Graffiti
Have shot a lot of graffiti over the years, not much on my website, but will have to look into this. Anyway, was attracted to this piece. A few examples have just appeared in the Radford area of Nottingham
A fine sentiment, and thought it worth mentioning.
Kittens and ‘Scarey’ Flash animation
Do i recommend you check out this chaps work, such creativity …. !
Joel Veitch, 27, of rathergood.com is a freelance web maniac based in London. He gave the world the Frightened Boy animation, and the world was very scared.
“My mission is to destroy production values through swamping the online world with badly-polished graphics.” he says.
A Frightened Boy http://www.rathergood.com/vid
for those into to some rough music and like cats, this flash animation is for you ……
Show it to your kids, by all means, but NOT just before bedtime … !
http://www.rathergood.com/vines
These ones are rather good also …. [a little more ‘mild-mannered!]
http://www.rathergood.com/punk_kittens
http://www.rathergood.com/independent_woman
http://www.rathergood.com/kittens
http://www.rathergood.com/vikings
I fact, check out the whole of his blog at: http://www.rathergood.com You’ll be there for hours.
oh , and this one staring a pretty mad cow:
http://www.xtechnet.net/content/thunderriver/MadCow.swf
Clearly, skilled folks with nothing better to do.
Indymedia UK Wins New Media Award
http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=42918
In 1999 http://www.mcspotlight.org allegedly had their coverage of the J18 International Carnival Against Capital http://www.j18.org protests censored from the awards ceremony, as being unsuitable for the audience (see http://www.ntk.net /1999/07/02 ). Times seem to have changed with Indymedia now getting an award.
This year however the New Statesman mistakenly published the URL of Indymedia UK as http://www.indymedia.org – the address of the global IMC portal – in both their magazine and website, proving their expert grasp of new media. In the same week that the magazine’s awards were being announced Indymedia was being branded as a terrorist organisation by another magazine in Italy.
The presentation of the awards took place on October 1st at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference just days after the news that a police minister is taking steps to try and close down Melbourne Indymedia ahead of anti-WTO protests in November. Two Indymedia volunteers accepted the award and used the opportunity to highlight the increasing threats to free press and civil liberties and increasing political repression post September 11.
Detailing some of the attacks on Indymedia from around the world over the last year they wondered whether the support shown for Indymedia by Stephen Timms (E-commerce Minister) who presented the awards, and judges like Bill Edwards, the Director of the government’s e-Communications office, could be counted on if Indymedia UK is attacked by the police or state in the future. Observers said the politicians were very uncomfortable indeed not knowing where to look, and the speech received an enthusiastic response.
After the speech a number of trade union workers pledged their support for Indymedia and many others commended the project.
The occasion was also used to highlight Media Democracy Day on the 18th October and the growing mobilisations for the UN World Summit on Information Society in Geveva, Dec 2003.
Don’t Hate The Media – Be The Media! Reclaim Your Media!
Indymedia UK was Winner of the Advocacy Award, and was commended in the Online Communities Award, see:
http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma2002winners.htm
Media Democracy Day: http://www.mediademocracyday.org and in the UK http://www.mediademocracyday.org.uk
NEW MEDIA AWARDS 2002
WINNERS
from the New Statesman at:
http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma2002winners.htm
Another excellent list of high-quality finalists meant that choosing the 2002 winners was difficult, with very little in terms of quality between the top placings in many categories. Each of the finalists, websites, and especially the winners, deserves a visit if you would like get a taste of what is successful today in new media.
Overall Merit Award
Winner: www.ninelives.tv
Elected Representative Award
Winner: www.edwarddavey.co.uk
Commended: www.stevewebb.org.uk
Advocacy Award
Winner: http://uk.indymedia.org
Commendations: http://www.passport.panda.org
www.justgiving.com
Education Award
Winner: www.historyworld.net
Commendations: www.cheslynhay.org.uk
http://debatabase.org
Online Communities Award
Winner: www.friendsreunited.co.uk
Commendations: http://brookmans.com
http://uk.indymedia.org
e-Government Award
Winner: www.cheltenham.gov.uk
Commended: www.food.gov.uk
Established more than five years ago, New Media Awards continues to set the standards in new media. NMA 2003 plans to attract more new ideas, solutions and excellence in new media. If you would like to receive news of NMA 2003, please email newmedia@newstatesman.co.uk
Counter cultures
Have recommended Laurie Taylor to you, several times before, dear readers. This weeks show is another gem, and I thoughly commend it to you.
You can hear the show again, for the next 7 days at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/rams/thinkingallowed.ram
[Real Player needed]
Laurie Taylor talks to Barry Miles, a veteran of the era when students around the world really believed that all you needed was love to change the world. Miles founded the Indica Gallery where John Lennon met Yoko Ono, he saw the Albert Hall filled with Beat poets and wrote down his memories of the Sixties because Allen Ginsberg told him too.
They’ll be joined by cultural commentator Professor George McKay to discuss why, like the Cheshire cat, counter-culture comes and goes but never quite disappears.
