Row over the 'African grave' at Bishop's Castle

There are some remarkable graves in Bishop's Castle churchyard in Shropshire.

One of them, as this video from the Shropshire Star shows, is currently the cause of controversy:

A wood and perspex cover protecting the Grade II-listed “African grave” may have to be removed as it does not have permission to be there. 

But the locals who made the cover and put it there to save the 200-year-old monument say action needs to be taken now to stop it eroding further. 

The grave belongs to a man only identified as ID, who is said to be a native of Africa who died in Bishop’s Castle on September 9 1801.

Such monuments have to be looked after, but the locals say the cover is only temporary.

It is hard not to see this incident as a new Ealing Comedy. An inspector, perhaps played by Raymond Huntley, is dispatched to Shropshire to call the locals to heel.

Once there he is plied with beer from The Three Tuns, shown the wrong churchyard and sent back to Whitehall defeated.

And this part of Shropshire is one of the few places in England where you can still imagine this happening.

I recently saw an old episode of The Green, Green Grass of Home, which is set in the county. An American who had been stationed there as a serviceman decades before wanted to go round the village to see how it had changed.

"Oh it's not changed, sir," came the reply. "If anything it's more like it was now than it was then."

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The Liberal Democrats should cut their spending by moving their headquarters out of London, argues Simon McGrath.

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Terence Fane-Saunders dissects Oliver Letwin's inadequate apology.

James O'Malley wants the left to stop retweeting bullshit.

"If it looks completely at home in this northern European setting, that's because a mosque has stood here, roughly 20 minutes' drive south-west of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, since 1558." Tharik Hussain on the Muslims of the Baltic.

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In praise of BBC Radio 4 Extra

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Since I got myself a digital radio I have fallen in love with a new station: BBC Radio 4 Extra.

I suppose you have to be of a certain age to appreciate a station based on the archives, but who would want to listen to the Today programme when you can go to work cheered by an episode of Round the Horne?

This morning Julian and Sandy, as Bona Mediums, were demonstrating their gift of second vada.

Another programme I have heard on it recently is Alick Rowe's play from the 1980s Crisp and Even Brightly,which Stephen Tall has written about today.

In some ways, with its varied, interesting schedule, Radio 4 Extra resembles that other resort of the insomniac, BBC World Service, before it was transformed into a rolling news service. And it's certainly more fun than the World Service is today.

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The Shropshire schoolmaster who said "Ni!"

Is it any wonder that the Shropshire Star is my favourite newspaper?

You would't get this in the Guardian, the Financial Times or City AM:

An 87-year-old former schoolmaster from Shropshire has a unique claim to fame – he is the inspiration for the famous Monty Python "The Knights Who Say Ni" sketch. 

Laurence Le Quesne had a habit when at Shrewsbury School of exclaiming “ni” as he scoured the library for books. 

The quirky trait amused his pupils, who happened to include a certain Michael Palin. 

He used it as a basis for the famous scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I also realise that I once owned a book by him on Thomas Carlyle.

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John McDonnell: "Put that light out, Napoleon"

Thanks to whoever it was who pointed out the resemblance on Twitter a while back.

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