OS No. 152 Selective Memories

 Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
May 302014
 

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

DictionaryThe saying runs ‘a week is a long time in politics;’  and it certainly has been a long, eventful week in Scotland.  Congratulations to us all; we  now have new MEPs, including one UKIP member, a Scottish first.

Meet the new boss – David Coburn.  The Torygraph (sorry, Telegraph) quoted Coburn as saying:

“voters disillusioned with the Nationalists had coalesced around Ukip as a result and rejected the First Minister’s claim the BBC was to blame by providing extensive coverage of Nigel Farage to Scottish homes” 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Scottish-Ukip-MEP-thanks-Alex-Salmond-for-breakthrough.

Old Susannah is trying to work out how you can be gay and a UKIP MEP, when UKIP wants to stop same sex marriage. It’s almost as if there were some inconsistencies in this party’s policies and/or membership.

The new catchphrase on UKIP supporters’ lips is “I’m not racist but…”.  For some reason most of us want the freedom to have property abroad, move abroad and work abroad (if not keep our money away from the taxman by stashing it abroad). We just don’t want people from abroad doing that kind of thing here.

So, UKIP  has gained ground, largely at the expense of the Lib ‘no tuition fees, we’ve signed a pledge’ Democrats. I guess every very grey cloud has some kind of silver lining. Oh, and that nice man, Mr Inclusive, Nick Griffin has lost the seat the BNP once held.

But first, a quick word before definitions on a serious matter. There is a drug-related problem to be addressed, sorry to say. The P&J and its sister the Evening Express have been desperate for a fix lately, and have been experimenting with drug stories. Unfortunately too many drugs articles can cause reporters great confusion and difficulties in concentrating, thus leading to inaccurate, wild stories. Cocaine in particular can lead to a dangerous feeling over confidence.  In a very excited, highly agitated condition, the P&J reported:

“A MAJOR police probe has been launched after a stash of cocaine was found on a North Sea oil platform. Medics have drug-tested 150 workers on the Piper Bravo after a number of wraps containing white powder were discovered.

“The substance will be tested at a laboratory in Aberdeen today and is expected to be confirmed as the Class A drug.” https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/83802/suspected-stash-of-cocaine-found-on-north-sea-platform/

Old Susannah may only be an amateur writer, but I tend to write about things once they have been confirmed. The news professionals at AJL clearly have problems with doing lines. The head line in their story claims it’s cocaine that’s been found. Then the paper does some smaller lines which tell readers that the wraps (whatever that is) are expected to be confirmed as the class a drug.

I’m afraid it was snorts of derision all round other Scottish media when the truth came out, as alas! The wraps of cocaine turned out to be some kind of painkiller (and a legal one at that).

Unfortunately with drugs, there is always a comedown. The papers and their uber editor somehow hallucinated that cocaine was found on an oil rig. When they were forced to sober up a few days later, reality had set in, and they reported:

“An unknown substance discovered in packages on a North Sea platform was common pain relief medicine, tests have confirmed.

“Three small packages containing the substance were recovered from the Piper Bravo platform on Saturday.” http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/scotland/platform-alert-substance-medicine-1.385127

Confused hacks at the papers even have one article talking about unknown substances, but the same article has a photo captioned:

“FIND: An unknown substance found on board the Piper Bravo platform has been confirmed as a common painkiller” – http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/local/three-packages-to-be-tested-after-white-powder-found-on-north-sea-platform-1.380523

So you see, messing around with drugs because you think they may make you or your newspaper look glamorous or interesting can backfire badly, making you embarrassed by your behaviour for a long time to come.

Onwards with definitions as promised last week, although I find it hard to figure out if the governments want to protect our rights or spy on us, and be the only ones allowed to hold data on individuals. It surely can’t be the latter. Here are some definitions focusing on recent developments impacting on your right to privacy, your right to know, and press freedom.

‘Right to be forgotten’ : (Modern English legal phrase)- legal guarantee that in certain circumstances search engines will be forced to remove links from search results if they concern a private person who wants their past stories and deeds to be omitted from search results.

As the BBC reported,

“The Court of Justice of the European Union set a legal precedent on 13 May when it ruled that a user had the right to have links to web pages about him removed from Google’s results because the passage of time had made them ‘irrelevant'”

The Spanish man had complained that Google’s links to an auction notice of his repossessed home infringed his privacy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27499601

Surely this ‘right to be forgotten’ could never be used to protect lawbreakers, people with violent pasts, or UKIP members who eventually realise they don’t want to be associated with UKIP views on homosexuals and immigrants?

Somehow the EU has decided that it is not the responsibility of people who publish information on the web to take it down, it is somehow Google’s responsibility for letting people know what’s out there that should be curtailed. Perhaps we’ll decide that librarians (if there are any left) are responsible for what gets into card catalogues and publishers are off the hook for printing information that someone, somewhere wants forgotten.

What are the implications – cost, practicality, data management for search engines? Is it even possible to enact this law? I guess these minor details will work themselves out with little fuss.

The BBC also reports:-

“Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, has attacked the judgement, calling it “wide-sweeping internet censorship”, adding that it would be difficult for search firms to determine what should be removed”

Surely our EU and national governments wouldn’t try and control the flow of information, would they?

At the same time the EU wants to control the circulation of information and retention records, UK / Scottish Authorites are going about things a little differently.

Yet another policeman has been charged with spying on an ex partner via the police database. I’m sure he was just trying to keep a friendly eye on her and her family; she’s probably flattered that she’s being looked after.

Unfortunately, the law says that such records are to be used for professional reasons only. But surely we can trust the police with our private information, especially now that the government is collecting more and more data on us all the time?

School children and younger are being arrested, and their DNA and fingerprints taken. Kind of conveniently, this makes it just that much easier for the police to keep tabs on us all from an early age, whether we’re criminals or not. You’ll also be happy to know that more and more police are carrying guns.  I’m sure you feel as safe as I do.

When it comes to sharing info, there is a new scheme afoot to keep records on people with violent pasts, and let potential spouses access these. There may be issues with who controls this data, what’s included or excluded, and who makes the decisions on what to release. But as long a the authorities in charge, then it will all work out fine.  I wonder what would happen if the police started looking at the violent, criminal activities of its own members?

Press Reform: (Modern English phrase) – the ConDem attempt at press regulation in the aftermath of the news of the world hacking scandal.

