UK: Facing the music over rodent rave experiments – September 2002 Squatters quit flats for festival
By Evening News 24 - Thursday September 5 2002
Copyright: Evening News 24
NORWICH'S nomadic squatters have left their latest adopted home to go on an extended period of partying and travelling.
Just three of the self-styled Community Collective are still staying at a block of empty flats on Brunswick Road. But they are due to leave on Friday, the deadline set by the housing association who own the building.
The other 22 members moved all their belongings out before the bank holiday and went to a festival en masse. After that it appears they have spent some time travelling around England.
Nearly a fortnight ago the collective was issued with another eviction order from the county court just over a week after being kicked out of Pym House on Unthank Road.
However, the owners, the Swan Housing Association, gave them a two week breathing space to find alternative accommodation.
According to one member they are still on the look out for a place, preferably a big house that will contain all 25 members of the collective.
"When all the others come back we will have to move to somewhere else, maybe to another squat. We have always wanted to remain together as a collective rather then be split up," he said.
"People have gone to a festival and have taken pretty much all their stuff with them. It's very quite just now, just me playing my tunes."
Their short stay at Pym House ended in a high-profile stand-off with authorities which resulted in an impromptu rave. They left only when police officers broke in through the back door. But this time round the collective have decided to leave peacefully.
"It's a bit difficult to make a protest with just the three of us. We will definitely be leaving on Friday," the anonymous member added.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/
Let’s get in contact!! I'm looking for independent Internet newspapers, in english.
In return, I can provide a few in french:
www.homme-moderne.org (plpl=pour lire, pas lu)
www.acrimed.org (action critique des medias)
www.samizdat.net
indymedia
cqfd (ce qu'il faut détruire)
and I quite like www.monde-diplomatique.fr, although it can hardly be called independent... actually, its really nice, cause many modern researchers and sociologists contribute...
UK : Scot : Waterstones sacks blogger TBH although I consider blogs to be rather self-indulgent (and potentially incriminating to people like us!), corporates and public sector organisations are paranoid over what their employees may say on the net, I can't believe a bookseller in a modern European country which permits free speech would do this... I will certainly boycott them after this!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/11/waterstones_blog/
Quote:
Waterstone's throws book at blogger
By Tim Richardson
Published Tuesday 11th January 2005 12:40 GMT
Bookseller Waterstone's has sacked a long-serving employee for writing a blog. Joe Gordon from Edinburgh, who worked for the company for t11 years, says he was dismissed because he "brought the company into disrepute".
His Woolamaloo Gazette was started in 1992 and is a satirical diary that, in Gordon's own words, enables him "to vent steam on stories which are bugging me or amusing me and hopefully make people think at the same time".
Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_opt=0;Ads_wrd='';Ads_prf='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_sec=0;[img]http://sel.as-eu.falkag.net/sel?cmd=ban&dat=155872&opt=0&rdm=20040804[/img]
While most of the material he covers does not involve his work, he does occasionally mention his time at Waterstone's. As he puts it: "Like many folk I am not always happy at work...and coin terms such as 'Bastardstone's' and have a character called 'Evil Boss' (my equivalent to Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss - in fact I compared head office directives to being in a Dilbert cartoon)."
While many people have already judged these this to be harmless, Waterstone's appears to believe they provide sufficient grounds for dismissal. Now Mr Gordon is angry at the way he's been treated and believes that, if the company was so offended, the matter could have been dealt with just a "quiet word".
Wrote Gordon: "I am not a serf; I am not an indentured servant. I am a free man with the right of freedom of expression. The company does not own me, body and soul - conforming to their rules at work is to be expected, but in your own time and space? How can anyone be expected to go through their personal life in fear of saying the wrong thing? No-one should.
"This has left me dreadfully upset. That a company I have given so many years to could treat me in such a brutal manner is despicable. That a book company thinks so little of the primacy of freedom of expression is alarming. I pointed out that Waterstone's has stated publicly several times in the past that as a bookseller they believe in the freedom of expression and not in censorship."