Additional information
Professor George McKay
Cultural Studies Dept
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Tel: 01772 201201
George McKay
Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties
Verso Books (1996)
ISBN: 1859840280
George McKay
DiY Culture: Party & Protest in Nineties Britain
Verso Books (1998)
ISBN: 1859842607
Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest (Carfax)
Barry Miles
In the Sixties
Jonathan Cape
ISBN: 0224062409
Arthur Marwick
The Sixties
Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 0192881000
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed.shtml?focuswin
I have supplied pictures for a couple of George McKay’s books.
‘Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties’ has some of my work from Castlemorton. Also ‘Glastonbury: A Very English Fair’ has work of mine from over ten years of the festival.
Jail for PC filmed kicking and punching man being arrested
Martin Wainwright Saturday October 19, 2002 The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,814970,00.html
A police officer caught on video as he kicked and punched a man was jailed for two months yesterday, but left court on bail pending an appeal.
Members of PC Keith Empsall’s family burst into tears at Leeds magistrates court as a security guard prepared to handcuff the 42-year-old and take him down to the cells.
The warder stepped back when Empsall’s counsel, Paul Greaney, asked for bail for the officer, who has no previous convictions or disciplinary record during 24 years’ service. Empsall was convicted of common assault by Leeds magistrates last month.
District judge Christopher Darnton told the officer, who has been suspended from duty since the incident in June last year, that he had “wrestled” over four weeks to choose a sentence.
Empsall was filmed by a student in Wakefield, who heard a fracas in the street outside his flat. An earlier, three-day trial was shown footage of him laying into an apparently unresisting neighbour, Christopher Wilson, 27, and dragging him to a police van.
The court heard that the incident followed an attack by untraced men on the car of a man who had called to collect the belongings of Mr Wilson’s girlfriend, who had ended their relationship. Mr Wilson admitted spending the evening drinking, but denied being violent when the police arrived.
Judge Darnton said: “I accept that day in, day out, police officers have difficult tasks to perform – it is often a thin dividing line between what is and what is not unlawful. But in this case you have unlawfully transcended that line.
“This was an assault committed in a position of trust and I believe the public deserves more from a police officer.”
In mitigation, Greaney told Judge Darnton that Empsall had an “exemplary character”. A probation service report on him accepted he had been dealing with an “obstreperous and obstructive” person.
West Yorkshire police, who will dismiss Empsall if his appeal against conviction fails, said: “It is a matter of regret when one of its officers is held to have fallen below the high standards expected of them.”
Here is the collected info about the backgroud to this story.
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_15_tash_lodge_archive.html#81869164
I go into all this, since I think this and the american cases, described, show the value of getting ‘proper evidence’, and how hard it is for courts to ignore. Again, a main reason for my interest in photography.
BBC report on the students video
“Student’s video ‘catches police attack'”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,526978,00.html
Photographic technique Red Filter 25A
As you can see from some of these entries, I like walking in wild places, and taking landscape photographs …… another means of expression, of who I am, I suppose.
Mostly, I do colour transparency, wide angle [20mm] with a polarizer filter. My treatment of Black and white landscape technique though, is different to every other subject I’m interested in.
I shoot almost exclusively with a red 25A filter, to add a shovel-load of drama to a photograph. At least a third and sometimes two thirds of an image, is of the sky. Without adjustment, this ends up over-exposed, resulting in a huge white space. And leads to quite uninteresting work really!
A red filter, darkens blue considerably, and hence adds contrast to the scene, accentuating the clouds, beautifully. With traditional printing technique [ie: in the darkroom], it means a print is a lot easier to make, without excessive need for the dodging in of the sky.
Now, with digital photography, there is a convergence between these techniques and materials.
This picture here was shot on colour slide. Fuji Provia 100asa 35mm. You can see the full colour version, in the previous blog entry, below. However, have just learned this technique. After scanning image in the usual way. Can now make a black and white image as if shot using a 25A red filter, derived from a colour transparency.
Open in PhotoShop. Go to Image > Adjust > Channel Mixer.
Channel Mixer dialog box opens, sliders add or subtract colour from each colour channel. Click the monochrome option.
Then, adjust slider to the following values:
Red +200
Green 000
Blue -100
Exposure can then be lightly adjusted using the ‘Constant’ Slider. Contrast can be tweaked, in the brightness & contrast slider dialogue as usual.
So long as ‘all’ the values add up to 100, image will be adjusted without any loss of highlight or shadow detail.
Earlier examples of the technique, with some pictures of Snowdinia last month.
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_15_tash_lodge_archive.html#81683594
A wander around Mam Tor – Derbyshire Peak District.
This post, via my WAP phone
Now at OS map SK112833 [sheet 110]. On the ridge 3miles south of Edale. Started walking from the odin mine road SK135834, via Mam Tor and on the the Rushup Edge Ridge. Blight blue sky 5 mins ago. Then a black cloud just went over and quite windy, so now horizontal rain. Now progressed to sleet and hail. This is not so nice, now ….. !
So, am hiding behind this rock, blogging via WAP, till all this weather, finishes ……!
Some earlier wanderings in the Peaks:
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_22_tash_lodge_archive.html#82233320
The Observer – Drugs Uncovered Series:
Money Problems:
“Wendy buys a gram of coke for £60.
