Alan Lodge's Blog

Wow, That all takes me back:-)

I was living in a bus in 1990,and before that had done abit of travelling about for the odd weekend etc.I actually hated the bus,well,the company I should say.My then partner was just so different to myself and we ended up living how he chose and not “The compromise”(As I’m sure there was one.)I was,and still am,the quieter type,he was always the “I have to party and drink” type(not that I dont mind a bit of a party myself mind)My aim was to go horse drawn but most’s opinion was “too slow” Mine was “Whats the rush”.

Been thinking of those times alot lately,ha ha what I don’t miss is the hassle of the police and the fear that gets into people when a few travellers move into a field,and the time’s when you didn’t cook the chick peas right and the shit pit was a fair trudge away….in the rain:-) (With ref to Pucklechurch layby)

Sometimes I think I’d give it a go,but it was a hard life.

Well,shall go read up some more on your site,I’d like to know where travellers stand now when parking up,as I know a while back the whole law changed didn’t it,where I think you could get moved on immediately.Just before I sold my VDUB camper I went to Hay on Wye and on the way(I went thru Hergest as I saw on the map tjhere was a Hergest Ridge there and thought”Isnt that a Mike Oldfield record??” saw a wagon and horse parked in a field,should have stopped and chatted but was in a rush.Was really good to see it tho.

Love the site anyway,have book marked it and will have another read tomorrow.I found you by accident by the way,typed in “Cantlin stone” in Yahoo.I live nr it and have been there years ago,but nobody here seems to have heard of it…funny!!

Bye, Deb

Release

Thanks for the emails and the phone chat. It’s left me fairly depressed how much great work was done and how little goes on now. I’m getting old and maudlin before my time!

I’ve looked at the photos again and think that the two that would be most likely to work are: 0227_36bw.jpg or 0228_03bw.jpg

I’ve spoken to the person who’s preparing the add and if you could e-mail them straight to him as either jpeg or TIFF files he can work with them from there.

Once again, many thanks for your help with this. Next time in Nottingham I’ll drop you a line and try and buy you a beer or cup of tea or whatever yu’d prefer. I could spend ages looking at all the pictures and just getting alternately sad and angry.

I had an FG360 for a while and in some of the pictures I can see that distintive front end peeking out from behind the police….

Take good care of yourself

Kevin Flemen

Director – Release http://www.release.org.uk/

Gosh! Release hasn’t got any money. That is news!

Just had yet another e-mail asking for free work. This orgaisation, I’ve associated with since the mid-1970’s though. Release!

Acting Director, taken over from Mike Goodman. I don’t think we have met personally, I ‘m based in Nottingham at the moment, and years in Wales before then.

But eons ago, in the 1970’s, I was a Release Volunteer on the e-phone rota in London, [was an accident ambulanceman at the time]. Think it was 1974 at Windsor Great Park, when us ‘urban charity workers’ noticed a need for welfare provision at these outdoor illegal events. We called ourselves, the ‘Festivals Branch’ of Release. Bob Nightingale, Harry Podlewski, Tim Malyon, Roger Duncan, Viki Stangrome. All Release people. We did a big festival at Watchfield airfield in Oxfordshire 1975 as this crew. However the following year, we took on more volunteers, and called ourselves ‘Festival Aid’. This now including work with festival goers, travellers, and liason with authority. Next to all this, we formed the ‘umbrella’ organisation. ‘Festival Welfare Services’, with a charity number and everything!. Penny Mellor was the field worker, and I remained a trustee, to it end…. This was supposed to ‘co-ordinate; Release, Festival Aid, Travellera Aid Trust, Local Volunteers, St John, Red Cross, Quackers, arrangement with local authority, police etc.

Festival ‘Organisers’ were frightened of coming forward, because of the threat of civil injunction. But I was important to still maintain contact, so we were able to take a pace forward, and be intermediaries. Nothing to do with organising the festival at all really you know, We’re just missionaries and ‘do-gooders’ in attendance.

You may know that this is one of the reasons I felt I was ‘targeted for ‘legal action’ . That we were an ‘effective organisation’ to the groups, the authorities were trying to ‘deal with’.

