Alan Lodge's Blog

Hope you’ve enjoyed the more ‘immediate’ pictures here and on Indymedia and Guilfin, that I’ve sent directly from Stonehenge, with my new mobile phone. Will be processing, scanning and then uploading, some of my ‘proper’ photos over the next few days. I couldn’t help this one though.

This policeman is a front-row member of the style-police. I said I liked the shades, took a snap with my phone, and he said ‘Cool’. I nearly fell over. What is the world coming to? Anyway, little did he know, that he we on the internet, for public view, by the time I’d got back to my car !!!!!

http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET2234

I’d successfully taken a number of pictures with my new Sony-Ericsson Mobile phone. Uploaded them to Indymedia, Guilfin and this blog, at various times while the events at Stonehenge were happening.

This was a first, playing with some of the toys, and I’ve already heard that many had see these pictures, thought that looks nice, seeing it was sunny, and people had happy smiling faces, and thus came out to celebrate.

Me thinks that this is pretty wicked use of this technology.

Front page on Indymedia UK at the moment, http://indymedia.org.uk

English Heritage had decided to open Stonehenge on the wrong day! The Solstice is at 20.10h on Saturday evening, and the Solstice dawn occurs on Sunday June the 22nd. But free access to The Stones will only be permitted from Sat 2.00h to 12.00 h.

Campaigners are demanding full restoration of their traditional rights of free access to Stonehenge and provision of land for camping while attending the Midsummer Solstice Celebration (21-23rd June). To be expected: Music Fun and Agit Prop Morris dancing, with Seize The Day, Headmix, Celtica, Tarantism, Judge Trev, 2000DS and Nik Turner (of Hawkwind), Threefortenpound, RinkyDink + other cycle sound-systems for atmosphere. [Report]

Tash’s mobile phone photos of Saturdays sunrise on his blogs at:

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com and my CamPhone Blog at: http://www.camblog.com/blog.php?blog=239

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/06/272815.html

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/06/272813.html

Guilfin has some more examples,

http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET2220

http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET2219

http://www.guilfin.net/database/showevent.php3?ev_id=evTSE6688

So, all this was for ‘immediate communications’. Over the next few days, will be proccess the Black and White, and Colour transparency work, that i’d taked during the event. Will post the ‘proper work’, after a scanning session, on my main website.

The sun has just risen over the stone, to great cheers

more later.

Leaving for Wiltshire shortly, hope to post ‘directly from the field’, on here, Indymedia and Guilfin using my Sony Ericsson P800 ‘CamPhone’. Got to juggle that, as well as taking photos, in my more traditional method, on film.

Stonehenge’s summer solstice goes ahead BBC NEWS 17june03

Stonehenge 2003 CONDITIONS OF ENTRY AND INFORMATION English Heritage

posted yesterday about the latest news, and advice and posting links. Check out at:

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003_06_15_tash_lodge_archive.html#95807772

I’m one of the man’s greatest fans. I like so much of the different styles he’s produced. He is famous for imperial ‘the king is great’ type music, but i think some of these are soo sensitive. I put them on my server to share here.

[128kbs, so depending on your modem, might be best to ‘right-click’, then ‘save target’ to disk and then play]

I would like to hear ‘As Steals the Morn upon the Night’ over a quality system at Stonehenge on solstice morn!! What would the papers say about that?

A few pieces I’m listening to now ::

Handel – As Steals the Morn upon the Night

Handel – Where’er you walk

Handel – Ombra mai fu

Handel – Messiah – I Know That My Redeemer Liveth

oh, and this is the noisy stuff he’s good at 🙂

I used this piece, in a couple of slide shows on the Mayday Protests in Parliament Square, London

Handel – Zadok The Priest

Mayday2000 protest, London

What a wondeful stripey place to live. All youve got to say, to a visitor, is Iive in the house with black and white stripes, and there you are, found.
Individuality, not sure what the council planning committee thinks though …..

I thought you would be interested in this; written by a party organiser about their busted event on Friday :

Words cannot express how we feel, it’s hard to know where to begin. The time, effort and money of so many people wasted. Everyone involved put their heart and soul into our summer gathering. What happened has left us all in shock and absolutely gutted.

