It helped that the show put on by SVT was one of the best Eurovision shows I’ve seen in ages. The aren’t many hosts that could capably handle a three hour telecast to 100 million people, but Petra Mede – a super-trouper if ever there was one – was great. She turned out to be that rarest of Eurovision hosts – one who does jokes that were actually funny. Here’s her interval act, Swedish Smörgåsbord, a brilliant musical number which celebrated Sweden while also offering enough self-parody to keep it bearable. Also, it contained the word “titties” and a gay wedding.

No real standout songs, apart from the Romanian entry Cezar, who delivered an amazing falsetto performance while dressed like a 1980s Doctor Who villain and surrounded by scantily clad dancers. It really was the campest thing imaginable.

Then there was the Irish entry, Ryan Dolan, who came dead last. Sorry about that Ryan – I voted for you, although I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why…

As expected, Britain’s song failed to make much of an impact, with Bonnie Tyler’s effort only finishing 19th. However, that hardly seems to matter in an overall fantastic show. The Hampton jury gives Sweden 12 points!

Anyway, EXCITING new developments have occurred. Network Rail has sent another letter to local residents, advising that it has bowed to local pressure and gone back to the drawing board.

I’m sure Network Rail’s change of mind is entirely due to grassroots community activism and is nothing to do with the fact that our local MP, Louise Ellman, is also chair of the Transport Select Committee.

The letter is reproduced in full below:

In summary, a revised design has been created which does away with the “bus shelter” and instead creates an extended canopy while retaining the original features. Check out the comparison images below, which appear to have been done using Microsoft Train Simulator and seem to bear little resemblance to what the station actually looks like, but that’s by the by.

So it’s a happy ending, right? Well, almost. The letter has a sting in the tail:

In order to build the extended section of the revised design we will require prior approval from Liverpool City Council. We will submit designs and a prior approval application before April 2014 which is when funding becomes available to build the extended section of the canopy.

April 2014?! Well, I hope the SAS people are happy. They got what they wanted – or rather, they will get it in 11 months or so.

Fun fact: we spent so long faffing about getting this photo taken we failed to notice that the interval had ended and everyone else had gone back inside. Luckily we managed to get back to our seats before Act II began.

This is certainly a popular show – I had to book the tickets in September for a May performance. Eight months of anticipation and excitement: could the show possibly live up to the hype? Minor spoilers for Book of Mormon follow.

# I-I-I have maggots in my scro-o-otum! #

That is one of the least provocative lines in a show which doesn’t so much push the envelope as open it and read the letter. Uganda, where most of the action takes place, is caricatured as a primitive, militia-ruled hellhole where everyone has AIDS. There are jokes about female circumcision and baby rape. There is liberal use of the f-word and c-word. The Lion King it ain’t.

The show manages to get away with all this by simply doing it with an unapologetic panache and style. It also manages a joke rate that eclipses anything else I’ve seen. The gags come so thick and fast, there is just no time to gasp and think, “did they just say that?”

By the time we get to the “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, where Elder Price is menaced by Lucifer’s expertly-choreographed minions – including Hitler and OJ Simpson’s defence lawyer – it’s clear that this a show with its tongue very firmly in its cheek. It’s very silly, very funny and the tunes are very catchy (Ian was still singing the opening number “Hello” the next morning).

One group, oddly enough, which comes out of it not too badly, are the Mormons themselves. The Church of Latter Day Saints have taken the precaution of advertising in the show’s programme (and in the nearby Tube station), encouraging theatregoers to explore the faith further. While the Mormon faith (and religion in general) is satirised fairly heavily, the Mormon missionaries themselves are portrayed quite sympathetically. They are naive, too trusting, perhaps sometimes a bit slow-witted, but they always have their hearts in the right place.

It’s my new favourite musical (sorry Avenue Q). I loved it so much, I ordered the cast recording CD on the train home. However, if you are at all interested in seeing the show, I recommend you DON’T listen to the cast recording first – there’s a lot of visual gags in the staging and choreography which can only be appreciated by seeing it live.

t’s not going to be to everyone’s taste, but if you are not easily offended, you should definitely try and see it. The show is booked up months in advance, but I wouldn’t worry; I don’t think it will be closing any time soon. In short – beg, borrow or steal to get a ticket to go and see it!