Operation Nomad: Avon and Somerset police had a secret intelligence document on me. They stated that I photograph and tape record police operations and make complaints. That they should Beware!.

I was anonymously sent a copy of a restricted document titled `Operation Nomad Bulletin’. Operation Nomad was a surveillance and information gathering exercise looking into the activities of New Age Travellers and now `raves’ such as Castlemorton. In this document, officers are instructed to beware of my activities and that I photograph and tape record police operations.

Further mention is made of my involvement in photographing and the bringing of civil actions after the `Battle of the Beanfield’ incident near Stonehenge in 1985. Yet further, it goes on to say that I am a drug dealer.

As I am not!!, I believe that this information was inserted so as to make my work as jobbing photo journalist, more difficult. It was also calculated to undermine my position with Festival Welfare Services and the Travellers Aid Trust in liaison with various authorities.

All this in more detail at http://tash.gn.apc.org/nomad_10.htm

I collected some of my own legal adventures together.

Access from this page: http://tash.gn.apc.org/legal_assortment.htm

I have been maintaining a diary o where I’ve been, and think that this is a resource, to show where welfare work has been done. http://tash.gn.apc.org/diary.htm

New Statesman again! Nice to get help from others also! It was the advent of the Criminal Justice Act, and the Mag offered us the space to make a CJA ‘pull-out’ called ‘United Your Nicked’. Wont they do something like that for you

////////////////////////////////////

helping old friends? @ Release

Hi Tash,

Sorry to introduce myself like this. I’m currently acting director of Release; I know that you had many dealings with us when Judy, Mike, Greg and other were still here. I’m trying to rescue the organisation from the doldrums at the moment. the New Statesman has kindly agreed to give us advertising space to appeal for support and funds and we have been trying to source a suitable image for the ad: the idea is that the top bit of the ad will be a “then and now” picture…saying something like “in 1974 you called us after that incident at the Avon Free Festival….”Help us make sure that they have somwhere to turn to if they ever need help…” The images will be of a festy scene mid seventies/early eighties on the left and a club/dance event on the right.

The design company have failed miserably to come up with an image that fits for the seventies/eighties festy scene, and time is ticking a way on us. I was hoping therefore that you would be able to help with a suitable image. Something like the Stonehenge ‘81 pic on your website would be about perfect.

If you think that you would be able to help, please phone or e-mail me. I look forward to hearing from you.

best wishes

kevin flemen

Mike Slocobme on the Urban75 site

Congratulations!! i said: “Your on the ?intelligence site, for police matter set up at: http://www.policestop.org.uk.

I’d sent a copy to SchNews. ‘cos they got a mention, also.

Anyway, SchNews just written back to me, pointing out that the site now says, ” immediately withdrawn.”

Me think I’ve created trouble! I see schnews, sent info on to gibby at big issue, your message board and a couple of others. I wonder what happened, and further, what the isp thought was wrong with it [http://www.policestop.org.uk ]. I thought they were just misguided, working the other way to us perhaps. But the isp is still editing, and nice to know, I suppose what could eventually affect us in due course.?

Sorry, bit round the houses, but hope you see what I mean.

Blow-Up (1966)

Blow-Up (1966) is director Michelangelo Antonioni’s view of the world of mod fashion, and an engaging, provocative murder mystery that examines the existential nature of reality through photography. Antonioni’s first film in English, it quickly became one of the most important films of its decade, and a milestone in liberalized attitudes toward film nudity and expressions of sexuality. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (with no wins): Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (Edward Bond, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Tonino Guerra).

A desensitized-to-life, nihilistic, high-fashion photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) in London, who lives a mid-60s life of excess (riches, fame, and women), becomes bored with his lucrative career of glamour photography. So he resorts to photographing, in documentary style, the seamy and sordid side of life in London, in flophouses and slums.

Innocently, he takes candid photos in a deserted park of a lover’s tryst-rendezvous between a kerchief-wearing woman (Vanessa Redgrave) and a middle-aged, gray-haired man in a light-gray suit. She pursues him to ask for the illicit photos, as he imagines that he has witnessed a scene of sexual intrigue – never thinking that he may have accidentally obtained visual, criminal evidence of a murder.