But don’t worry we will bounce back! The Frogz will keep on hopping!

Our private members only party was stopped in a way which we believe to be illegal. At 12:04pm on Friday 13th June, Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was signed by Assistant Chief Constable Steve Mortimore. We were then served with it at about 2:00pm.

Friday 13th lived up to its name, what an awful morning. After more than 2 weeks of gathering and moving decoration, lighting, geodomes, marquees, carpets, firewood and a mountain of other equipment. Followed by a week of constructing and building, we had made such a beautiful outdoor environment that was ready to go!

We thought we had thought of everything in putting on our summer gathering, our annual private members party (which was also celebrating 3 birthdays of members of our tribe) and that we were completely legal. We had full permission from the farmer who owned the land, who trusted us and understood what we were trying to do. We had visited all the local people, spoken to them personally about the gathering and gave them personal invites so that they could come along and a telephone number to call if there were any problems.

A lot of time was spent researching information used in the planning of our private party. Everything from the amount of toilets recommended by health and safety, fire points, medical staff and stewarding thru to the licensing and legal implications of the party.

Under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, the Licensing Section undertakes the licensing of Entertainment at premises within the borough of South Somerset.

An Entertainment Licence is required for Public Music, Public Dancing and Indoor Sports.

There are certain exemptions for not having a licence, these are as follows:-

 If the premises holds a liquor licence issued by the Magistrates Court under the Licensing Act 1968, the licensee is entitled to have two performers on at any time with that period of opening. This could be a D.J playing music or a duo.

 If the function is a private party, then an entertainment licence is not required

 Any music (1) in a place of public religious worship or (2) performed as an incident of a religious meeting or service

 Entertainment held in a pleasure fair

 An entertainment which takes place wholly or mainly in the open air.

As you can see we were exempted from having a public entertainment license by the fact that we were putting on a private party by personal invitation only, with 24 hour security there to keep it that way.

The police said that they had grounds to serve Section 63 because we “could not guarantee that a member of the public (i.e. an non-tribe member) could not gain entry to the private party” It is absolutely impossible to guarantee that something won’t happen. So by their thinking it is impossible to have a private party.

We will be contacting the council to confirm that we did not need a party entertainment license as soon as they open on Monday morning.

When we were served the Section 63 (see below) we were ordered to leave the land and the surrounding area by 6pm, giving us 4 hours to dismantle something that had taken many people over a week to put together. we are talking about 8 geodesic domes, 3 circus round tents, 4 marquees, a pond, 100 hay bails, solar showers, sauna, 20ft x 16ft x 18ft scaffolding stage, pyramid, solar cinema, market stalls, food stalls, stone carving workshop, children’s area, over half a mile of water piping, 250 litre water bowsers, fire extinguishers, lasers, lights, safety fencing, flushing toilet blocks, firewood etc. etc.) If we didn’t remove our vehicles, equipment and property we could be arrested. At this point a yawning gapping chasm opened up in our stomachs. Absolutely gutted. Exhausted from all the work putting it all together and getting only 2-3 hours sleep each night, we tried to piece ourselves back together, still reeling in the shock we began the sickening process of packing up something that we had only just finished putting together.

At about 5pm we had taken down quite a bit of our stuff, but the police were back and this time they were stating that they were now searching for any sound equipment and generators and would be confiscating them!! Because they had read on the message board of our website that we were encouraging people to meet in preparation to move to an alternative site. We immediately stated that this was not true and took steps to stop things going any further by closing down the message board and replacing it with a message saying that “there will be absolutely no summer gathering taking place”. The police had already taken the license plate numbers of all the vehicles on the site, but now they were searching the vehicles too.

The sound equipment and generators were seized and loaded into some of the 6 police riot vans that were on the scene. (There were more police there than there were of us!)

The police were informed that we had no intentions of moving else where and that our message board was open to free speech and did not necessarily reflect the tribes opinions or intentions as a whole. We also informed them that we felt that they were breaching the original agreement if we cleared the site and move away we would be left alone.

We really really wanted to have our gathering, we even offered the compromise of allowing the police to impound all sound and power equipment for the duration of our gathering so that our tribe, our family could be allowed to camp together in a field that we had permission to be in. They would not even consider this offer and repeated that we had to leave the site and surrounding area and not return within 7 days.