As well as winning the support of other bloggers Gordon has also won the backing of author Richard Morgan, who has added his voice to the chorus of complaints over the sacking. In a letter to the company he wrote: "While I don't wish to interfere in company business, I have to say I think this bears comparison with taking disciplinary action based on private conversation overheard in a pub, and raises some disturbing issues of freedom of speech. Waterstone's is, after all, a bookseller, whose stock in trade is the purveying of opinion, not all of it palatable to those concerned.
"You sell books which offer serious critique of the corporate environment and government, but do not expect to suffer punitive action from government or corporate quarters as a result. You sell books which criticise and satirise religious and political groups, but you do not expect to be firebombed by extremists as a result. Surely Joe has the right to let off steam in his free time without having to fear for his livelihood as a result.
"The action that has been taken so far bears more resemblance to the behaviour of an American fast food chain than a company who deal in intellectual freedoms and the concerns of a pluralist liberal society."
Despite repeated attempts to contact Waterstone's no one was available for comment at the time of writing. ®
Party links in UK & beyond From: "sarah bentley"
Date: 09 January 2005 20:38
Whats up? I'm a music writer and I'm putting together a piece on Squat
party's in London for US magazine The Fader. I'd love to hear from people in
London whom follow the warehouse party scene either as part of a
collective/rig or just as a raver.
It would also be great to hear from people outside of london so I can email
you a couple of questions about how this scene connects with free party
scene going off across the world and why you choose to be part of this
scene instead of going to a licensed club.
Hope to hear from you soon, imput from everyone-DJ's, rig owners, forum
hosts, website managers, is really really welcome.
peace. sarah b xx
information for free The new freedom of information act has come into force right accross the UK
http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=freedomofinformati1104930919&area=news
[HTML]The Freedom of Information Act came into full effect on New Year's Day, giving individuals for the first time the statutory right to see a massive amount of information held by Government departments and thousands of public bodies.
People have a right to information about the way decisions are made, and public money is spent, by more than 100,000 public authorities, including Government departments, schools, NHS Trusts, police forces and local authorities.[/HTML]
sarf lahndan society priorities… look at the order in which the two articles are shown - as someone born in South London and who spent a lot of his life there this doesn't surprise me...
http://www.partyvibe.com/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=67&stc=1
represent this some of you may be aware that I do not own a TV.. or rather I do, but I do not watch'TV'.... i own i TV so that i can watch videos sent to me by Open University, but not terrestriel TV
today i was staying in an hotel and i tuned into CNN... and it made me mad
:mad:
while thousands died in S.Asia the media bopped about broadcasting shite...
CNN told me all about JOE who had his digital camera directed at some of the coastline in the tourist resorts.... and after a good hour of reporting on how the biggest tsunami in 40 years had hit tourist resorts, a few seconds was given to a man that had lost generations of his family... then CNN announced, in action movie voice over, how more could be seen at CNN's website... not a mention on how donations could be made to aid agencies or how this was the biggest loss of life in the world in living memory... finally, today, 3 days later, we start to see some information about how to help
I think USE mentioned how the stucture of life in much of south asia is moulded by western policy and that this has been partly responsible for vulnerable housing and farmland
i was pissed off to see a running headline that the IMF claim they will do 'eerything possible to help' even though their own policies mean that many victims will be vulnerable to loss of land and without fresh water or infrastructure due to their very own policies
:mad: :mad: :mad:
G8 is coming to UK soon... make your opinion heard
IN : Bollywood meets Benny Hill – as pr0n net-cafés busted big time. Goodness gracious me... :D
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4124121.stm
Blitz on Indian cyber-cafe porn
North Indian police have cracked down on porn in cyber-cafes, including two that allegedly rented cubicles for $1.30 an hour for youths to have sex.
Police in Uttar Pradesh arrested more than 50 people, some of them naked.
Director-general of police, VKB Nair, told the BBC he ordered the drive after complaints that students were watching porn instead of attending classes.
It follows a scandal over the case of a Delhi schoolboy who allegedly filmed a sex act with a girl on his cell phone.