Memorable scenes:

– the photographer’s erotic, photo-shoot crawl – to the point of orgasmic release and satisfaction – over the supine body of model Verushka, while he snaps fashion photos.

– the woman from the park’s visit to his studio, to again desperately and persistently beg for the undeveloped roll of film by becoming topless. He becomes both intrigued and suspicious. To get her to leave, he gives her a different roll of undeveloped film.

– the suspenseful, obsessive sequence of the photographer processing and blowing up several pictures from his park visit, and magnifying them larger and larger to poster size. As tension heightens, he pins the pictures on the wall of his living room – in sequence – giving them life as if they were individual frames in a motion picture. Ultimately, they reveal a riveting possibility – a man and a gun in the shadows of some bushes behind a fence. He speculates that he foiled a potential murder – but further blow-ups reveal what could be a dead body.

– a very sexual, menage a trois romp with two wanna-be teenage models (blonde Jane Birkin and brunette Gillian Hills), who wrestle with him on a large roll of purplish-blue backdrop paper, with quick glimpses of female pubic hair after they have been stripped of their clothes.

– his voyeuristic viewing of his unhappily-married friend Patricia (Sarah Miles) making love to her husband – his presence arouses the passion of the woman.

– Thomas’ return to the park to find the corpse next to some bushes, but before the following morning, the corpse has disappeared and his photographs are stolen. The evidence gets at once more difficult to ignore and more impossible to define. Without photographic evidence produced by his camera-tool – his sole means of communicating with the world, he is left with nothing.

Another indelible image emphasizing the slim line between objective reality and illusion – in the film’s finale, he participates with a group of pantomiming students in white-face, tossing an invisible tennis ball to them as they play an invisible game of tennis with non-existent rackets and balls, and an audience. On the soundtrack, one can hear the illusion in Thomas’ mind – the sound of an actual tennis game. The film ends with an aerial view of Thomas standing in the middle of a grassy field in the park near the tennis court, with his camera in his hand.

Photography on the telly tonight

Two items on BBC2 tonight. 8.00pm Fame Fashion and Photography. – the real ‘Blow Up’

Was never into ‘fashion photography’. well have all sorts of things about fashion, i suppose. But guys like David Bailey & Terance Donovan were, ‘likely’ east-end types, took photography, from were it was, and transformed much of the 1960’s while they were at it! 2 hr docunentary about these folks.

BUT most important ar 1:10am in morning there follows Michelangelo Antonioni film ‘ BLOW UP ‘.



Look, I’ve not see this movie twenty odd years. but i do remember it as being ‘groundbreaking’ . No direct influence on my own photography, thier subjects being being rich and upper-class twats, mine aren’t!

But with this film, some of us came out of the shadows of the grey 1950 and early 60’s and emerged into a new world. Be interesting to see if i still find it as powerful a shot now, as i did then. Looking forward to it, with a video on the ready.

B visits

B came round, this afternoon. Various adventures with Desert Storm, [sound-system]. been commuting back and fro, between, Nottingham and Rimini, Italy. Know the cahp, since we lived in Wales. Nice to see him, keeeping the traditions going. More legal hassles with being accused of being a rave organiser. Oh god! why not give them a grant and encourage. rather than all this trouble….

The ‘standard practise’ of police filming

They’ve used a surveillance montage of mine, on the Bristol Indymedia front page. It introduces this item. Seems to be ‘getting about’ this one.

The ‘standard practise’ of police filming:

Shot by both sides

by John Serpico 12:44pm Sat Jul 20 ’02

As local residents gathered at the Baptist Mills side of the St Paul’s roundabout for the demonstration against street crime, protesting against and pushing onto the agenda the lack of safety in the area, police also descended and immediately started to film people.

Taken aback by this apparently inexplicable intrusion, a number of people approached the police and enquired why they were filming. The new chief inspector for the Ashley area replied that it was purely for the safety of the people who were gathering as well as for the safety of the police.