If you paid for full membership with tribe of frog and feel that our private summer gathering should have been allowed and would like to let the authorities know then you can contact the man that signed the Section 63 order that stopped it from happening, at this address below;

Steve Mortimore

Assistant Chief Constable

Avon and Somerset Constabulary

PO Box 37

Portishead

Bristol

BS20 8QJ

We have a lot of work to do to sort out the mess that this has left behind. The hiring of all the scaffolding, sound systems, generators, water bowsers, toilets, fencing, etc. etc. is an unavoidable cost that has to be paid for out of our collective membership fees. We will refund money to any one which wishes to cancel their membership. If you would like to get a refund of your membership fee then send an email to; refunds@tribeoffrog.com and we will contact you with details of what to do. For those of you that wish to remain a full paid up member, your personal invitation will remain valid for our next party/gathering.

We can’t express enough to everyone how sorry we are that this happened, we are sorry for all the wasted time, the wasted days people took off work to get there and the wasted journeys too. It’s awful 🙁

We are seeking legal advice. It would be great if there was someone in tribe out there that could help. Are you or friend or member of your family a solicitor that is willing to help?, if so please get in touch with us.

*** PHOTOS & FILM FOOTAGE REQUEST ***

The police did a lot of filming while they were there, we are going to ask for copies of all the tapes made. We would also like to collect together any video and photos you have. if you took pictures and recorded the event in anyway please get in touch.

It is still legal to hold private parties and private gatherings in this countries, at least for now, but we should all be aware of a new bill that the government is trying to make law, you can read it here

Under the current wording of this proposed bill there could be a £20,000 fine and up to 6 months in prison for some of the following breaches of the new law if it is passed:

 Any private wedding, corporate reception or party that employs a musician to perform would need a licence – failure to obtain one could put the organisers in the dock.

 Do you run a recording or a broadcast studio? Better get a licence, or the police will be banging on the door.

 Are you going bell ringing or carol singing? Think twice about it if you don’t have a licence.

And if you want proof that the authorities will use this sort of power once they have it at their disposal then you just have to read this excerpt from a letter sent to the landlord of a London Pub, fined thousands of pounds for breaching the current rules that ban dancing in pubs that don’t have a “dancing licence”.

“Dancing could be described as the rhythmic moving of the legs, arms and body usually changing positions within the floor space available and whether or not accompanied by musical support.”

Using this definition of criminal behaviour the authorities observed customers swaying around in the pub in question on several separate occasions, and a hefty fine soon came through the letter box.

Seems a little mad to us!

We must not let these laws to infringe on our rights to gather peacefully at safe children-friendly family orientated private social events.

Well ’tis nearly solstice again, and the onset of the silly season……

Have just made this post to the stonehengeentertainmentsdiscussion group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stonehengeentertainmentsdiscussion and you are most welcome to join.

Me thinks that much of it is relevant to many here, dear readers, so, cop this lot !!

Many new members these last few days, so a big hello and welcome to all ……..

Also, some nice words of encouragement to us, in trying to keep you all informed about developments.

Not knowing who you all are, and how much you all, already know, thought I would bang out this set of links, that I hope explain the situation, the story so far.

With the ‘files’ section of the group, [links on the left], you can see a film called ‘Operation Solstice’ it is divided into three, for ease of playing with folks with slower connections. There are also, several shed-loads of photo in the photos section, that I hope you will take a peek at. Oh, and the link are quite extensive there also.

On my own website, I have been trying to tell a tale about this event, and the tribes that have found this place important, and the many other events that have sprung up, and been ripped down by the authorities, and that have been influenced by our gathering here.