In the old days, the only check on government, politicians and the powerful was a free press.  However, one news corporation used some illegal methods to get stories.  Coupled with the fact our government is trustworthy and doesn’t need any investigation, the ConDems have decided we don’t really need a free press. As the Telegraph reports:

“Late on Friday, in yet another session from which press representatives were excluded, Mrs Miller and the other parties produced the final version of their charter. There were a few small changes, but crucially nothing to address the newspapers’ central concern, which was that the charter could be amended by politicians, effectively at will. (In theory, a high bar – a two-thirds majority of Parliament – is needed, but in practice this requirement is not entrenched and could be changed by a simple majority of MPs.)

“Any new press regulator would not itself be part of the state, but it would have to conform to the criteria set down by the state in the royal charter. These are fairly prescriptive already – but if they can be changed by MPs in future to make them tighter still, a decisive line has been crossed in political control of the press.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Why-Maria-Millers-plans-for-reform-are-so-dangerous

Oh, and the ‘Mrs Miller’ quoted in the above paragraph is the same woman who was the culture secretary; she had to leave in disgrace after the media exposed a scandal or two she was involved with.  It’s almost as if she wanted revenge on the press. Miller also had an aide try and thwart press questions by a Telegraph reporter by intimating Miller was in a position of power over the press.

Private Eye, The Guardian, i, The Independent and The Observer (to name a few) did not dish out money to the police for scoops, did not hack into 150 phonecalls of Kate Middleton’s before she married Prince William, and did not hack into a missing schoolgirl’s phone, possibly compromising crucial evidence.

But you have to be fair when you’re in government – like when many of our major banks broke the rules, lost tens of millions of pounds, and falsified records. They were all soundly punished with measures ranging from taxpayer-funded bailouts, taxpayer-funded million pound bonuses for bosses, and absolutely no punitive regulations were at all.  One paper breaks the law (with it should be noted police complicity), and it’s time to cow the entire media.

With the banking sector, it is almost as if the friendships and overlaps between government officials and highly-placed financial executives resulted in the government turning a blind eye.  Funnily enough, the government is keen to punish all  of its critics in the publishing sector. I wonder why?

So in summary, you won’t be getting information from a free, unhindered press.  You probably won’t be getting all the search results you want from Google or Yahoo!  You’ll be getting information from the government, or at least the information government will let you have.  Seems fair enough to me.

Next week:  We’ll see if we’re allowed to publish

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Old Susannah No. 150 – HoMalone 2: The Sequel

 Opinion, Satire and Humour  13 Responses »
May 092014
 

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

DictionaryBefore I get down to the usual business, at the time of writing, the fire in Crovie is foremost on many people’s minds. The homeowner  is still unaccounted for (as is a household pet), but remains have been found.

I’ve personally had a great week of travel and adventure, but that all seems a long time ago. Whoever you are, and whether you like or loathe my 150 political satire columns, I’ll ask you one thing – please get and maintain a smoke detector.

People who know me may think I go overboard in my zeal about fire issues; maybe I do.

However, I’ve had friends and relatives who are fire fighters, and all of them will tell you how very quickly a small fire turns into a room filled with fatally toxic smoke. They’d tell you to have a fire alarm and test it, have a fire blanket and/or extinguisher – and to have a fire plan.

No one cares about these details when they’re at home, comfortable surrounded by friends, family and possessions. Everyone who has lost friends, family and possessions because of a fire will tell you they wish they had cared about these details before a fire struck. I’d beg you to get an alarm if I thought it would make you do it.

A childhood friend of mine might still be around today for that matter. They couldn’t find their way out of a smoke filled room which quickly became toxic. (Mind that chip pan in particular; that’s the regional main cause of house fires).

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On the lighter side of things, The UK Subs came to town, shook things up at the Moorings Bar, and my ears are still ringing (despite wearing earplugs). It was also  Aberdeen Voice editor and founder, Fred Wilkinson’s birthday. Happy Birthday Fred.

I’ve been lucky enough this week to be in Nice on the Cote d’Azur and in Monaco. Nice has a large outdoor square – but guess what? The weather is warm and dry enough for it to be used for all manner of things year round. Amazingly, there are beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers everywhere – and no one picks the flowers or uproots the plants to be cool on their way home from a drunken night out.

No one seems to litter at all either, and I don’t think they’ve painted their pavements gray to be cool, either like we just did. Along Nice’s waterfront you won’t find giant, windowless movie theatres, shopping malls, sewerage plants or a massive industrial harbour.

It’s almost as if creating elegant, relaxing, plant-filled open spaces were more important than money. And the money pours in as the tourists can’t get enough of walking up and down the waterfront on the Promenade des Anglais. Aberdeen still has some wildlife tourists, but let’s see how long we can completely industrialise/commercialise our remaining coastline.

do not let your pets drink from the East Tullos Burn

Funnily enough, Nice has far cleaner air than we do as well. Could this be because they’ve set aside green spaces, arranged very frequent and affordable public transport, have a bicycle rental scheme, and encourage pedestrians? Funny people, the French.

One of my flights was delayed due to a minor engine fault. Some of the passengers were very cross about the captain’s decision not to fly (he seemed to think that not risking our lives instead of flying with a small engine leak was a good idea).

Quite rightly the more important passengers started grilling a young stewardess about the engine’s technical problem, demanded to know precisely when the plane would be flying, what the captain was doing to solve the problem, and other things she’d clearly have known all about. I’m surprised the poor girl didn’t put down her drinks tray, whip a spare part out of her pocket, and just fix the engine there and then.

In the end, BA were great at solving the problems and getting us all going. Thanks BA.

Despite my trying to have a proper vacation, some news stories arose in the Deen that caught my imagination.  A word of caution: do not let your pets drink from the East Tullos Burn. It may look prettier now than it did – but the water doesn’t seem to have been cleaned at all.

SEPA have insisted in the past that it’s too hard for them to find out where the pollution is coming from. And still, its American counterpart the Environmental Protection Agency manages to find out who pollutes similar little streams – like the Mississippi for instance. If only SEPA were closer to where the problem was in East Tullos. But they’d have to leave their offices and walk for 10 minutes to get to the burn.

Here then are some definitions defining the week’s news.

Pest Control: (mod English compound noun) to manage, contain and destroy vermin.

Alas!  All is not well in the Cults/Bieldside/Miltimber area.  Pesky vermin are sticking their heads into private gardens, trampling things underfoot, stumbling cluelessly around, and ignorantly destroying anything in their path.  While I definitely feel for these poor, dumb creatures, it is clear that there are just too many of them in our area.

I had hoped that measures taken in May 2012 would have lessened this particular problem, but it seems to be creeping back. I am of course for a humane solution. But something must be done about Aberdeen’s Liberal Democrats.