‘If there are any complaints made against anyone or any accusations of misconduct,’ he said. We will have film evidence to refer to. For example, if anyone complains of any damage that might be caused we will be able to refer to the film and be able to say whether the damage was there beforehand. He continued: ‘If there are any complaints against the police then there will be evidence of that too. It’s for everyone’s protection’.

He then apologised for not asking permission to film in advance but said that nowadays the filming of any public gathering is ‘standard practise’.

There are others filming here too, he said ‘The television people for example’.

But why are you – the police – filming us? somebody persisted ‘We haven’t done anything and this is a peaceful gathering. You don’t film the muggers and rapists, do you?’

In response, the officer replied, somewhat unbelievably ‘Yes’, we do film the muggers.

When the officer armed with the camcorder (and bad moustache) was asked if a copy of the film would be available to anyone wishing to view it, he replied ‘No’. The person asking him knew this to be wrong and referred to the Data Protection Act. The chief officer then stepped in and said that anyone wishing to have a copy of the film is indeed entitled to it, conceding that his fellow officer was wrong to say otherwise.

In as much as the officer in charge was attempting to be reasonable, there is a problem here. As he stated, nowadays the police filming of any public gathering is indeed ‘standard practise. But when did this happen? How did this come to be? The police seem to view it as part of their job to film any kind of demonstration, but has any legislation been passed to make this a ‘standard practise’? Is it now written down in their operations manual that public gatherings must be filmed? If not, then is it down to a decision by the officer in charge whether or not to deploy one or more of his men with cameras? What is the criteria? What might demand a situation to be filmed? The kind of people in attendance? The possibility of misconduct? It may well be ‘standard practise’ but it is a fact that there are many public gatherings that are not filmed.

What happens to the films they make? How long are they kept? Who gets to view them?

As he also stated, there is often other people filming events too, such as television/news crews. However, it is possible to object to these people filming you and to make them stop. You cannot request that the police stop filming you. Anyone requesting too loudly or too physically is liable to be arrested. Anyone who dons a mask or a disguise (face paint, even) in an attempt to not be recognised on film can also be arrested.

The standard reply to questions such as this is ‘if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear’. That may well be, but on this particular occasion at this particular gathering, people were objecting to the escalation in anti-social crime and the lack of response from the authorities in allowing an area of Bristol to be and remain a free-for-all, mugging and raping zone. They then found themselves to be the ones under police surveillance. Suddenly it felt like being caught in the middle. The criminals on one side and the police on the other. Shot by both sides.

http://bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1436&group=webcast

Bristol Party Video Evidence on Indymedia

Mathew Williams – Truthseekers footage

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/truthseeks.rm

Its from

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/08/139848.php

http://bristol.indymedia.org/

Video of the police violence at Bristol free party

If anyone needs copies of the video of the police violence, which now includes an update of the BBC report on the violence (showig injuries to two people) … and also photos taken by many of the people there…

Matthew Williams

3 Bourton Lane

Bishops Cannings

Devizes

Wilts

SN10 2LH

truthseekers@ntlworld.com

Tel 01380 860994

Mobile 07816 539787

What the police did was wrong, this video and these photos might help someone fight their case, or show people at a group meeting so they can plan action (peaceful) against the police.

Matt (lighting git)

All this is part of the ongoing Britol Party Tale, described at http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_21_tash_lodge_archive.html#79299422

Just in case there are any passing readers, thought I would announce that it’s my birthday today!

And another year!

Siri phoned me earlier, Sam hasn’t, of course.

I thought I’d cook sommat nice tonight, and have started on some wine………

Chilly phoned, wants to use his digital camera on my computer, to upload soem of his stuff from Japan and China. Cant come till friday now. but looking forward to playing with it.

+2hours

hehe, finished first bottle of wine. was planning on working through, to finish those pages, but am swiming a bit 🙂 now keep pressin the wrong keyys.