Somewhere in that massive list is the train I wanted – the service to Keighley, which was to take me to the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway for their diesel gala.

I haven’t visited the KWVR in a very long time. I can’t remember the exact date of my previous visit, but I do remember the old slam-door electric trains were still in use on the West Yorkshire commuter lines, which must date my visit to the mid-1990s. I do remember it was part of a family day out, and my mother insisted on dragging me away from the trains, alighting at Haworth to trudge up the hill to the Brontë museum, where she cooed over every aspect of the sisters’ lives for what felt like a bajillion hours. Very good authors, but I was not that interested in their kitchen, to be honest.

Where was I? Oh yes. Normally the KWVR is a steam-orientated experience. Once or twice a year, however, the steam engines are shuttered up in the depot and the diesels are allowed out to play. These are heritage diesel locomotives; the generation of engines which caused so much dismay among rail buffs in the 1950s and 1960s when they started to supplant steam locos, but have now themselves passed into history.

I was there at the invitation of my friend Mark, whose interest in the railways (both as a railway employee and enthusiast) makes me look like a rank amateur, frankly.

Mark warned me to expect “specimens” – the hardcore, obsessive spotters who let nothing get in the way of their desire to ride behind their favourite loco. I’m not suggesting that rail enthusiasm attracts some oddball characters with poor social skills – I’m saying it outright. Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of people there were focused on enjoying the show of heritage traction. There were a few disruptive elements; our train was stopped for 20 minutes at one point while the staff remonstrated with someone who had chucked a toilet roll out of the window as we passed over a bridge. It didn’t help that there was a real ale buffet car on board; the beer was lovely, but by late afternoon on the Saturday, alcohol had made some people rather lively.

On the Saturday evening, Mark and I, accompanied by another new friend, David, did make a stop at Howarth; thankfully not to visit the Brontë Parsongage, but to have some dinner (we went to The Fleece Inn, which I highly recommend – they do a burger too big to fit in my mouth).

The long trudge uphill from the station to the village was livened up when David mentioned we were on Butt Lane. This was quickly followed by a side street, Penistone Mews.

I was already questioning the judgment of Haworth’s street naming committee, but I was pleased to see they followed comedy’s rule of three, as we got to the top of the hill and found we were on, well, see for yourself…

We headed off to the pub, not entirely sure if someone was playing a practical joke.

On Sunday, the KWVR allowed their “new” class 101 diesel multiple unit out to play. I’ve always been fond of these ancient slam door trains. Introduced as part of British Rail’s Modernisation Plan in 1956, they clung on in service even as newer trains came and went. By 2002, when the privatised railway was supposed to have swept away British Rail’s old-fashioned ways, several examples could still be found running around Manchester, chugging along the track next to shiny new Pendolinos. The last examples were only withdrawn in December 2003, after 47 years in service – a record surpassed only by the elderly 1938 stock still running on the Isle of Wight.

The humble DMU gets short shrift from a lot of rail enthusiasts. Even the examples that have been preserved tend to be for practical, rather than sentimental reasons – running short DMUs at off-peak times allows the heritage lines to save money and still provide a service. However, they played a big part in the history of Britain’s railways, and deserve their place on the heritage lines just as much as any other train.

As the engine revved up and the window frames started rattling, I was reminded me of a trip to North Wales in the early noughties, when I returned to Llandudno station for my train home to find that First North Western had provided a 101 for an express service to Chester. We roared along the North Wales Coast, with the train vibrating so much it felt like it was going to shake itself apart. My fellow passengers were unimpressed, but I loved it.

All in all, it was a most enjoyable weekend. We’ll gloss over Friday evening, when Mark and I went into Leeds and spent the night in Queen’s Court. Largely because I can’t remember much of it. *ahem*

The advert shows off some of the editing functions available in Photoshop, by way of a woman trying to arrange her family in a photo. It starts off with her doing some minor adjustments, but then it goes on to rearranging the composition, changing the lighting, removing Dad’s walking stick, and even adding a “Happy Birthday” banner that wasn’t there.