You may not be able to believe it, but none other than Aileen ‘HoMalone’ wants to do something about deer population.

they trampled on their own pledge not to charge for university education

Expect HoMalone 2 in the Cults area soon. Based on the popularity, efficiency and economic success of her destruction of the Tullos Hill deer (to plant trees on a windswept rubbish heap with little soil), I’m sure the residents of her Bieldside/Miltimber ward will be overjoyed.

Well, apparently ‘several’ of them will. Here’s what HoMalone wrote recently:

“Several residents in the Cults area have contacted me about the presence of Roe Deer whose [sic*] numbers are growing across Scotland. Aberdeen is well ahead of most authorities in the careful, sensitive, management of the situation. A Council team is working on a plan for managing the growing deer population. Over-population is a problem for the deer since the natural environment can only feed a certain number of deer. In the meantime please be extra vigilant when driving at dusk in the Inchgarth area.”

In large numbers, the LibDems ate their way through the city council’s funds, forcing other species, such as people in need, with health problems and the elderly to suffer.  Then in a symbiotic relationship at the UK level, they trampled on their own pledge not to charge for university education. The 2012 ballot box cull saw only five of them going; the chief doe, known as ‘Kate’ was humanely put down.

A lone stag known as ‘Martin’ looks increasingly uncomfortable, and may be leaving the old deer (‘Aileen’) for a more successful herd soon.

Don’t let this menace grow back to its pre 2012 levels. If you are in Bieldside, Cults and Miltimber, you may want to think about feeding these pests by giving them pound notes, votes or attention, even if they seem relatively harmless and innocent to you. I can assure you, the LibDems are not.

*It’s interesting  HoMalone’s written ‘…the presence of Roe Deer whose numbers… ‘  perhaps she is more sensitive than we believe and thinks the animals are people?  If you are describing things, you use words such as ‘which’; if you describe people, you use words such as ‘whose’. Perhaps she secretly isn’t an animal destroying poison dwarf ready to have any life form she finds inconvenient snuffed out?

Or is it more likely she’s just a bit ignorant of some language fundamentals?

Propaganda: (Latin origin, noun) – to deliberately spread lies, exaggerations in order to sway opinion, or further a political cause.

Old Susannah is staying out of the referendum debate.  I’m not endorsing either side.  But a poster purporting to show Labour joining up with those nice BNP lads and others like those winsome UKIP chaps found its way into my news feed.

Poster from Alistair Davidson purporting Labour in bed with unsavoury orgs.Somehow, among the tiny trickle of honest, calm, factual referendum information out there, this therefore stuck out as being a little suspicious. It had attracted a few disgusted comments already; after all – if it’s in print or if it’s a picture, it has to be real, doesn’t it?

Some people are looking at it, assuming it is legitimate, and are therefore very angry indeed at Labour.

Alas! A swift email to a Labour politician confirmed that this poster is a complete fabrication.

Labour are not in any deal with the BNP. It is almost as if whoever created this wanted Labour to be discredited; I wondered if this had anything to do with Labour’s ‘no’ stance on independence.

I’ve asked the oldest source of the poster what they could tell me about it, and this is what they wrote:

“I don’t think the poster was used in any poster campaign. It was created as an illustrative means of showing people that all these parties are grouped by a common cause and that is to keep the union.“

Funny though – the person who put the poster on Facebook didn’t let viewers know that it was an ‘illustrative means of showing people that all these parties are grouped by a common cause…’. I wonder how they got permission to use so many logos in their little ‘illustration’ for that matter?

Coincidentally, the person who seems to have first posted the poster on Facebook (as far as I can find) has one or two friends who are SNP councillors. These  include Liz MacDonald, Ken Gowans, David Turner, Shab Jaffri , Peter Johnston, Peter Grant (no relation to legendary manager of Led Zeppelin I assume), Graham Ledbitter, and MSP David Torrance.  I’m sure these people have had nothing to do with a poster campaign which was just a tad dishonest.

I’m equally sure they will be quick to have it stopped and will come forward to denounce this kind of propaganda.

If only we could keep the healthy, honest, open, respectful level of referendum debate going on for another year, I’m sure we’d all be very well informed indeed.

Botch: (modern English slang; verb) – to make a bad job of something; to fumble a task or operation.

America has so little crime because it has capital punishment; ie. a jury of your peers (well you hope they will be your peers) can convict you on the evidence (which you hope won’t have been tainted or fabricated, like the poster described above), and after a fair trial (hopefully) you can find yourself hung, shot, gassed or given a lethal injection.

Seems fair. If you don’t get a fair trial (say you are of sub normal intelligence, get a bad or disinterested legal representative, get tried by a jury who are all of a different race from you, had the police mess up, lose or ignore evidence – accidentally of course), then you can always either hire an expensive lawyer for an appeal.

America will punish criminals by death, but killing them is not supposed to be ‘cruel or unusual’

If you don’t have lots of money or haven’t really understood what was happening, then then you can hope for a pardon from the state governor (but for those who really do have lots and  lots of money, you may never have to get to trial at all).

Of course when George W Bush was governor of Texas, he didn’t pardon a single one of the hundreds of people the state executed. In fact, he mocked one of them (a woman who had finally snapped at her chronically abusive spouse and killed him).

Still, if you were innocent but had no fair trial, no appeal, no governor to save you – you might always luck out and get a posthumous pardon. So that’s all right then.

Unfortunately, sometimes an execution is ‘botched’, as happened this week to one Clayton Lockett  in Oklahoma.

America will punish criminals by death, but killing them is not supposed to be ‘cruel or unusual’ – something Old Susannah hasn’t quite got her heard around in all these years. Anyway, you’re supposed to die a nice fast death – with a room full of spectators gawping at your last moments (nothing cruel or unusual there, then).  Unfortunately, this man died in agony over the course of several hours.

It became so distasteful to the audience that the curtains had to be drawn so they didn’t see an unpleasant state execution as compared to your socially-acceptable state execution.

Yes, this was a man convicted of a serious capital crime. I guess it was just divine intervention that tortured his last hours, and not the blatant incompetence of those who didn’t know how to find a vein or how to see the lethal cocktail of chemicals was going into his tissues and not into his blood stream. Could have happened to anyone. We all botch things up now and then.

Finally, for some reason European pharmaceutical companies that make the relevant drugs (why make them in the first place some might ask) are now reluctant to sell them to the States to kill people. I guess some companies just don’t want to make money.

Next week:  more definitions

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Well, it’s been a long, fun, eventful, educational and somewhat strange 3 years and 150 Old Susannah columns for me and I just want to say thanks for those of you who read it, thanks for those who have sent information (and the occasional kind email) over time, and for those who support Aberdeen Voice. The Voice runs on donations; any amount however small is welcome; here’s a link.

All the best,

Suzanne.