Deserted
The BBC's Ram Dutt Tripathi in Lucknow says the Uttar Pradesh crackdown targeted a number of places that sold pornographic films and videos.
In Agra, the owners of two cyber-cafes were allegedly providing sex cubicles for boys and girls for 60 rupees ($1.30) an hour.
Most of the cubicles did not even have computers - instead police found used condoms.
Police arrested 22 boys and girls there, in various states of undress.
The manager of one reputable cyber-cafe said he was surprised that his establishment was virtually deserted while the others were crowded despite being almost twice as expensive.
Mr Nair also said some cinema halls were caught illegally showing parts of films that were cut by the censors.
He has asked all district police chiefs to file reports on the crackdown by 29 December.
Bailed
Allahabad district police chief, Sunil Gupta, said two people had been arrested there for selling pornographic video CDs.
However, he denied media reports that police had received a video CD allegedly made by a boy of a sex act with his girlfriend which was then sold in markets for 250 rupees.
In a similar case, which has shocked India, a 17-year-old Delhi schoolboy allegedly recorded a sex act with a girl, 16, on his mobile phone.
The clip was later sold on video CDs via auction site Baazee.com, sparking the arrest of its manager for India, Avnish Bajaj.
A juvenile court granted the boy bail but ordered him not to leave the country.
Mr Bajaj was also bailed and told not to leave.
He was arrested under India's information technology law, which prohibits the use of the internet to distribute obscene or pornographic material.
Bazee.com has said the offending clip was removed from the website as soon as the nature of its contents became known. The alleged seller of the two minutes and 37 seconds clip, an engineering student, has also been arrested.
stop & search/id cards/ASBOs I am really worried by all these:
1 stop & search powers (supposedly for anti terrorism purposes)
2 id cards (supposedly to find terrorists (though this didn't work in the Madrid bombing)/expel illegal immigrants)
3 ASBOs (supposedly to protect the law abiding middle classes from 'gangs' of youths)
What these measures are really about are:
1 free rein to interfere with private citizens going about their business although they are not breaking ANY LAW
2 to monitor every person's movements and reduce our freedom so we are cowed and obedient in the face of 'the law'.
3 to pander to unsubstantiated fears of a minority fanned by hysterical media coverage. Youths wear hoods because it's fashion - listen to their conversations and they are about who's got the coolest phone. Paedophilia is last year's bogeyman, hence this ludicrous witch hunt.
Why is nothing being done about protesting about these outrageous infringements on our liberty? Has no-one noticed?
UK : BT switch to renewable energy Background for non UK readers: BT (British Telecommmunications plc) is the UK's main telco, providing comms services to nearly all ISPs in the UK apart from a handful of cable companies.
Quote:
BT gets behind renewable energy
British Telecom has announced a three-year plan to get all of its energy needs from renewable sources - the biggest such project in the world.
The electricity used, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, could power a city the size of Nottingham.
Renewable sources of energy include wind, wave and solar power, rather than using fossil fuels like oil or coal.
The power will be used in all of BT's 6,500 phone exchanges, as well as its satellite relay stations and offices.
The plan comes after the government's call for 10% of the UK's energy to have come from non-polluting renewable sources by 2010, in an effort to halt global warming.
Burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal are blamed by some scientists as a major contributor to rising temperatures.
Wind-farms
BT's contract will be the biggest in history by a British company, though other UK firms have already signed up to using environmentally-friendly energy.
The UK is legally bound, under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2%, below 1990 levels, by 2012.
In his foreword to the 2003 energy white paper, Tony Blair stated: "We are showing leadership by putting the UK on a path to a 60% reduction in its carbon dioxide emissions by 2050."
Two new wind farms which will generate enough power for 118,000 homes were given the go-ahead in Scotland last week.
Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson has announced turbines will be built at Braes of Doune, near Dunblane, and Farr, near Tomatin in the Highlands.
Story from BBC NEWS:
I think the reasons are as much financial and technical as altruistic - renewable power systems which depend on intermittent energy sources (sun/wind) work better if used with a large DC storage battery to store the power for later use.
