Category: Uncategorized

Christmas 2020: looking back to the Big Freeze in 1962/63 when the Res froze over and Somerset looked like Siberia for several weeks

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES – FEATURE: memories of the Big Freeze in the winter of 1962/63 and when steam trains connected…

Rapscallion Magazine December 2020

Winter Solstice

Today and tomorrow are the shortest days of the year. Although the sunset and sunrise times only change marginally in…

RAPSCALLION MAGAZINE Book Review – domestic abuse, unhelpful nuns and good women triumphing over bad men – Kathryn Hughes’ self-published best seller The Letter may be simplistic in style but has a finely crafted plot and a cliff hanger at the end of every chapter

It’s easy to be snooty about Kathryn Hughes’ simplistic writing style. Whether it’s the ‘I can see them coming in…

RAPSCALLION MAGAZINE BOOK REVIEW: sex, secrets and violence – and a coming of age neo-Gothic mystery set within the shadow of Franco’s Spain in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlo Ruiz Zafon

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon Teenager Daniel Sempere is the beneficiary of continuous advice from man-of-the-world…

AGENDA WEST: scam alert for the self-employed and small businesses – bogus email and link to HMRC to claim a tax refund because of Covid-19 (but there’s one tiny give-away which your eye may not notice)

Scam alert! The scam works like this: an email arrives seemingly from the taxman or the HMRC – Her Majesty’s…

AGENDA WEST BUSINESS NEWS: the shocking collapse of retailing this year (with Debenhams likely to be liquidated) meaning more than a quarter of a million shop workers have lost their jobs in 2020 and suppliers left with nothing – read the long list of big names here

After Arcadia went into administration last month it meant the only potential buyer of Debenhams, namely JD Sports, pulled out…

AGENDA WEST BUSINESS NEWS: Going, going, gone. Arcadia crashes into administration bringing down the curtain on the glory days of Sir Philip Green’s dominance of retailing (leaving £250m in unpaid invoices, 15,000 unemployed and the pension fund in doubt)

ICSM Credit has been warning for months that Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia group were on the brink of collapse threatening…

Quirky Bath: You may now kiss Mrs White-Christmas – how romance, a civic ceremony and an accident of surnames produced a special moment in Aquae Sulis

It may be November but there’s a white Christmas in Bath Bath experienced a white Christmas in November when Mr…

AXBRIDGE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: COVID-19 Additional Restrictions Grants available from Sedgemoor District Council for businesses

APPLY FOR THE ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS GRANT TO HELP MITIGATE IMPACTS OF THE COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) DURING NATIONAL LOCKDOWN Following the Government’s decision…