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Old Susannah’s Journal No. 149 – Moral Authorities

 Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
May 012014
 

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

DictionaryTally Ho and please excuse the late running of this service. Among other things, I’ve been up to Gardenstown to look into the operations of USAN’s company, Scottish Wild Smoked Salmon.

There is a video of them having an interesting little chat with one man from Sea Shepherd; clearly there are some colourful vocabulary words in that video being used by the men with guns which sadly are not  suitable for definition here.

Anyway, USAN’s people want to shoot seals from private land, and the landowner isn’t having it.

For some reason, not all of the locals and the tourists are that pleased to see men in high viz running around with rifles slung over their shoulders cursing at their opponents.

Salmon stocks are considerably down in some rivers; farmed salmon live in incredibly cramped, cruel conditions (with sea lice painfully biting through their skin to the bone), and seals are on a downward population curve as well. Let’s therefore catch all the salmon we can, blast the seals through the head with shotguns, and make money selling smoked salmon to Norway and China.

That’s the entrepreneurial spirit we’re all so proud of. And I wouldn’t worry – we will always have massive fish stocks, and quotas are wholly unnecessary. The only problem is that we also have people who, for whatever reason, want to visit Scotland to look at the seals, birds, fish and cetaceans. These people spend in the region of £65 million pounds ever year.

Many of these people are from the UK. Why they can’t just stay home and watch a wildlife programme on television like everyone else is a mystery. But apparently walking around in non-polluted air, getting exercise and a little sunlight are good for health. Who’d have thought it?

Clearly, few people in Aberdeen City planning think green spaces have any worth; our green spaces are being eroded. New homes are springing up in fields (like the wildflowers and mushrooms that used to); at least they’re all extremely tasteful, unique, and profitable to the builders. Brownfield waste ground is, er, going to waste.

Thankfully we’re going to tear down one of Torry’s remaining granite gems, Victoria Road School. With luck, we’ll get an office building with a glass façade. If you wanted to visit Loirston Loch before all the land around it is built up, get in there quick. How the wildlife, especially migrating birds, will manage is another matter.

And yes, there are tourists who actually come here to Aberdeen to look at wildlife. For now, anyway.

In Tullos, the city has given back the parking area that used to service Tullos Hill. It had been gifted to the city – but we took such bad care of it it’s been clawed back by the public sector.

We were unable to stop travelling people from trashing the area and so we closed the parking off rather than guarding it properly. It fell apart. So rather than having a welcoming visitor parking area for Tullos Hill, we will now have private parking (and we lose one path to the hill as well). I’m sure there were many public consultations widely publicised, but funny, I just didn’t see them.

I’m likely to get an asthma attack now that I’ve suddenly developed asthma

Between new offices and homes by Loirston Loch and new offices in Altens, I predict there may be one or two more cars on Wellington Road. The planners seem to think we’ve little to worry about in terms of pollution – or they’d not have given this the green light. For some reason, Aberdeen has some of the worst air pollution in Scotland.

Could there be a link between air pollution, hundreds of cars and decreasing green spaces?

I wouldn’t worry about it. I can’t actually – or I’m likely to get an asthma attack now that I’ve suddenly developed asthma. UK deaths with a connection to air pollution should not be a consideration when we have offices to build and roads to create. In fact, we’re only talking about 28,000 air pollution-related deaths a year.

But back to more positive stuff. The Palma Violets were amazing in The Tunnels; I wish I could show you my photos, but they’ve disappeared into the either when I tried to transfer them. Then again, when the band started, it was hard enough not to get trampled let alone take good pics; respect to the photographers who manage it. The crowd was wild.

A slightly more restrained crowd greeted The Temperance Movement in The Lemon Tree on the 26th April. This is my favourite up and coming band; the place was packed, and everyone sang along to all the songs (more on this later).

But my real brush with a superstar came this past Monday; I was selected to join a teleconference with…. David Cameron! Well, me and a thousand other people. I may never wash my phone ear again. I’d hate anyone to be jealous; I’d equally hate anyone to think I’m a cynic. However, if it was 100% live, then Cameron did very well indeed.

His opening remarks on this Europe-themed chat were perfectly spoken and very well timed and phrased. The questions when I was still on the call were, would you believe it, all very sympathetic to the Conservatives. It looks like we’re being promised a referendum on whether or not to stay in the EU. But fear not, it’s years away.

One of the questioners asked how we stop benefit scroungers coming from Europe. Perhaps I missed something, but I don’t recall Cameron objecting to the phrase ‘benefit scroungers’.

the news seems dominated by people and organisations in power who know what’s best for us

We can’t have people coming over here and asking for money. This is a capitalist country. You have to first have lots of money, then avoid paying tax on it by sending it offshore. This is good for the banks. Well, the food banks anyway.

While these hoards of Euro benefit scroungers are coming here, the likes of Bernie Ecclestone managed to avoid over one billion pounds in tax according to the BBC. Somehow, they never got round to letting me ask a question. As thrilling as this call was, I was too heartbroken realising I’d not speak to DC myself, so I rang off.  That, and it was time for a beer.

This past week (and longer), the news seems dominated by people and organisations in power who know what’s best for us and want to set the collective moral compass to point where they say it should.

Farage and his crew know that god disapproves of gays. Alex Salmond thinks we should admire Putin (also not known for being fond of gays). Alas! Even BrewDog has come under fire for setting a bad example. So who are these bastions of what’s morality? Here are a few definitions to help.

The Portman Group: (Modern English Noun)
Self appointed alcohol regulatory body formed by private drinks companies.

BrewDog are in the doghouse; they’ve had a letter from The Portman Group telling them to be good dogs.  BrewDog however did not roll over, and sent a slightly scathing reply, telling Portman to clear off (although BrewDog’s language was a bit more colourful).

So, what is The Portman Group?  According to their website, it :-

“…was established in 1989 by the UK’s leading alcohol producers. Its role was to promote responsible drinking; to help prevent alcohol misuse; and to foster a balanced understanding of alcohol-related issues. The name derives from the fact that the early meetings to launch the organisation took place at the Guinness offices in Portman Square, London.

“In 1996, the Portman Group took on the additional role of encouraging responsible marketing when, in response to fierce criticism of ‘alcopops’, it launched its Code of Practice on the Naming, Packaging and Merchandising of Alcoholic Drinks.

“The Code has since been expanded to cover other forms of promotion, including websites, sponsorship, branded merchandise and sampling, and is widely credited with raising standards of marketing responsibility across the industry.”

I do just have one question. If the group exists in part to raise ‘standards of marketing responsibility’ Old Susannah wonders where the Portman Group was when Diageo tried to steal an award from BrewDog at a ceremony by fixing the result? Perhaps they are concerned with raising only some companies’ standards.

