2011/12/03 19:54
I forgot to blog this at the time, but when we drove past Balgray Reservoir last month, we noticed that it had been almost entirely drained (see the photo). (According to Google Maps, that's what it's called, although my beloved wife – who grew up here – seems to call it the Barrhead Dam instead.)I haven't found any information anywhere...
2011/02/15 18:36
Most people here in Newton Mearns are probably not aware that the Danish Meteorological Institute produces a weather forecast for Newton Mearns.Unfortunately, it's in Danish, but it's really only the days of the week that are likely to cause problems.I'm not sure whether it's more or less accurate that the other forecasts out there, but it's nice they've made one...
2012/05/02 20:07
Tomorrow (Thursday the 3rd of May 2012) there will be local elections in all council areas of Scotland.
For the second time, it will be held using the Single Transferable Vote, which basically means we’re being asked to rank the candidates.
In East Renfrewshire, last time the result was Labour 7, Tory 7, SNP 3, LD 1 and Independents 2, and the council is currently being controlled by a everybody-but-the-Tories coalition.
I live in Ward 1 (“Neilston, Uplawmoor and Newton Mearns North”), which last time voted Tory 2, Labour 1, SNP 1 — see the graph on the left, which to some extent is based on this posting by Lallands Peat Worrier. The coloured lines show the votes for each candidate; when they crash into the floor, it’s because the candidate was eliminated, and when they go up, it’s because of votes transferred from other candidates.
The SNP is much stronger nationally now than five years ago, so the decision has been made to put forward two candidates in this ward, Cllr Tony Buchanan and Frank Rankin, who I know well from SNP branch meetings and who I’m happy to endorse.
Because of the electoral system, it’s very important to use all your priorities if you want to maximise your influence — even if you’re first priority gets elected in the first round, parts of your vote can still get transferred to other candidates if the elected candidate got more votes than necessary (see also James’s advice on Better Nation).
I’ll definite give my first and second priorities to the two SNP candidates in my ward!
2011/04/30 23:37
Phyllis and I were recently discussing whether we should switch from T-Mobile to another mobile phone provider given that their signal is fairly weak here in our house.Once we realised that we didn't know of any provider with better coverage, Phyllis got the bright idea to google for a mobile phone mast finder, and she swiftly found this site:Sadly, it turns out that no company has any masts nearer our house than T-Mobile, so I guess they'll get to live...
2011/03/02 18:23
The old Eastwood constituency used to be a Lab-Con marginal: Back in 2007, Ken Macintosh MSP from Labour won the seat with 35.8% of the vote, ahead of the Tories' Jackson Carlaw MSP who got 33.6% and the SNP's Stewart Maxwell MSP who got 18.9% (with LibDem Gordon MacDonald far behind on 8.6%). The three top candidates all got elected...
2010/10/29 14:58
East Renfrewshire have now decided that we need to put food waste into a separate bin.This means that we need to fit six bins into our kitchen:Compostable waste (fruit, veg and egg shells)Other food wasteMetal and glassPaper and cardboardHard plasticEverything...
2009/10/27 20:20
They're building a lot of houses, business premises, a school and some roundabouts on some fields between us and the motorway. (That is, they started building them a couple of years ago, but most of them seem to have put...
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