Stonehenge: http://tash.gn.apc.org/stones1.htm

Solstice Ritual: http://tash.gn.apc.org/solst_0.htm

Beanfield: http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean.htm

Photo-galleries http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_ston1.htm

The Story so far: http://tash.gn.apc.org/history.htm

Travellers: http://tash.gn.apc.org/trav1.htm

Legal assortment: http://tash.gn.apc.org/legal_assortment.htm

surv – start: http://tash.gn.apc.org/surv_10.htm

surv – watched: http://tash.gn.apc.org/watched1.htm

Land & Protest: http://tash.gn.apc.org/eco1.htm

Traveller Help Contacts http://tash.gn.apc.org/trav_help.htm

Bust Advice http://tash.gn.apc.org/bust.htm

Release Bust Card http://www.release.org.uk/bust.html

Pictures and text, will be available during, and immediately after events, on Indymedia UK at;

http://indymedia.org.uk

And have just done a couple of test posts to Guilfin using a Phone-cam mobile phone, the rest of the work as I and other contribute, will be seen at:

http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET2220

http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET2219

For those into modern communications I have also maintain a WAP site, available at http://wappy.to/tash

and a specific bust section, in case of need, can be accessed from http://wappy.to/bust while ‘out in the field’.

[so there really is no excuse, that you have had to ‘roach’ your Release Bust Card anymore]. Not trying to scare folks, but have always thought a little preparation is useful in situations of risk.

Happy solstice all.

Hope we have a good one, well, what we can fit into such a ridiculously short time, under someone else’s rules, anyway 🙂

Stonehenge 2003 CONDITIONS OF ENTRY AND INFORMATION English Heritage

UNAUTHORISED CAMPING IN WILTSHIRE

One Love

Tash

David Leppard = The Times Online

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-714188,00.html

WIDE-RANGING powers to enable the police to run the internet and the rest of Britain’s information superhighway in the event of a terrorist attack will be unveiled this week.

The Civil Contingencies Bill will seek to modernise Britain’s response to national emergencies by protecting the country from attacks on the infrastructure including the ‘electronic network’ and the water, electricity and telephone systems. Airlines, the transport network, town halls and the postal service could also come under police direction in the event of a national disaster.

The bill, to be unveiled by Douglas Alexander, a senior Cabinet Office minister, this Thursday will give ministers powers to issue orders to internet service providers and those utilities that rely on the web.

It will also lay down new rules to ensure that all local authorities have audited plans to deal with potential threats. Senior officers will have powers to enlist any member of the public to help civil defence staff. They will be able to commandeer equipment and buildings, for which the owners will receive financial compensation.

However, in a move designed to allay fears that the bill could pave the way for regional police states, ministers have decided against giving the police powers to run the BBC.

The police already have extensive authority to control some parts of the national infrastructure and order rapid evacuation of large areas, such as city centres.

But ministers say the existing 1920 Emergency Powers Act is out of date. The bill will recognise the new scale of threat by widening the definition of what an emergency is, said one Whitehall source. We are concerned that people might try to target the City or the information network and the internet. A serious attack to stop information being circulated through the internet and electronic highway was not envisaged by the original act. The new bill will allow police to take on special legislative measures to deal with the threat.

A draft version of the bill proposes that ministers will be able to invoke regional or local states of emergency with any situation that “causes or may cause serious harm to the welfare of the public”.

These range from an accident involving motor traffic, flooding or an environmental disaster to a biological, chemical or nuclear dirty bomb attack.

Officials yesterday played down the suggestion that the bill would give police draconian new powers but pointed out it would allow the powers to be used in wider areas. “The bill is about timely modernisation, about bringing things up to the 21st century,” said one insider. “Computer networks, water, electricity and gas utilities could all be targets and obviously that has big knock-on effects.

“The more we get information online, the more people have broadband, the more that hospitals and electricity generators rely on the internet and electronic information.” Firemen as well as police will be able to cordon off streets to remove or contain people in the event of a major terrorist attack. Those impeding a police officer or civil contingency force soldier will face big fines or could be restrained by force.

The UK government’s new £25m internet surveillance centre has become fully operational, vnunet.com can reveal.

The National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC) acts as an intermediary between internet service providers (ISPs) and law enforcement agencies for intercepting and reading emails and web traffic.

NTAC will act as a clearing house, taking requests for law enforcement agencies for interception of communications and liasing with ISPs. Based at MI5 headquarters, it is likely to deal with several thousands of requests a year.

The centre has been decrypting seized computer data since the summer of 2001, but has now added the capability to intercept internet traffic and emails.