Now there just happens to be a very large battery in every BT telephone exchange (some of them take up entire rooms the size of a tennis court) - and its just the correct voltage to be as efficient without danger of electric shock (-48V dc) - BT need the battery anyway as an integral part of how the telephone system works, most exchange buildings are large with lots of spare space nowadays - and the roof will be full of mobile phone repeaters, sat dishes etc so another mast makes no difference..
Its an excellent bit of good practice though, making use of both new and tried and tested technology. For once BT has done something right..
Krankie kraks her heid wow, the celebs are dropping like flies this week...
If you're too young to remmeber these two - count yourself lucky.
Quote:
Krankie hurt in beanstalk tumble
Children's entertainer Wee Jimmy Krankie has been taken to hospital with head injuries after falling 20ft off a pantomime beanstalk in Glasgow.
The 57-year-old is starring in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk at the city's Pavilion Theatre and fell off the prop during a matinee show.
Fellow cast member Scottish soap star Gary Hollywood was also said to have been injured in the fall on Wednesday.
The duo's conditions were described as stable by the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
Show stopper
The Wednesday evening performance at the theatre has now been cancelled and the audience who saw the fall during the day have been given a full refund.
A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: "Wee Jimmy Krankie fell out of the beanstalk on to the stage and was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary."
Wee Jimmy, a cheeky Scottish schoolboy, is played by actress Janette Tough, who stars alongside her husband Ian Tough in their double act The Krankies.
Mr Tough was not on stage at the time of the accident but went to hospital with his wife.
The couple are now semi-retired but throughout the 1980s were a fixture on national television making their name on the Crackerjack children's TV programme.
They hosted their own show, The Krankies Club, on ITV before finally disappearing from the screens in 1991.
They have been starring in the Christmas production in Glasgow since it opened at the end of last month and are due to finish their run at the end of January.
UK : Wales/Cymru : Dirty Sanchez tour cancelled after drill incident One ouch too far...big up University Hospital Cardiff for patching the chap up though (I hope C4 may consider a financial contribution towards these costs?)
Quote:
Drill mishap upsets 'Sanchez' tour
Fans of TV series Dirty Sanchez will not be surprised to hear their live tour has been cancelled after a group member put a drill through his hand.
The only shock is that he did it accidentally rather than on purpose.
Imagine three reckless Welshmen and a Londoner all but torturing themselves and you have the programme format.
The accident happened as a 25-year-old known to admirers as Pritchard was filming a new series of the MTV and Channel 4 show.
He was using a high-speed electric drill when it slipped and went straight through his left hand.
The accident, described as "pretty horrific", meant he needed emergency surgery at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.
The group were due to perform a live "homecoming" show at Cardiff University students' union on Wednesday but had to cancel it and three other shows as a result of the accident.
They have now rescheduled the Cardiff date for 14 March 2005.
The four - Welsh trio Matthew Pritchard, Lee Dainton, Pancho (Mike Locke) and Londoner Dan Joyce - have become required viewing through their extreme stunt shows, which air on MTV and Channel 4.
They started out as extreme skateboarders but developed into increasingly more outrageous pranksters, in the same vein as the US TV show Jackass.
Nettles
Some of their eye-watering, cringe-making stunts, all captured on camera, have included sandpapering their backsides until they bleed, nailing sensitive parts of their bodies to wood and jumping naked into nettles.
The quartet genuinely seem to enjoy their wincingly painful exploits, which perhaps explains the attraction of the show to the non-sadists among us.
The remaining - and so far uninjured - trio decided against starting the tour without Pritchard.
Dainton issued a general apology to fans deprived of the full-frontal Dirty Sanchez experience in the (tortured) flesh.
But he explained: "We felt it wouldn't be the same without him.
"It would be like the Rolling Stones without Jagger."
A MESSAGE FROM IRAQ Check this video - it is the unspoken truth about the war we have inflicted on iraq - and a piognant remeinder of how closed minded our own, supposedly "free" press is.
Even if you think the war was justified, this is a unique insight into how the war is seen by the people it affects.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7468.htm
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