She splits it into four equal piles.
Later, she sells each wrap to her ‘friends’ for £20 each.
How much does she make from the deal?”
Relating fractions to division:
“Peter invites two friends over to snort some speed.
He chops the powder into eight lines.
Each of them snorts two lines each.
They each get ______ of the speed.
How can Peter split what’s left so everybody gets
one more line?”
Observer ad, for series:
Drugs and the under14’s
Blimey, whatever next?
“In the terror trap” – What are we doing?
A couple of quotes from Timothy Garton Ash article in the Guardian this thursday…… “In the terror trap” Think it very informative, and I commend it to you.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,813115,00.html
“We’ve given up far to many freedoms
in order to be free”.
John le Carre
[a last epiphany of spymaster George Smiley]
&
“To make this choice is to accept a risk: more liberty, less security. But the balance in this case is clear.
Erring on the other side, we would sacrifice too much liberty for too little added security.
Put it like this: I would rather take a one in 10,000 chance of being blown up by a terrorist than a one in 10 chance of having my emails read by a spook”.
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday October 17, 2002
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,813115,00.html
TEST from Nottingham Central library. I am browsing in the computer section with a view for networking information. What I’m also interested in is the abilty to get information, via my WAP phone from the library catalogue and Dewey Decimal numbers for ‘navigation’ purposes. Then, to record my ‘finds’ and useful info to this blog, for later retrieval and access. Cool eh?
This .pdf from Hampshire Library Service, gives you an idea of my meaning:
http://website.lineone.net/~literary/epi%20aug%202000.pdf
all discussed earlier at:
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_29_tash_lodge_archive.html#82535131
Wapblogger
Wapblogger: a service that allows me to post to my blog, Via my WAP phone. I like to do this from out and about, walking over mountains. I find it an aid, to corolate my landscape photography, when I get home.
I can do this, because of this service,
web : http://www.ubique.ch/wapblogger/
wap : http://wap.ubique.ch/wapblogger/ [in a WAP emulator]
I include these piccys of my phone to explain further: Dialing up the service at http://wap.ubique.ch/wapblogger, I then enter user and password, same as if adding to blog on computer. Then presented with a box, similar to making an SMS text message. Don’t have to keep a ‘live connection’ [to expensive!] while entering text. When finished, dial-up again, log and send, Then a confirmation message appears, confirming the upload.
Here is a message, I’ve just uploaded: “This message is to show how to upload from a WAP phone to my blog.” You can see the begining of the entry, on the WAP phone here.
* * * * *
WAP to Blogger interfacing.
wapblogger is a WAP interface to popular weblog tools Blogger, LiveJournal and any other weblog-style tool supporting the XML-RPC Blogger API.
To post to a weblog with a WAP enabled cell phone!
This is the URL ‘form’ as a guide :>
http://wap.ubique.ch/wapblogger/wb.pl?u=USER&p=PASS&b=BLOGID&a=post
blog info :>
USER username
PASS password
BLOGID blog number [7 digit]
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_21_tash_lodge_archive.html#79474162
* * * * *
Further help on all this, from:
Wapblogger FAQ
http://www.ubique.ch/wapblogger/faq.htm
This is the very first message, by these means, back in July:
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_21_tash_lodge_archive.html#79474778
Snowdonia:
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_08_tash_lodge_archive.html#81468145
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_15_tash_lodge_archive.html#81683594
Peak District – Derwent Valley District:
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_09_22_tash_lodge_archive.html#82233320
Announcing the new website of the travellers / techno community in Orgiva, Granada Province, Southern Spain
http://partyvibe.com/conspiracy/
I did this website for my son, Sam, and hosted it on Fortunecity for the last few months to get it all, of the ground. However, the advertising winds a user up!!
So, I hassled the Partyvibe / Network 23 folks for space and have just transfered the pages.
Sam is a man working with the likes of Total Resistance and Desert Storm etc. So is in good company on the ISP have moved him to.
His Mobile : 0034 (0)617 903586 & E-mail: samconspiracy@hotmail.com
Network 23: http://www.network23.org
Partyvibe: http://partyvibe.com
Just to show you some of my family snaps, These piccys are from the site I made for my DJ-type son, he hangs out with ‘Total Resistance, Desert Storm etc, in the South of Spain. Orgiva in fact……
http://partyvibe.com/conspiracy
Anyway, his name is Sam, and i love him …….
The other one, my daughter, is called Siri, she did live in Spain, where she meet her boyfriend, Geoff. Now moved to England, and living in Bath. Guess what? I love her to.
This is what we now have for Peace and Reconcilliation for the Stonehenge situation !!
Stonehenge Peace and Reconciliation Process http://www.greenleaf.demon.co.uk/padras.htm
Now, just how is it exectly, that I am being reconcilled ??
* * * * *
From: George Firsoff george@greenleaf.demon.co.uk
Date: Tue Oct 15, 2002 5:51 pm
Subject: Re: [stonehengepeace] Re: Stonehenge Solstice Festival Revival.