Are we really at the stage where people need to edit and touch-up family snapshots to look good? Is Dad’s disability really such a source of shame that the family need to remove evidence of it? Surely family snapshots should be a real, accurate of the event as it happened?

Why not go the whole hog and insert Justin Bieber into the photo? I’m sure Emma would have appreciated having him at her birthday party. While we’re at it, let’s change the background completely and pretend that the party took place on the Moon.

I disapprove, but I suppose for family photos this kind of image doctoring is harmless enough. Newspapers, on the other hand, should know better. The New York Daily News was heavily criticised last week for editing an image of Boston bombing victims to make their injuries look less gory (WARNING: images at that link show the graphic, unedited photos).

Maurice Williamson, an MP for the centre-right National Party, gave a brilliant, humorous speech in support of marriage equality:

The truly amazing scene though, came after the result of the vote was announced:

They started SINGING.

Watching Tory politicians falling over themselves to offer fulsome tributes was a bit nauseating. Amidst all the whitewashing of Thatcher’s legacy (Falklands and “sick man of Europe” talked up, miners, gay people and the unemployed overlooked), Glenda Jackson’s heartfelt tribute came as something of a breath of fresh air. I love how the Tory hecklers fail to knock her off her stride.

That said, the “campaign” to try and get Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead to Number 1 annoyed me too. As it is, all the campaign achieved was to put the BBC in an awkward position: the right-wing press attacked it for “disrespect” for even countenancing the playing of the song, then the corporation was accused by the left of “censorship” when it decided not to play it. I know it was just a bit of fun, but I can’t help but think that the energy would have been better directed elsewhere.

The rows over the funeral, the tributes and the song have demonstrated that the old divisions of the 1980s have resurfaced (if they ever truly went away). As the Guardian points out, the tabloid press is again ranting about “lefties”. A lot of the battles of the 80s are still being fought today.

Hopefully, after Wednesday, this extended Conservative Party Political Broadcast will finally be over.

Tonight, an impromptu celebration took place on the steps of Lime Street station. I find it rather distasteful, but I can understand the sentiment. I was only eight when she left office, but looking back I can remember clearly seeing the effects of her reign all around the City of Liverpool in 1990: the empty shops, the derelict factories, the miles of abandoned docks left to silt up – oh, and the bus service my family relied on was withdrawn shortly after deregulation.

Thatcher shifted the country from state-subsidised industries to a free-market economy. But in doing so she ripped the beating heart out of the areas that relied on those industries. The North East coal mining communities that were ravaged by the Miner’s Strike have never fully recovered. It was nearly two decades before Liverpool’s fortunes finally started looking up again – just in time for another Tory government to arrive and mess it all up again.

While the City of London and its associated service industries grew fat under Thatcherism, the North was shrivelling and dying.

Her government introduced Section 28, the hated law that prevented children from being taught anything positive about gay people. She told the Tory Party conference in 1987: “Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

She described Nelson Mandela’s ANC as a “terrorist organisation”.

There will be no celebrating nor dancing on proverbial graves from me, but I will not shed any tears. However, her place in history is assured, as a leader who stuck to her principles without compromise, pushed though drastic changes she believed in despite opposition, and left the political landscape permanently changed. What we need now, desperately, is a strong left-wing leader to do something similar, and save this country from the mess it’s in.

Further reading:
SevenStreets: Why Liverpool Won’t Mourn Margaret Thatcher
The Guardian: The lady and the land she leaves behind
Margaret Thatcher: Her role in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster

For more info go to my new RISC OS Pi page.

If you need a more detailed explanation, Owen Jones’s article on the subject (written before the headline was printed), is worth a read.

Zoe Williams of the Guardian, meanwhile, has a simple request to all those outraged by the Mail’s front page: “Don’t get mad, get even”.

The right wants to divide and conquer, using the politics of envy and hate so it can get away with its outrageous campaign against the poor. Don’t let it happen.

(hat tip to zone_styx on Twitter who created the Vile Product image)