Sons and lovers haters

Most of the time, my spell in academia feels like a lifetime ago rather than just a decade, but every now and again I read something that takes me straight back to it. Most recently, it was the news that the D H Lawrence Heritage Centre in Eastwood has been closed down by Broxtowe Borough Council.

Despite their promise to invest in the Birthplace Museum instead, the response of the Nottingham City of Literature chairman David Belbin is unsurprisingly critical: "Notts needs a vision that embraces education, literature and tourism. Instead we have penny pinching."

The decision partly reflects the region's strange ambivalence towards arguably its most famous son (admittedly an ambivalence that I noted a few years ago was most certainly mutual), but, in the council's defence, is perhaps more a consequence of the swingeing cuts imposed on local authorities by the present government (and the Coalition before them). So chalk it up as yet another example of the Tories' perpetual cultural vandalism north of the Home Counties and yet another reason to despise the bastards in power.