+2hrs

Finished second bottle, and am really quite pissed. Had a bath, jst now, nearly drowned, but hung on to the side, so was ok.

could nt get my pants back on, amm so fucked [-) Fine i thought, dosen’t matter. So gouched out a bit onthe sofa. Little later, notice i’d lefft the webcam on. Oh fuck! alll these americans, icq me, wantting me to ‘do things’ for them. :h

Unban75 Chat Room

Here is the Urban75 Chat Room. Alway seems quite well attended. But quite a lot of bollox talked!

http://www.urban75.com/chat.html

Have organised my own, from cam pages in a pop-up box

http://www6.camarades.com/jirc/index.html?room=970675854&nick=tash

New Front end!

Gosh, have just worked out what a ‘text box’ can do on a webpage. Have also included ‘Layers’ for the first time. Wowah!

Got to work out now, how to keep them stationary, rather than scoll. Because they’re the links to the blogs. and want them in frame all the time.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tash.lodge/Blog/Blog.htm

Got inspired by the work of this chap, take a look at the picture, he thinks a good idea for his background snap. Lovely, I think!

http://gominosensei.org/green.php

suitable accommodation for all

In Utopia, Thomas Moore himself describes a dystopian kingdom, where “the nobles and gentlemen” are “even tearing down houses and demolishing whole towns” in search of greater incomes. Krishan Kumar states that, “Architecture has always been the most utopian of all the arts” and suggests that the City has always played an important role in utopian literature. This could be because shelter is one of the principal human needs. It may follow, that a desire for improved housing conditions, might inspire us to envisage a brighter future, with suitable accommodation for all.

“Get off my land!”

“What makes it your land?”

“My father gave it to me”

“And what made it his land?”

“His father gave it to him”

“And what made it his land?”

“His father fought for it”

“Right”, says the traveller,

jumping up and rolling up his sleeves,

“I’ll fight you for it then.”

The definition of a ‘Traveller’

A recent traveller publication says, “The definition of a ‘Traveller’ is so open to interpretation that probably the fairest suggestion is that of: someone who has the means of living a nomadic lifestyle.”.

It also goes on to warn against making assumptions and classifications based on appearance: “many squatters and high profile street people epitomized as ‘crusties’ or ‘smellies’ in the press, are written about as Travellers, yet the reality is that they live in a flat or house. Others who live nomadically, appear at work or college everyday, and because they do not advertise their lifestyle, are never classified as Travellers.”. It could be said that definitions are derived from subjective opinions and in 1992, British Prime Minister, John Major, left his audience in no doubts as to his opinion, when he said, “New age travellers. Not in this age. Not in any age.”

***

edited this later,

I can do this, because of this service, Wapblogger

web : http://www.ubique.ch/wapblogger/

wap : http://wap.ubique.ch/wapblogger/

Guilfin need a re-design

Hope you all enjoyed the ‘fluffy bunny’ card I sent! It came from a site, where I was spoiled for choice.

I was trying to show it as better example, than the crap photo, that otherwise represented fluffyness. Toby thinks I’m getting at his rabbit cos its ears where down and it was magenta and out of focus, contrast was lousy and the whole aspect, generally fucked up. It was very noble of him, to stick up for his fluffy friends.

Still, if you’d like to sign up for the ‘photographic and fluffy image making’ short course I’m hoping to get a grant to start up, then I’m sure we can improve you…..

gosh, have i started something? I think that if you are going for a re-design etc, you should start from who are we, and what are we trying to do! It really is such a spread of folks involved, and tash’s thoughts on the subject, are that the ‘scene’ has become much fragmented, lost direction, and needs a hand to remind itself, what the fuck it’s all for!

You have a fair sized internet space and ‘shop window’ for the ideas that were trying to punt out. Think a really simple one picture of nothing inparticular and little explanation is fine. If your just a gig listing. But your not. Think your database must be quite large now, can things from there, be ‘rotated’ to a front position every week. Same with thumbnails, have no idea how easy any of this is, but when you’ve finished your, you can do mine 

It’s only serious’ enthusiasts’ that get further back in websites I think, and sometimes things need pushing forward, rather than ‘on demand’. Have had the same debate myself, what is it I’m trying to show, and ended up with a list. Any stories, graphics, personal accounts, that enourages people to realise that there are others involved, outside of there own set.

Suppose we’re all doing it already but still don’t know what ‘good practice’ is with this lark!