Yahoo! Groups : stonehengepeace Messages : Message 2217 of 2226
QUOTE:
What I was trying to get across was not that I am against the Free Festival so much as that I consider it such a waste of time and energy thinking about and discussing it beceause it does not have a bat in hell’s chance of coming off!
Like those SILLY people who ended up in the Beanfield thought they couldtake on what they called “The State” and they could win!
That was not true. Now since then there are even more laws and rules that will be enforced to stop you doing what you want.
Every year the police have prevented sound systems coming to Stonehenge and setting up in different parts of Wiltshire. You might have scored one night of activity in 2001? before being shut down.
I think there is a dividing point, which is, are you more interested in making things unpleasant for the authorities, or are you more interested in enjoying your music, legally?
* * * * *
This is my account of what actually happened during this period.
http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean.htm
and, my ‘cell notes’, written while locked up after ther attack
http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean-notes1.htm
Also, Operation Solstice
http://tash.gn.apc.org/op_solstice.htm
I minority group containing many families, attacked, while trying to stand up for their civil rights “SILLY”. Blast his eyes and a curse on his ……. AHHHH!
I didn’t know, of this Yahoo group: Yahoo! Groups : stonehengepeace
But I did know of the Stonehenge peace and reconciliation commission, George Firsoff, and Tim Ingle-Abbot etc.
I am not with them. I disagree quite fundamentally what is going on there.
I am for peace, as well as the next man. The Beanfield was horrible, and I don’t wish a re-run on anyone. BUT, what the outcome of their meetings appears to be, is a complete acquiescence to the police and authorities ideas, on how to run a managed event. It seem so long as they get to be all pagan, and wave an oak leaf at each other, in the stones in the middle of the night, it is considered progress.
Well this anarchist is not religious, Christian, Moslem or Pagan. Never was. But I do claim a right to gather, with me and mine, that goes back to the stone age, right there as we have always done.. Really, why should I put that on hold, because of a temporary bit of law, which, when viewed from that length of history, doesn’t seen to stand up. For such attitudes, you may know that I’m still an ‘injuncted person’ and can be arrested for being in an area, ‘delineated on a map therein between dates around the solstice.’ This order by Lord Justice Morland, has never been rescinded.
My interest is, and always was the gathering of the tribes, to follow this tradition. If you look at some of the photos I put there especially the aerial shots, you’ll see 20,000, on one side of the road at a festival on the solstice, many listening to Hawkwind etc, with a couple of hundred of us, going over the road for a celebration of a few hours, to return back to the festival, before it got dark.
Recent years, after all the nonsense, the focus has shifted to the stones.
This is a shame, THEY should have left it all alone! The whole issue, would not now be under such great pressure.
The legal justification, for putting us down, was damage. It informed the injunctions. But, I’ve always thought that there is a difference between ‘damage’ and ‘wear and tear’, like what you get during its ‘use’. Left to the authorities, it would be put in a glass case and air-conditioned as a museum piece, rather than ‘living history’. Do you see, we come from different planets 🙂
Because of the way, this has all panned-out. I did not go to the event this year, have been every year since 1972! But am so disappointed by the way stuff is turning out. The temporary gathering in the middle of the night under rules, is not what this old foggy thought we were doing. I find it hard to account for what is going on, and why folks have put up with it!
You might also be interested to know, that I’ve not been to a Glastonbury for years either, last 1992. I think that there is a difference between a ‘festival’ and an ‘outside concert’. Just not what I thought we were doing, when I set out on all this.
Others however, understand the significance of this action. Am helping making a Radio4 documentary for transmission on the 27th November, describing some of this, called : In Living Memory”
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_21_tash_lodge_archive.html#79296253
Jolyon Jenkins
BBC Bristol
Fri 19/07/02 14:19
Hello
I’m making part of a series for Radio 4 called “In Living Memory” in which we revisit events of the not-too-distant past which have been half forgotten, and ask what the aftermath was. I’ve been wondering about doing something on the travellers’ convoys of 1985-7 and maybe the Battle of the Beanfield in particular. I came across your excellent website.
Could I have a chat with you about it?
Jolyon Jenkins: Producer, network features
* * * * *
This is what we now have for Peace and Reconcilliation for the Stonehenge situation !!
Stonehenge Peace and Reconciliation Process http://www.greenleaf.demon.co.uk/padras.htm
Now, just how is it exectly, that I am being reconcilled ??
* * * * *
From: George Firsoff george@greenleaf.demon.co.uk
Date: Tue Oct 15, 2002 5:51 pm
Subject: Re: [stonehengepeace] Re: Stonehenge Solstice Festival Revival.
Yahoo! Groups : stonehengepeace Messages : Message 2217 of 2226
QUOTE:
What I was trying to get across was not that I am against the Free Festival so much as that I consider it such a waste of time and energy thinking about and discussing it beceause it does not have a bat in hell’s chance of coming off!
Like those SILLY people who ended up in the Beanfield thought they couldtake on what they called “The State” and they could win!
That was not true. Now since then there are even more laws and rules that will be enforced to stop you doing what you want.
