At present the Great Central Railway - Nottingham is a bit of a mystery to those of us in Leicestershire. Rather like the Eastern Roman Empire.To help dispel that mystery, here is a video shot on that line.
One bright April morning the 11:15 for Northampton Castle left Nottingham London Road Lower Level as usual, but it never reached its destination. It was seen to call at Melton Mowbray North, and there were unconfirmed reports of it reaching Clipston and Oxendon, but one thing is sure: it never arrived in Northampton.
Extensive searches were undertaken and reports of sightings from as far afield as Bodmin Road and Leeming Bar were followed up, but not a trace of the train or its passengers was ever found.What I didn't know then was that this is strangely reminiscent of a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle called The Lost Special.
The feline takes himself down to the Blue Bell pub in Sandiacre at around 7pm each night and has become such a hit with regulars and staff that he has his own stool and a stash of kitty treats behind the bar.
Brian particularly enjoys Monday's quiz nights and Wednesday's darts – where he helps himself to the leftover cheese cobs and pork pies.
Now the seven-year-old moggy has even got his own Facebook page, with a helping paw from his owners.
"It was politically very traumatic, but it was actually good policy. One of my colleagues, I think, came up with the phrase that we got 8 out of 10 for the policy but 2 out of 10 for the politics.
"The problem was that we made this pledge about not increasing student tuition fees – it was disastrous, it was not deliverable. ...
"We got hammered for it – loss of trust, all those things. But it wasn’t deliverable in the financial climate of the coalition.
"My job was to try to make the best of a bad job and produce a system which was genuinely progressive. It is. Nobody pays fees; they pay a form of graduate tax when they leave, depending on their income.
"The universities as a consequence are now quite well funded, unlike most other bits of what you could broadly call the public sector."You can see the heart of the Liberal Democrats' problem in the photo above - and I don't mean Nick Clegg.
On 24th July 1952, the statue of Robin Hood was unveiled by the Duchess of Portland on the Robin Hood Lawn, beneath Nottingham Castle, in the remains of the moat on Castle Road.
It was a warm sunny day when 500 schoolchildren sat attentively on the grass in the special VIP enclosure to watch the ceremony of the statue and its complementary plaques and sculptures being revealed to the public, accompanied by a fanfare from the band of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment.
Cast in eight pieces of half-inch thick bronze (made to last 6,000 years) and weighing half a ton, the 7ft effigy of Nottingham's legendary outlaw proudly stands on a two-and-a-half ton block of white Clipsham stone.The statue of Brian Clough was erected in the city centre in 2008.
Nottingham Castle is to be revamped into a "world-class tourist attraction" with plans for a £24 million redevelopment.
The project is designed to double the number of visitors to 400,000 a year by celebrating its history and making more of the Robin Hood legend.
New features will include a redesigned and extended museum telling the history of the wars, protests and riots that have centred on the castle over the years.
The plans also include opening up the caves beneath Castle Rock and installing a glass lift from Brewhouse Yard up to the castle.It is already possible to take a guided tour through the caves beneath the castle.
Being a sensible man, lie settled down to live a happy and useful life amid his erstwhile enemies.
His courtesy and innate goodness soon made him popular, and to him our forefathers owed many novel and useful innovations. He taught their wives how to make white bread and how to prepare salads, and he taught the men how to grow roses.
The greatest gift we owe to him is celery. He had known the plant in France, and sadly missed it in England, where its use was unknown. He found it growing wild in the marshes at Lenton, and cultivated it in his garden, which still remains, and whose wall is shown in this picture.Tallart was allowed to return to France in 1711. Would an enemy general be treated in such a civilised manner today?
"It was an incredible sight. You get the odd squirrel around here, but never a reindeer."BREAKING...
Jesus kidnapped in York