It was due to become operational last summer, but was delayed.

A Home Office spokesman confirmed that the centre had gained “operational capacity” in April, but refused to give further details.

But in a statement on its website, the Home Office notes: “Use of encryption to protect stored computer files is increasing and threatens the prosecution of those with the greatest motivation to conceal the content of those files, such as pornographers and paedophiles.

“NTAC will undertake any processing necessary to make lawfully intercepted material intelligible. NTAC will not analyse the intelligible content of any intercepted material. That will remain a function for the agency which applied for the interception warrant.”

Roland Perry, director of public policy at internet exchange point the London Internet Exchange, said such a centre is needed because of the increasing complexity of communications used by criminals and the number of communications service providers.

“You need to be sophisticated and coordinated in the way you approach monitoring these people’s communications,” he said.

By Steve Ranger

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141554

In this press release published today, Planet Reunited.com http://www.planetreunited.com

Planet Reunited.com introduces a useful service for backpackers. Director Andrea Marston said, “Most backpackers now travel with a mobile phone but cannot afford to use it. Planetreunited has developed a SMS service where backpackers can send a text to their parents, family and friends quickly and cheaply, even if they cant get to an internet café”

So, in addition to all I’ve been telling you about how I do this via WAP to Blog at:

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_10_13_tash_lodge_archive.html#83088570

so, beyond the backpacking bit, the use of the above for the ‘jobbing activist’ seems a good idea, to me.

Over the May Bank holiday, thousands gathered to a Teknival, and general celebration in Herefordshire.

Just had this email, which gives us all room for hope……

“Hello

there thought you’d like to know that we now have all our kit back even the box of 23 packets of hula hoops which the police kindly counted for us!

They apparently compiled their case and took it to the cps asking that we be prosecuted and the sound system incinerated but the cps were not in the slightest bit interested and we got a rather sheepish phone call asking if we could come and take it all away.

Still, spending thousands of pounds on helicopters road blocks and coppers to nick 12 lads and then let ’em go again seems to be very much in the public interest and not a complete waste of time money and effort at all…..

cheers for the advice if it ever happens again we’ll be a lot more on the ball about it, although hopefully they’ve learned their lesson. take it easy,

trigger.”

So there you go, makes you wonder what it’s all about. Especially liked the bit about the hula hoops. Though, or what?

UK Teknival. Thousand go, with the usual complaints ……

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003_05_25_tash_lodge_archive.html#94980933

Forest Fields Youth Club walls. I recognise the style of some of these folks work, all over North Nottingham. Though the texture looked good in the evening light, so took a couple of pictures.

In some places though, its called vandalism. Personally, i dont think so… it’s called ‘Public Art’

http://mybookmarks.com

MyBookmarks is a free Internet service that allows you to keep your browser bookmarks and favorites online so you can access them from anywhere.

They Say:

Your Internet Explorer favorites, Netscape bookmarks, and AOL favorite places can be imported to MyBookmarks to get started quickly. Our full-featured editor makes it easy to organize and search your online bookmarks. You can even export your online bookmarks back to your browser. Add instant content to your homepage by optionally making your online bookmarks public.

Seems a splendid idea, am going to give it a go …..

Well, i guess the message here is quite clear. A bit of social comment.

Have just wandered past this shop in Snienton, Nottingham, and had to take a snap. But I did wonder what the implications were for mobile phones. Well, I guess many folks have already got one.

These folks, just got a mention on the news, for god’s Sake!!

Apparently, they been getting enormous number of hits every day, and now is being sent free biscuits from manufacturers, eager for a good write up on the site, splendid eh?

http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com

In their mission statement, they say:

“Well I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea,

and some biscuits, nice ones mind you.

Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely.”

nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com

Another heavy day on phone and computer. Starting to get backache again, perched over a keyboard, so thought id have half an hour, in the Arbouretum.
An interesting monument, with guns and everything, dragged back from Sebastopol, during the Crimean War in 1854, apparently, from those pesky Russians.

This picture just taken on my p800, at 320×240 quality – high…. [well, its all relative i suppose 🙂 ]
Anyway, just a further test sending pictures, and updating this blog, in the street, away from a computer.