Every year the police have prevented sound systems coming to Stonehenge and setting up in different parts of Wiltshire. You might have scored one night of activity in 2001? before being shut down.
I think there is a dividing point, which is, are you more interested in making things unpleasant for the authorities, or are you more interested in enjoying your music, legally?
* * * * *
Oh and this: for peace, more and more angry at me and mine:
From: stonehengepeace@yahoogroups.com
To: stonehengepeace@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [stonehengepeace] anarchists
I find it hard to believe, that the anarchists really believe there can be a free festival, or an event, at Stonehenge. After all they must know the history and they just can’t be that dumb.
This leads me to the conclusion that they are being devious. They just want to make people believe there can be a festival, to passionately desire it, so thousands can come to Stonehenge to act as cannon fodder for the confrontation they are planning with the authorities, you know “the revolution goes on” somebody said – yeah? Some silly 19th century ideological delusion, which is sad if you really look deeply into it! It will not happen!
But what they would achieve is good enough for them, because they might force the authorities to clamp down, to cause another atrocity, so they can say “we told you so, the state always operates like that” they’d have gained converts for their brainwashing, which is at the end of the day what they want.
Because to be really cruel, and I don’t care about that, because I’ve had enough stick from these peddlers of unreality, they are in truth but a small group of extremists who naturally feel lonely, they need more people who think the same as them, and can feed their illusions back at them to make them feel powerful.
If there is a Peace Process it’s job is to defuse this one!
Don’t let the agitators get to you!
The agitators want to provoke a confrontation!
For their own pathetic ends!
If they succeed Stonehenge will be closed up again, for years.
So, there you have it. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is my account of what actually happened during this period.
http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean.htm
and, my ‘cell notes’, written while locked up after ther attack
http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean-notes1.htm
Also, Operation Solstice
http://tash.gn.apc.org/op_solstice.htm
I minority group containing many families, attacked, while trying to stand up for their civil rights “SILLY”. Blast his eyes and a curse on his ……. AHHHH!
I didn’t know, of this Yahoo group: Yahoo! Groups : stonehengepeace
But I did know of the Stonehenge peace and reconciliation commission, George Firsoff, and Tim Ingle-Abbot etc.
I am not with them. I disagree quite fundamentally what is going on there.
I am for peace, as well as the next man. The Beanfield was horrible, and I don’t wish a re-run on anyone. BUT, what the outcome of their meetings appears to be, is a complete acquiescence to the police and authorities ideas, on how to run a managed event. It seem so long as they get to be all pagan, and wave an oak leaf at each other, in the stones in the middle of the night, it is considered progress.
Well this anarchist is not religious, Christian, Moslem or Pagan. Never was. But I do claim a right to gather, with me and mine, that goes back to the stone age, right there as we have always done.. Really, why should I put that on hold, because of a temporary bit of law, which, when viewed from that length of history, doesn’t seen to stand up. For such attitudes, you may know that I’m still an ‘injuncted person’ and can be arrested for being in an area, ‘delineated on a map therein between dates around the solstice.’ This order by Lord Justice Morland, has never been rescinded.
My interest is, and always was the gathering of the tribes, to follow this tradition. If you look at some of the photos I put there especially the aerial shots, you’ll see 20,000, on one side of the road at a festival on the solstice, many listening to Hawkwind etc, with a couple of hundred of us, going over the road for a celebration of a few hours, to return back to the festival, before it got dark.
Recent years, after all the nonsense, the focus has shifted to the stones.
This is a shame, THEY should have left it all alone! The whole issue, would not now be under such great pressure.
The legal justification, for putting us down, was damage. It informed the injunctions. But, I’ve always thought that there is a difference between ‘damage’ and ‘wear and tear’, like what you get during its ‘use’. Left to the authorities, it would be put in a glass case and air-conditioned as a museum piece, rather than ‘living history’. Do you see, we come from different planets 🙂
Because of the way, this has all panned-out. I did not go to the event this year, have been every year since 1972! But am so disappointed by the way stuff is turning out. The temporary gathering in the middle of the night under rules, is not what this old foggy thought we were doing. I find it hard to account for what is going on, and why folks have put up with it!
You might also be interested to know, that I’ve not been to a Glastonbury for years either, last 1992. I think that there is a difference between a ‘festival’ and an ‘outside concert’. Just not what I thought we were doing, when I set out on all this.
Others however, understand the significance of this action. Am helping making a Radio4 documentary for transmission on the 27th November, describing some of this, called : In Living Memory”
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_21_tash_lodge_archive.html#79296253
Jolyon Jenkins
BBC Bristol
Fri 19/07/02 14:19
Hello
I’m making part of a series for Radio 4 called “In Living Memory” in which we revisit events of the not-too-distant past which have been half forgotten, and ask what the aftermath was. I’ve been wondering about doing something on the travellers’ convoys of 1985-7 and maybe the Battle of the Beanfield in particular. I came across your excellent website.
Could I have a chat with you about it?