This is as far as I’ve got I trying to say what I’m trying to ‘deal’ with. How much have I missed, do you think?

FEATURES OF EVENTS , , , , , Alternative Experiments, Animals, Arrest, Art, Backdrops, Banners, Barbed Wire with Ditches, Benders, Black & Rasta, Bogs, Bow Tops & Horses, Buses & Bus Living, Cafes, Campfires, Caravans, Ceremonies & Celebration, Chilums & Pipes, Chill Out, Climbing Things, Clowns, Clubs & Clubbing, Colour, Communications, Convoys, Craft & Industry, Cute Ancient Monuments, Dance & Dancing, Demonstration, DJ, Dodgy Wiring, Dress, Drugs, Emergencies, Environmental Direct Action, Eviction, Evidence, Exhibition, Families, Farmers & Local Opposition, Fin & Free Sheets, Fire & Ambulance, Fixing Motors, Flags, Fluffy, Fog, Food and its Cooking, Free Festivals, Free Parties, Free Party Persons, Free vs Commercial, Generators and Power, Giros & Shopping, Going to & from Events, Graffiti, Green Alternatives, Gypsies & Dids, Hells Angels, Hippies, Hitching, House Parties, Indymedia, Internet, Kids, Land Rights, Landscape, Law Road Signs , Lifestyles, Lighting On Stage & Audience, Locals & Local Authorities, Loonies & Strolling Idiots, Main Drag, Marquee, Media, Motorbikes, Mud, Multi-Media, Music, Musicians, Mutant, Policemen, Police Vehicles & Equipment, Political, Portraits, Positive Image, Press & TV Coverage, Protest, Punks, Ravers, Reclaim The Streets, Rink-y-Dink, Riot, Road Block, Rubbish & Shit – negative, School – Education, Security, Service Of Papers, Sex, Shit Pit Digging – positive, Signs, Silhouettes, Site Meetings, Smoking, Snow, Soft Drinks Or Alcohol?, Sound-System , Speakers, Squatting, Stages, Stand Up Performance, Stalls, Stonehenge Ceremonies, Stop & Search, Street Protest, Structures, Sunsets With Tipis, Surveillance, Sweat Lodge, Tattos, Tents, Tipis, Trade & Commerce, Travellers & Sites, Trespass, Tribes, Vehicles, Vehicle Artwork , Vehicle Damage, Video Activism, Violence, VJ & Lighting & Effects, Weather, Web-sites, Weekenders, Welfare, Windmill Generation, Wood,

A thread might develop from

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/guilfin/message/15754

this lot, followes on, from my critisism of Toby Rabbit. I really interested, you can follow the beginning of the tales, from

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_28_tash_lodge_archive.html#79637034

Why Video Activism?

Video Activism deters police violence.

Video Activism helps to document what occurs at actions, for legal follow-up purposes.

Video Activism doesn’t water-down, or alter the message of the people.

Video Activism gives the people themselves opportunities to voice their own concerns as cameras are getting cheaper and editing technology is becoming more available.

Video Activism enhances the capabality of the internet for spreading information accross borders by adding nontext content. Still images captured from video, downloadable audio and streaming video files can be made instantly available to interested people on the other side of the planet.

Video Activism is a big feature of the growing world of independent media. More and more concerned citizens, all over the world, are making their own media and by-passing the corporate-owned press with their own stories and their unique visions of a better world.

http://whisperedmedia.org/

Why Video Activism?

Video Activism deters police violence.

Video Activism helps to document what occurs at actions, for legal follow-up purposes.

Video Activism doesn’t water-down, or alter the message of the people.

Video Activism gives the people themselves opportunities to voice their own concerns as cameras are getting cheaper and editing technology is becoming more available.

Video Activism enhances the capabality of the internet for spreading information accross borders by adding nontext content. Still images captured from video, downloadable audio and streaming video files can be made instantly available to interested people on the other side of the planet.

Video Activism is a big feature of the growing world of independent media. More and more concerned citizens, all over the world, are making their own media and by-passing the corporate-owned press with their own stories and their unique visions of a better world.

http://whisperedmedia.org/