.5%
3. Canada (No Change) 1.9%
4. Australia (No Change) 1.7%
5. Germany (+2) 1.5%
6. Ireland (-1) 0.9%
7. India (-1) 0.6%
8. Poland (New Entry) 0.5%
9. France (+1) 0.5%
10. Austria (New Entry) 0.5%

Honourable mentions must also go to those countries that have provided its first viewers to my fledgling blog this November. They come from Luxembourg, Trinidad & Tobago, Namibia, Kenya, Albania, Mexico, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Tunisia, Estonia, Romania, Botswana, Isle of Man, Lithuania, Latvia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Guernsey, Republic of Korea, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Ghana, Croatia, Sweden and Finland.

Fair play to them all, and to you all, for putting up with my ramblings!