Jolyon Jenkins: Producer, network features
* * * * *
West Yorkshire Police:
CARLING WEEKEND – LEEDS FESTIVAL DISORDER APPEAL
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/Press%20Releases/july-nov/popconcert/popappeal.htm
* * * * *
Killingbeck police today (Tues) appealed for the public’s help identifying 24 men in relation to an outbreak of disorder at the Carling Weekend, Leeds Festival music event at Temple Newsam, Leeds, over the August Bank Holiday.
At 11pm on Sunday August 25, following the final act at the weekend music event, a number of people in the red campsite began pulling lighting down.
* * * * *
General trouble and lunch-outs, by all accounts.
All very young, some still at school perhaps.
Thought you all might like to know …!
As an expert in surveillance though, me thinks these are some of the best police snaps I’ve seen. So they’re clearly getting better at this sort of thing.
http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/Press%20Releases/july-nov/popconcert/popappeal.htm
and their ‘ Wanted Poster ‘
http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/Press%20Releases/july-nov/popconcert/poster1.gif
Tash at home!
Just messin’ with the webcam. Normally I use it for continuous video. But interested now and again, to see what a cheppo, can achive, set at highest res for a still photo. Here’s me at home, computing …..
Camera on this shot, set for ‘millions of colours’, outside dimensions of 640 x 480. Auto leveled and ‘unsharp’ mask in Photoshop. Then resaved at 500 across. 72dpi.
This is all quite a novel way for me to proceed, since almost all my pictures are on b&w negative, or, colour transparency film. Which is then scanned. Prefer this way, since no one knows how long a digital image will last. Either on hard disc or CD, and it bothers archivist and historians a little. Where as, I KNOW photographic materials can last [so far] up to 160 years.!
Blog updated service
This service Blogarithm.com, tells you when blogs of interest to you are updated
On their page, they say: Welcome to Blogarithm.com! Here’s how this works:
1. You enter your email address and your favorite blog’s URL above and click the “Watch this Blog” button.
2. You’ll soon get an email that will include a URL for you to visit. Click on this URL or enter it in your favorite browser.
3. A page will become available where you can enter whatever password you like. After that, your subscription will be active!
4. To add more blogs, either go repeat the steps above or click on “my account” at the top of every Blogarithm.com page, enter your email address and password, and you can do things like delete subscriptions, add other subscriptions, change your password, or change your email address.
5. You will receive an email every day telling you which of the blogs that you are subscribed to have been updated, including links for you to take you directly to those blogs!
Stonehenge 360 panorama:
Please be patient and wait for each movie to load. This can take 5 mins or so depending on your machine and your net connection.
Wait while the QTVRs load into your browsers cache file (this will speed up your loading time.)
Nottingham Transport – Text messaging Bus Timetables
ATTAIN – Advanced Traffic and Travel Information system
http://www.dcm.ntu.ac.uk/RTTS/Projects/grr32468/attain.html
Advanced Traffic and Travel Information in NOTTINGHAM (UK)
http://www.doc.ntu.ac.uk/RTTS/Projects/grr32468/public.html
Public ‘Instructions’ Poster
Service provides general information on the Advanced Traffic and Travel Information (ATTAIN) system, instructions for its use and the explaination of the cost of the service to the users.
The ATTAIN system has been developed by the Intelligent Simulation and Modelling (ISM) group in the Department of Computing and Mathematics at the Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in collaboration with the Nottingham City Transport, Nottingham Traffic Control Centre, MIRA Ltd and Nottingham Scientific Limited. The reference bus-stop information was provided by the Nottingham City Council.
The ATTAIN system is essentially an automated text messaging system that responds to specific requests for bus time information. The provision of customised information prevents information overload while affording more thorough examination of alternatives that are pertinent to a specific journey. The requests are made by means of SMS text messages and the replies are provided in the same way. The requests for information must adhere to some simple rules to ensure that the messages are easily understood while the amount of text that needs to be entered is as small as possible. The generic format of the messages and the specific examples are given in the following section.
The ATTAIN system is being introduced in Nottingham in three stages:
Stage 1 – involves provision of the information service for the bus route 87 (City to Arnold) on the basis of ‘standard rate SMS messaging’. This means that the inquirers will pay only for messages requesting the information and will not be charged for the cost of the reply messages (typically 10-12p/message). This stage forms an integral part of the EPSRC funded research project.
Stage 2 – involves provision of the information service for ten bus routes – 2, 3, 4, 6, 25, 30, 48, 53, 80 and 87 – on the basis of ‘premium rate SMS messaging’. This means that the inquirers will pay for both the initial request for information message and the reply message (typically 20-25p/message).
Stage 3 – involves provision of information for all NCT bus routes in Nottingham with a possible extension to other public transport providers. This service will be provided also on the basis of ‘premium rate SMS messaging’.
This is all part of the Nottingham Trent University Mathematics Department Research Projects
http://www.doc.ntu.ac.uk/RTTS/
These are all tools to get an ‘Integrated Transport Policy’ off the ground. Us environmentalist ‘types’ care very much about all this. Not any one system is a solution, to get people out of cars, but, taken together, may abount to something. System been going for while now in Nottingham, but been very under – advertised.
All very well and good, but all the above is doing, is broadcasting the exististing timetable, that still might not be accurate description of movements [as ever !]. However, the following is done via satellites, and tells you ‘what is’ by real time measurement.