Oddly, this private group’s lofty moral goals haven’t really hit its members very much. The Portman Group started in the Guinness offices, but beer was not all that was brewing. How very fitting that concurrent with TPG’s birth, a Guinness-related massive fraud scandal came to light.

Who can doubt the moral authority of the police?

Its details are colourful, and about as clear as a glass of the Liffey water itself. For one thing, Ernest Saunders, one of the defendants, managed to become the only person in history to have managed to recover from Alzheimer’s.

He was given a reduced sentence because of his reduced mental capacity. Once freed, his mind sprang back to sufficient condition to be able to run businesses. Isn’t it amazing what kind of cures money can buy?

I’m sure TPG isn’t remotely worried by the antics of the country’s fastest-growing beverage company, and this current threat by letter to Martin and James is not an attempt to derail an amazingly successful marketing campaign which can’t be helping TPG’s own member companies. It’s just that The Portman Group want everyone to be as moral as their own members are. Cheers.

Stop and Search Powers: (Modern English compound noun) – rights granted to police to stop and search anyone they choose.

Who can doubt the moral authority of the police? Who can question that? (Well perhaps the Guildford 4, the Birmingham 6, the plebgate politician, George Copeland, the Stephen Lawrence family…). The bad news is that the ConDems are going to possibly curtail (to a degree) the rights of the police to stop and search anyone they choose.

Part of the reason we’re so safe now is that the police can detain anyone they like. This is what keeps our streets free of crime.

There may be a tiny discrepancy in the kind of people who get ‘randomly’ searched – most belong to ethnic minorities. It’s almost as if there were institutionalised racism endemic in the police (or so former officer Gurpal Virdi might think – he was accused of sending out racist messages from his computer, usually when he wasn’t even around).

This spurious charge of institutionalised racism is just about one year old, so I’m sure it’s all been cleared up by now.

Teresa May, darling of the front benches, says that about 27% of the police searches made under stop and search laws were potentially illegal. If the figure is really only that low, perhaps we should just let them get on with it. It’s not as if the police are arbitrarily flexing their muscles and intimidating people, is it?

I’m afraid that’s all the morality I can stand at the moment, or I’d have defined some terms on Tony Blair, UKIP, and so on. Let’s all try to remember to learn from our betters, and be moral, upstanding citizens. If you can’t do that, then just try and avoid random stop and searches.

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Limericks an Gibberish [Pairt 2]

 Creative Writing, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Apr 182014
 

Aberdeen Voice’s ‘poetry mannie in residence’ Bob Smith revisits the land of Lear and returns with more topical limericks.
clownlow

There is a mannie ca’ed Trump
Fa is a maist affa grump
Fin nae gettin his ain wye
Wid lit oot ess cry
Menie a micht hae ti dump
.
There is a chiel named Tucker
Ti some he wis a richt f- -ker
Ti “The Donald” aywis fawnin
Fin the Trump era wis dawnin
Some fowk he played fer a sucker
.
A lad doon in Glesga ca’ed Ally
His team wisna able ti rally
The Gers hidna a clue
Their fans war fair “blue”
Raith Rovers war haen a ball eh?
.
There wis a young loon ca’ed May
Fer St Johnstone he won the day
Aiberdeen fans were pissed
Fin chunces war missed
Nae Cup Final fer Dandies in May
.
There is a mannie fae Muse
Fa tries ti mak us swally a ruse
“Fowks views we did heed
Bit gless biggins we need
Gweed views ye’ll jist hae ti lose”
.
Scotland’s First Meenister “Wee Eck”
Micht he hae the poond or the maik
Wull “big business” pull oot
An doon ti England fair scoot
Leavin Scotia’s economy a wreck
.
There is an MP ca’ed Miller
Fa didna pye back a the siller
She bint a fyow rules
Took us aa fer richt fules
Her hans nae langer on tiller
.
There is a chiel Davie Moyes
Fa tried oot aa o his ploys
Yet Man Utd got beat
Fans stairtit ti bleat
An oot their prams cam the toys
.
There wis young fella named Leigh
Fa plays fitba fer Celtic FC.
Is Griffiths jist a daft loon
Wi nithing unner his croon?
Or a dyed in the wool racist “b”?
.
A politican mannie Farage
On TV he fair wis in charge
Nick Clegg wis ootfocht
As mair votes he socht
Wull UKIP noo mount a barrage		 There is a leader named Putin
In Crimea he fair pit the boot in
Maist fowk in Ukraine
Think the bugger a pain
Hopin aat’s the eyn o the shootin
.
There is a Prime Meenister Cameron
In Hooses o Parlimint is aye yammerin
We’re aa in it thegither
Like sister an brither
Hame ess message he is noo hammerin
.
There is a chiel named Pistorius
In Sooth Africa his life’s nae harmonious
In sheetin his quine
Wis he oot o his myn
Wis the relationship a bit acrimonious
.
There wis a quine named Peaches
Eence hid trouble wi media leeches
Noo the puir quine is deid
Wull the “vultures” noo feed
Aboot society fit dis ess teach us
.
There wis a mannie John Muir
Throwe America he likit ti tour
Some progress he thocht blind
Hurtin mair than mankind
Some criticism he hid ti endure
.
Lord Myners a chief fae the Co-opie
His reforms some thocht a bit ropey
He resigned on the spot
Sayin aat’s noo yer lot
The power struggle it is a bit dopey
.
There is a young prince ca’ed Dod
Fa’s the latest royalty bod
Some wifies wint aa gooey
Prince Dod thocht—a phooey
A’m a fartin an riftin wee sod
.
There wis a rhymer ca’ed Burns
His love life it took a fyow turns
Mony lasses he lo’ed
He stood oot in a crood
Did aat plooman poet Rabbie Burns
.
There wis an auld chiel ca’ed Bob
Writin poetry fer AV wis his job
Some thocht it wis great
Yet ithers fair got irate
As “grenades” he sometimes did lob.
.
.
.
.
.
©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2014
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Umkhonto we Sizwe: A Tribute To Nelson Mandela

 News, Opinion  2 Responses »
Dec 062013
 

By Duncan Harley.

nelson-mandela-pic2

Nelson Mandela. 1918 – 2013

Mandela was awarded the freedom of the city of Glasgow. My sons met him outside Glasgow City Chambers, just after the ceremony but were then too young to recall the smiling eyes of the man and the air of peace and gentle power he generated.

Before his presidency, Mandela was of course an anti-apartheid activist and high ranking leader of the African National Congress and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, translated “Spear of the Nation.”

Following his 27 years or so in prison on convictions for various crimes including sabotage but not murder, Nelsons switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation led the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa.

Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.

In a speech at the City Chambers in Glasgow on 9 October 1993, Mandela said:

“While we were physically denied our freedom in the country of our birth, a city 6,000 miles away, and as renowned as Glasgow, refused to accept the legitimacy of the apartheid system, and declared us to be free.”

Thank you Nelson.

You changed the world.

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ASA Sucks Dust Like A Toothless Tiger

 Articles, Information, News  No Responses »
Oct 112013
 

As the Home Office trembles under the criticism of the Advertising Standards Authority ‘s (ASA) latest adjudication, Duncan Harley reports on one aspect of the Home Office’s campaign against illegal immigrants.

home office billboard3

The ASA received a total of 224 complaints related to the Home Office billboards.

The ASA has yet again proved itself to be a toothless tiger in the relentless quest for fairness and honesty in public domain advertising in the UK.
Most of the media are reporting that Home Office vans, replete with slogans on the sides proclaiming ‘go home or face arrest’ and ‘106 arrests last week in your area’, which were driven around six London boroughs earlier this year, have been banned by the ASA.

The facts, however, say otherwise.

The boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Barnet, Brent, Ealing and Hounslow were targeted by the Home Office campaign in July 2013 and advised readers, ‘We can help you to return home voluntarily without fear of arrest or detention’.

The posters were criticised by many, on the basis that the wording was likely to spread fear and unrest. Others such as Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warned that the campaign was reminiscent of the 1970s National Front approach to racial tolerance, whilst some others viewed it as a throwback to the dark days of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood rhetoric of 1968.

Be that as it may, the campaign to persuade illegal immigrants to phone the Home Office to give themselves up drew extensive media attention from the outset and the resulting complaints to the ASA show that at the very least, some people in the UK see the advertising watchdog as a force for fairness in the face of misleading marketing campaigns.

Promogroup, the company who owned the vans on which the Home Office displayed the posters, also received a number of complaints about the campaign during its pilot week. Illustrative perhaps of how misleading the information on the posters might seem to some, Promogroup itself received several phone calls from illegal immigrants wishing to give themselves up.

reminiscent of slogans used by racist groups

The company has not to date revealed whether or not any of its drivers received surrender requests from concerned pedestrians during the week-long campaign.

The ASA received a total of 224 complaints related to this issue. These were from groups representing migrants in the UK, legal academics, members of the public and the Labour peer Lord Lipsey. Complainants challenged

  1.  whether or not the poster and in particular the phrase ‘go home’ was offensive and distressing because it was reminiscent of slogans used by racist groups to attack immigrants in the past.
  2.  whether or not the poster was irresponsible and harmful, because it could incite or exacerbate racial hatred and tensions in multicultural communities.
  3.  whether or not the claim ‘106 arrests last week in your area’ was misleading and could be substantiated.
  4.  whether or not the qualification regarding the areas the arrests occurred in was presented clearly, because it was not legible on a moving vehicle
  5.  whether or not the poster was misleading, because it implied that arrest was the automatic consequence of remaining in the UK without permission.

In response to the complaints made to the ASA, the Home Office claimed the posters were part of a pilot scheme run between 22 and 28 July 2013 which sought to encourage those with no legal right to be in the UK to depart voluntarily and to increase awareness of the voluntary departure route. It added that the material was similar in tone and content to previous material it had produced on voluntary departures.

The mobile billboards in question were part of the pilot which covered targeted areas and were designed to improve awareness of local immigration enforcement activity, so that those with no legal right to be in UK were made aware that there was a real and present risk of being arrested.

The campaign had targeted six London boroughs which the Home Office claimed have either significantly above average, or very low, uptake of the voluntary departure route for illegal immigrants.

Additionally, the pilot scheme was, said the Home Office, designed to test the media used and to identify which areas produced the highest response rate, to target specific areas where illegal immigrants or people seeking work illegally were known to congregate, and high streets.

there is nothing to prevent the government using the vans again

As for the 106 arrests issue, the Home Office supplied the ASA with data claiming that there had indeed been that number of arrests made in the areas targeted and elsewhere during a typical week preceding the campaign, that is, the week of 30 June to 6 July 2013.

The Home Office response also made the point that the poster did not suggest that arrest was an automatic consequence of remaining in the UK without permission, since voluntary departure was a viable alternative.

The ASA’s judgement of the complainants’ objections took the form of an individual response to each of the five points of complaint outlined above.

On point 1, the complaints were not upheld and in conclusion, the adjudicators felt that the poster was unlikely to cause widespread offence or distress.

On point 2, the complaints were not upheld and in conclusion the adjudicators felt that the there was no content likely to condone or encourage racial violence or anti-social behaviour.

On point 3, the ASA upheld the complaints on the basis that the figure of arrests had not been substantiated and had not related to the specific areas targeted in the pilot campaign.

On point 4, the complaints were upheld.

On point 5, the complaints were not upheld on the basis that the adjudicators viewed the risk of arrest to those living in the UK illegally was indeed real and that the posters offered information about an alternative option of a voluntary return home.

In summary therefore, two out of five complaints were upheld and the judgment is that the advert must not appear again in its current form.

The message to Her Majesty’s Home Office is quite clearly to do better in future or face the mighty wrath of the ASA!

Providing the Home Office reviews its use of font sizes and does some rudimentary checking of published statistics, there is nothing to prevent the government using the vans again and it has refused so far to rule out doing so. A government spokesman said:

“We are pleased the ASA has concluded that our pilot was neither offensive nor irresponsible.

We have always been clear that this campaign was about encouraging illegal immigrants to leave the country voluntarily and was not targeted at particular racial or ethnic groups. In respect of the ASA’s other findings, we can confirm that the poster will not be used again in its current format.”

As for the ASA, the adjudication has been delivered but it will no doubt require to re-examine the issues should HM Government roll out a second campaign. On its website, the ASA claims to have sanctions available to persuade advertisers to comply with the Advertising Industry Code of Conduct.

The ASA advises that the vast majority of advertisers and broadcasters comply with ASA rulings and that for the small minority who don’t, there are consequences. The main aim is to bring about compliance with the Advertising Codes, it says, rather than punish advertisers. However, some of the sanctions at its disposal can, it seems, be very detrimental to those who choose not to comply.

The ASA claims that one of the most persuasive sanctions it has in its armoury is bad publicity, since an advertiser’s reputation can be badly damaged if it is seen to be flouting rules designed to protect consumers. Presumably the Home Office will be trembling at the thought of further damage to its already tarnished reputation.