Now Leicestershire is giving the advances system a go …….
Satellites take the wait out of catching the bus
Martin Wainwright
Thursday October 10, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,808712,00.html
The great British tradition of queueing at bus stops in all weathers for hours is being threatened by the No 4 service between Loughborough and Shepshed.
The 10 mile round trip in Leicestershire has become the first in the country to allow passengers to sit in their armchairs and wait to hear the precise time a bus will arrive at a stop, relayed as a text message to their phone.
“It’s extremely quick,” said Sarah Taylor, a passenger, in Loughborough yesterday, wanting to check if she had time to shop before the next bus. “I got the message back in 15 seconds saying the bus would be there in three minutes, and it was.”
The system, which the blue and yellow No 4 buses are try ing out, involves people making a 12p text call and using a sequence of six letters specific to “their bus stop”. This triggers the 15 second response, which uses a ground positioning satellite system carried by the buses to calculate actual arrival time to the nearest minute.
The technology, which updates the buses’ progress every few seconds, takes “no-wait” technology a step further than the timetables of some bus firms already given by text or phone. The system, if successful, will extend across Leicestershire, and include East Midlands airport shuttles.
Keith Shayshutt, managing director of the Midlands operator Kinchbus, running the trial in Leicestershire, said: “We’re the first to give people ‘real’ arrival times.”
Bringing the net to Eden
Broadband for rural areas? BT says there is not enough demand. Now villagers living deep in the dales aim to prove them wrong, writes Ben Hammersley
Thursday October 3, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,803023,00.html
My laptop is so far from bandwidth it has a nosebleed. In the village of Kirkby Stephen, in the Eden Valley, on the border between Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dales, getting on to the internet is a major effort. With phone lines shared between remote farmhouses, and mobile phones a cruel fantasy, an internet connection here can drop as low as 12Kbps – if you can get online at all.
But all of this is about to change. EdenFaster, a local community organisation, is about to supply broadband internet connections to the entire valley, bringing 10,000 people, 500 businesses and 50 schools online with an internet connection 20 times faster than ADSL for half the price. They’re doing it on their own because of a “perceived lack of demand” by telecoms companies. They’re doing it wirelessly, and they’re one of the leaders in the new revolution in ways to deliver the internet in the UK.
Online readers will already know the benefits of broadband. The very fast, always-on internet connections have been available in the metropolitan centres of Britain for a couple of years now. Their benefits stretch far beyond being able to look at websites faster, or download MP3s all the quicker: they change and create communities. Education, medicine, local government, entertainment and jobs are all transformed if a constant internet connection can be depended on.
And nowhere else is this more necessary than in the dales. With the average wage only half that of the rest of the country, and a local economy dependent on agriculture and tourism, the introduction of broadband, says Lindsey Annison, EdenFaster’s project leader, will revolutionise the way the local community can live. The area’s scenery and relaxed lifestyle would be perfect for teleworkers if, she says, they could get online.
Mick Keeble, of Croft PLC, which is supplying the Cisco, Enterasys and Check Point kit for the project, says: “The kit itself is commonplace: it’s off the shelf. The only difference is how it’s being deployed and what it could lead to with respect to the quality of life for the people in this area.”
The nearest supply of substantial bandwidth is almost 30 miles away, but climb a nearby hill, and on a clear day you can see it. Stick a wireless connection on the same hill, and you can tap into it. Use the same 802.11b, or Wi-Fi, wireless technology as you find built into modern laptops, and you can beam the bandwidth down into the valley. Repeaters in the villages of Kirkby Stephen, Appleby and Warcop can then receive this connection and create a wireless “mesh” between the houses that each customer can then connect to and get online. Because this mesh acts as a local network, the system also creates a “walled garden” – where local services are delivered at even greater speeds than over the wild internet. The internet is reached via a “gateway” that can be restricted – perfect for the local schools. What’s more, with this approach, as each subscriber comes on, it only makes the local network technically all the stronger and more resistant to failure.
The “walled garden” (the Walled Garden of EdenFaster, naturally) is a clever idea. It will allow local businesses to supply local services, and it gives scope for other projects that would be much more difficult over low-bandwidth connections. Live video is one project, video on demand another, and EdenFaster is now investigating using Voice over Internet Protocol technology to allow for a voice service to replace the expensive and poor quality local phone service. Cabling, it seems, may soon be irrelevant.
The vast majority of broadband connections in the UK are with either cable television systems, or with ADSL, a nifty technology that converts standard copper phone lines into high-speed connections.
For rural areas, however, cable TV is not on the cards, and ADSL presents a number of technical problems. In much of the Eden Valley, the phone lines are aluminium, and not copper – rendering ADSL impossible. Plus, here, as in many areas around the country, it might not be economically feasible to install. BT Wholesale, which installs ADSL equipment into telephone exchanges, has set threshold figures of the minimum number of subscribers that must order ADSL before it converts the exchange.