The full ASA/Home Office adjudication can be read at: http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2013/10/Home-Office/SHP_ADJ_237331.aspx?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=Home%20Office&utm_campaign=2012%20Wednesday%20Rulings

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Facile Scotland

 Articles, Opinion  3 Responses »
Sep 062013
 

Having seen a book entitled Fascist Scotland (Birlinn Books, 256 pages) at the library I thought I’d check it out as the name of the author, Gavin P Bowd, seemed oddly familiar. This proved to be correct as he wrote an article in Scotland on Sunday earlier this year linking Scottish Nationalism with Nazism for which he allegedly received ‘death threats’. Having read this awful book I can imagine the alleged ‘death threats’ can only have come from serious historians who have seen their profession dragged into the gutter and their status reduced to that of a third-rate fairground barker, writes Dave Watt.

Bowd, GavinBasically, the book implies that there has been a major connection between Scotland and Fascism since the 1920s.

It is shotgun mudslinging of the lowest order, even implying that Rudolf Hess arrived in Scotland because he knew the place was full of Nazi sympathisers and that the wartime government was afterwards involved in some sort of major cover-up.

He uses a ludicrous quote from an Evelyn Waugh’s Officers and Gentlemen, in which a lunatic alleged Scottish nationalist Miss Carmichael, an avid admirer of Hitler, proclaims that, ‘When the Germans land in Scotland, the glens will be full of marching men come to greet them, and the professors themselves at the universities will seize the towns’, as his basis for showing that Scotland was just waiting for the word to go Nazi during the war.

Presumably the 50000 Scottish servicemen and women who died in the Second World War were all rushing to join the Wehrmacht when they absent-mindedly forgot that they had rifles in their hands and the Germans were obliged to kill them.

Bowd also claims that although 549 people in Scotland volunteered to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and only one (yes, that’s right, one) went to fight for the Fascists, there were many Franco sympathisers in Scotland and, at one point, refers to us as ‘Mosley’s Lost Legion’.

Based on this kind of statistical interpretation I could state that there are many sympathisers in Scotland for the notion that the Earth is flat.

One of the more surreal pieces in the book alleges that the Protestant League in Scotland initially supported the Spanish Republic since they were kicking out priests from Spanish schools, but goes on to state that they all changed their minds as the Civil War went on and supported the Fascists as a consequence of becoming suddenly impressed with Hitler.

No evidence is supplied for this abrupt alleged Scottish Protestant devotion to Hitler, there are no voting statistics, no pictures of Orange banners with Adolf crossing the Rhine on a white dobbin on the 12th of July, no radio broadcasts from Ibrox with the crowd singing ‘Hello, Hello, We Are The Falangist Boys’ and stating that they were ‘up to their knees in Anarcho-Syndicalist blood’.

Nope. Nothing like that. It happened like that just because he says so.

Paralleling the surreal observation about Scottish support for Franco, he seems to imply that since the National Front got 0.08% of the vote in 2011, there is a huge secret groundswell towards Fascism in Scotland. The obvious corollary to this is that if the evil Jocks gets independence it will be concentration camps all over the shop and you won’t be able to get a quiet latte in Costa for people standing on chairs singing Tomorrow Belongs To Me.

This book is appalling. I don’t know if the smug-looking cock (see pic) did any serious research apart from cherry-picking anything, no matter how tenuous, to make his spurious point but he seems to be unable to relate his findings to his own statistics.

Don’t buy this book. Don’t bother reading it. It’s crap.

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The Road To Damascus – Umkhonto we Sizwe.

 Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Jun 142013
 

nelson-mandela-pic2
By Duncan Harley.

I never really read Ian Banks. I mean, he was an Edinburgh man after all.
‘The Wasp Factory’ was published in 1984. My heroes then were Blair and Mandela.

Not the Labour Blair of course, but ‘Homage to Catalonia’ Eric Blair, and that Nelson Mandela man who was awarded the Freedom of the City of Glasgow.

My sons met him outside Glasgow City Chambers, just after the ceremony, but were then too young to recall the smiling eyes of the man and the air of peace and gentle power he generated.

Before his presidency, Mandela was of course an anti-apartheid activist and high ranking leader of the African National Congress, and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, which translates as “Spear of the Nation.”

Following his 27 years in prison on convictions for various crimes including sabotage but not murder, Nelson’s switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation led the transition to multiracial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.

Somewhat like Ian Banks however, Mandela will soon be out of this place except in our collective memories.

It was moving indeed to view the tributes to Ian’s passing. In particular I was struck by the fact that both Sky News and the BBC carried lengthy interviews with his writing and drinking pals. Also, the outpouring of dismay and affection by readers on the announcement by Ian regarding his imminent demise, spoke volumes about the impact the man made.

Comments such as “Ian Banks was a very sad loss, as for Mandela who can say anything but a working class hero” from Ruby Finnie, and Helena Petre’s “I’m sorry to hear about Ian Banks, loved his book about Whisky, and the TV dramatisations of his novels, though I did not read any of them”, say it all.

I may just buy the Wasp Factory on the strength of it.

The British National Party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has sparked some outrage

Then of course there are the detractors. As far as I am aware, the BNP have no issues with Scottish science fiction writers but it seems that in their view Nelson Mandela is a different matter.

The British National Party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has sparked some outrage with a series of tweets branding Nelson Mandela a “murdering old terrorist”.

Mr Griffin, who has been often been called a far-right politician, and who is of course NOT an MP, seemingly mocked the 94-year-old former South African president’s lung condition. He apparently wrote on Twitter that

“Nelson Mandela on last legs it seems. Make sure to avoid BBC when the murdering old terrorist croaks. It’ll be nauseating”; and

“‘Statesmen’ must be judged on results not rhetoric. Before Mandela, South Africa was safe economic powerhouse. Now crime ridden basket case.” Plus

“No surprise Mandela’s lungs are shot – all those burning tyres. Smoking necklaces very bad for the health.”

Love them or hate them, the BNP are seemingly here to stay. Nick Griffin is currently holidaying in Syria “on a fact finding mission”.  He will shortly be meeting President Bashar Assad in Damascus.

With rhetoric such as “What he wants is to let people have a proper view of what is going on in Syria, because at the moment all we have is William Hague and his infantile war-mongering” and “He wants to ascertain just how many British citizens are fighting out there for the so-called Free Syrian Army and other elements opposed to Assad” from BNP spokesperson Mr Simon Darby, plus of course the infamous statement that “He”, presumably Nick, “ is sick and tired of seeing lads from Manchester and Liverpool coming back in body bags or with arms and legs missing because the Government got them involved in business that isn’t any concern of ours”.

What can the BNP spokesman mean? Body bags, arms and legs missing? Surely that is President Bashar Assad’s job.

Sources

Mr Griffin on Mandela, a comment: http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/nick-griffin-sparks-outrage-with-sick-tweets-about-nelson-mandela.311430/

Mail on Line: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339568/BNP-leader-Nick-Griffin-visits-Syria-receiving-invite-President-Assad.html#ixzz2Vw2UAIII

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The Citizen Photojournalists Of Woolwich

 Featured, History, Opinion  No Responses »
May 312013
 

Fallen Soldier On Phone
By Duncan Harley.

After the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich last week, the media were swamped with images, news and comment about the
event.

It was of course a tragedy, and there is no getting away from that.

The backlash against the Muslims of the UK is also a tragedy, and there is no getting away from that either.

The men who killed the poor soldier had seemingly seized on Anders Breivik’s concept of attempting to bring about change through the shock of terrorist acts against random victims. Breivik, who of course famously boasted of being an ultranationalist, murdered his victims in a very public spectacle and on a scale almost unheard of since the atrocities perpetrated by the fascists during the 1940s.

He calculated, wrongly as it turned out, that his actions would be the spark which would bring about a mass revolt against what he called multiculturalism in Norway. Breivik wanted to be seen as sane, so that his actions wouldn’t be dismissed as those of a lunatic. He said that he acted out of “necessity” to prevent the “Islamization” of his country.

He got that wrong, since his actions in murdering 77 men and women simply horrified the world and led to many in Europe questioning the apparent leniency of the 21-year sentence imposed on him by a Norwegian court.

Breivik continues to make headlines by disseminating his ideas from his prison cell and has recently tried to register a political association which lists amongst its aims the “democratic fascist seizure of power in Norway” and the establishment of an independent state.

An abiding and powerful image from his trial is of Breivik in the dock, with one arm raised in a neo-fascist salute reminiscent of those, hopefully long gone, days of National Socialism. The harnessing of the power of the image for propaganda value is of course nothing new.

In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte, who was at that time a mere general in the French army, invaded North Africa, landing near Alexandria in early July and entering Cairo on the 24th of that month.

He took with him a group of artists who had the task not only of recording the Egyptian artefacts and buildings which they came across, but also of portraying Napoleon’s victories and conquests in the Nile Delta and at the Battle of the Pyramids.

Pyramid Egypt
Ultimately, the campaign came to grief and some revisionist historians might even consider it a complete disaster.

The French fleet was utterly destroyed by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile in Aboukir Bay, and a combination of local resistance from the Mamelukes plus the intervention by the British meant that the French adventure in Egypt was virtually over by September
1801.

Not one to boast about failure however, Bonaparte returned to France with his war paintings and diaries portraying great and heroic victories. These were very well received, and by 1804 he was able to crown himself Emperor of all France. The rest is history as they say.

The advent of the portable camera in the early part of the 19th Century enabled the propagandists of the world to use images in much more powerful ways. Instead of heroic paintings of charging soldiers or victorious generals on horseback, images could for the first time reflect reality. The American Civil War, the Crimean War and the Boer War were amongst the first photo-documented conflicts.

Although the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson is often credited as being the first photojournalist, this is almost certainly not the case. His images are sharp, his composition is tight: however, somewhat like Napoleon Bonaparte, his marketing skills may have led some folk to this rather dubious conclusion.

Roger Fenton photographed the Crimean battlefields in 1853 long before Cartier-Bresson was even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes. Balaclava, Lord Raglan and the Light Brigade were amongst Fenton’s subjects as he toured the battlefields with his horse drawn “photographic van”.

Mathew Brady photographed the American Civil War. At the beginning of that war, in 1861, Brady organised his employees into groups, in order to spread them across the war zones, and provided them with horse drawn carriages. These were in fact rolling darkrooms, needed to develop the photographic plates into pictures.

Almost killed by shell fire at the Battle of Bull Run, Brady through his many paid assistants took thousands of photos of American Civil War scenes. Much of the popular understanding of the Civil War comes from these photos.

The photojournalist is not quite dead, although many have indeed died getting that shot

The Boer Wars, known in Afrikaans as the Vryheidsoorloë, or literally “freedom wars”, were two wars fought during 1880–1881 and 1899–1902 by the British Empire against the Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic.

There are literally thousands of images taken during the wars by dozens of photographers, including a few of Winston Churchill in his pre-glory days.

Things have changed in recent years however. The boundaries between the professionals and the amateurs have become blurred. Anyone with a few dollars and a strong shutter finger can record events. Facebook, YouTube and Flickr will host most images and comments. Sky News, Al Jeezera and the BBC encourage the sending-in of anything remotely newsworthy in the hope of a scoop.

The photojournalist is not quite dead, although many have indeed died getting that shot. These days though, everyone is a taker of images. The mobile phone and social media allow news, comment and images to span the world in seconds. All of us are now citizen photojournalists and when the issues with smart phone image quality are solved, as indeed they will be, there will be little need for the professional.

However who today has made the connection between extreme events and the use of social media via the “smart” phone, which can make us all promoters of the extremist elements in our midst? The Woolwich terrorists, if that indeed is what they are, are indebted to folk like Steve Jobs and that man from Microsoft.

The images on the front of the tabloids and the footage streamed into our living rooms following the murder of Drummer Rigby were not taken by professional photographers. The news teams missed the event. In fact they were not even invited. The killers of Drummer Rigby made sure of that.

They knew only too well that passers-by and onlookers could and would record the event and broadcast footage and comment around the world within minutes of it happening.

The propaganda victory for the killers is of course that we saw it all as it happened. There were a few heroic folk who intervened, of course. But at the end of the day, the good citizen photojournalists of Woolwich played right into the plans of the terrorists and took some nice snaps of the event.

Sources

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Is Racism Alive An Weel In Aiberdeen?

 Creative Writing, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Sep 262012
 

flagslong
By Bob Smith. 

A bodie’s view wis on Facebook
Misca’in some fowk in the “deen”
Fer haen a certain opinion
Aboot fit’s best fer Aiberdeen

If yer roots they are nae local
An inabootcomer ye wis ca’d
Anti views aboot the Granite Web
Iss blogger thinks affa bad

A’ve biden here in Aiberdeen
Roon aboot fifty eer or so
Bein born jist oot the toon
A’d be classed iss blogger’s foe

A cwidna believe fit wis posted
By a numptie a class as a gowk
Twis similar tae a 1930’s rant
Sayin ye maun be o certain stock

Wull the pro Granite Web camp
Distance themsels fae iss crap?
An protest ti the Facebook fowk
So iss bugger’s “blog” they drap

A maesel are agin the “Web”
An connachin the oasis o green
A view geen wi richt honesty
Tho nae born in Aiberdeen

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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