This threshold is a matter of controversy. Earlier this year, the pressure group BroadbandforBritain.co.uk commissioned research into the exact number needed per exchange before they considered it to be economically feasible to install ADSL. Although BT quotes figures of between 200 and 750 consumers, BroadbandforBritain and the research firm Ovum, found a figure closer to 50 was high enough. Given a base of 40 residential and 10 business customers, “an entrepreneurial service provider taking advantage of the latest DSL technology would see rapid payback on their capital investment”.
http://www.BroadbandforBritain.co.uk
“It’s a long way from the 200 to 550 that BT are quoting,” says BroadbandforBritain.co.uk’s Andy Williams. He says the UK is missing “a cohesive nationwide policy toward broadband rollout, and there’s a lack of education about what broadband can do”.
For such a rich country, he says, we have a lot of catching up to do, and “BT, although it is a private company, it has a tremendous amount of public responsibility”.
BT disclaims the report. It says that because the UK is more hilly and the exchanges more remote than in the rest of Europe, at least 200 subscribers are necessary. It says the fact that other companies can gain access to the exchanges to install their own ADSL equipment – but haven’t – shows that it really isn’t feasible in many areas. At least without hundreds of customers. Plus, they say, they are involved in projects with radio meshes, such as EdenFaster, and satellite services, to try to find which solution works the best.
The cost factor, it seems, is key. Not so elsewhere, where national governments have been funding broadband rollout. South Korea, for example, has complete broadband coverage, its installation paid for by the government, and while the French, the Australian and the Canadian governments subsidise broadband rollout, here, the attitude is different.
The UK approach is to “establish a competitive marketplace” as opposed to just subsidising the incum bent providers. This is probably a good thing: the German broadband market, for example, is dominated by one provider responsible for 90% of all connections.
But the question of rural broadband remains. There was a one-off fund of £30m made available for regional development agencies to, in the words of a Department of Trade and Industry spokesman, “go away and look for ideas” and implement them as trials. It is from some of the remains of this funding – via the North West Development Agency – that EdenFaster hopes to get off the ground. Time is running out for similar projects, however. The money was made available last year, and there are no plans to extend this offering.
This might be a problem: the demand for rural broadband connections is growing. It is not limited to remote areas such as Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dales, either. There are grassroots campaigns being pioneered all over the country, either campaigning for BT to install ADSL, or doing as EdenFaster is, and bypassing BT altogether.
One campaign, at www.pleasebt.co.uk, is run by Chris Maerick for the Hertfordshire village of Stanstead Abbotts. Only 20 miles from London, Stanstead Abbotts needs 200 people to sign up to have ADSL installed before BT will convert the exchange. Maerick has been collecting names. “If you just sit back, nothing is going to happen,” he says. So far, he has 33 local villagers on his list.
Back in the dales, Lindsey Annison is hopeful that their project will be a success. “EdenFaster will create at least one job within the community on top of the benefits of having the connection itself,” she says, and as long as they have one hundred subscribers they will break even. This will not be a problem – one poster in the village shop has already inspired 73 people to sign up, and that’s not including the schools and local businesses. Having been hit by the foot and mouth outbreak, the rejuvenation of the area is topmost in their minds – and many see access to the internet as key to this. Last year, Annison started Digital dales.co.uk to highlight the opportunities in the local area – opportunities that can only be made greater by the introduction of broadband internet connection.
All told, they need £150,000 to transform the area, create some jobs, and provide a possible blueprint for other rural communities. Tomorrow, the North West Development Agency will give them the verdict. We shall be watching.
* * * * *
Banging on the broadband door
The government and BT defended the pace of broadband rollout this week at the Labour party conference in Blackpool.
Angus Porter, managing director of the consumer division of BT Retail, admitted “trigger points” of consumer interest, at which telephone exchanges would be upgraded to offer broadband, were “higher than some people would like”.
But, he added, “the costs of providing the service are higher than some people would like”.
He said that enabling an exchange for ADSL requires a stable electricity supply, air-conditioning and a connection to the internet backbone, the last of which can be more expensive in remote areas.
The trigger points, which have so far been met at five exchanges, are at a level that would lose BT money if they were met precisely – although this loss cannot be too great, he said, or BT would be accused of uncompetitive behaviour by the regulator.
He said the company has to justify its spending to its shareholders, and that on the hundreds of millions of pounds already spent on ADSL-enabled exchanges, “the return to BT so far has been pretty poor”.
E-commerce minister, Stephen Timms, said that there were other ways to get broadband, pointing out that 40% of the country has access through cable television networks, and anyone can use satellite.
Timms said: “There’s still a third of the population not in range of an affordable broadband service.
“I do think it would be a significant mistake to provide [government] funding for broadband rollout on a significant scale.”
He said that mobile phone services, which now cover virtually the whole population, were built with private money. “Public subsidy would not just have been superfluous, it may even have been damaging,” he said.
Instead, the government is spending £30m on broadband pilot projects around the country, which Timms hopes will demonstrate alternative models of provision.
As to the UK’s poor showing in comparison to other countries,Timms admitted “we made a late start”, but added that “we’re now making very rapid progress”. He said the UK’s millionth broadband customer is expected to buy the service by the end of next week.
S A Mathieson
Tash on YouTube
