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Monday, July 13, 2009

All my trials  



"Even though this was done in 1990, it's something we think is appropriate for today." (Paul McCartney's YouTube page)

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Let Afghanistan sell opium etc.  

It's poppycock to grow crops here but destroy them in Afghanistan: "So how would you feel, if you were sitting back on your terrace in Oxfordshire, and looking out at the poppies waving in the fields, and you heard the thugga-thugga-thugga of Apache helicopters? Suppose these helicopters were to disgorge hundreds of dark-glass-wearing US troops, who were to advance with flame-throwers and defoliants through the fields, destroying all the vegetation they could see. I put it to you that you would be exceedingly hacked off if you were a farmer." (Boris Johnson)

They (the government) are too busy being busy getting people killed and killing people to stop and think about what's best to do. That's when they're not playing silly beggars with capital gains tax.

Zoz

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Sunday, July 12, 2009

Dark cloud tonight  



[Don't you love the crazy angle of the houses? The horizon is straight! Ed]

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Just so you know...  

Swine flu vaccine to be given to entire population: "The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign." (Telegraph)

[Find an amusing angle on this, Newsdesk. Ed]

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The fourth plinth  

Live videostream

Continuous live video from Anthony Gormley's "One & Other" series of people on top of the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square

I think it should be left empty because that is the hardest and most meaningful thing to do.

Ossian

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I'm on Twitter! I'm on Twitter!  

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Friday, July 10, 2009

Skies of Willesden  







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Thursday, July 09, 2009

Across the clearing*  



More bees beeing around this year, certainly hundreds I think in the luxuriant clover and lavender etc in King Edward VII park in Willesden. In case you're wondering, it's the playing fields behind the sports centre, which few people knew the name of before but all will know as they've stuck nameplates and maps at every entrance. I have heard the footballers call it "King Edwards" before, so it wasn't completely unknown. Strange that many small parks are called King Edwards, I think (you can check if you like - I'm pretty sure there's another not far away in Wembley).

Ossian

* Update 08 July 2009: Added soundtrack "Across The Clearing" by The Ray Kelley Band (selected from YouTube "audio swap" resources) to Willesden Bee Movie. It's now like something by Visconti (I fondly imagine). Os

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Wednesday, July 08, 2009

More corruption  

Murdoch papers paid out £1m to gag phone-hacking victims | Media | guardian.co.uk: "News International chairman Les Hinton told MPs reporter jailed for phone-hacking was one-off case"

The report claims that thousands of mobile phones were hacked into by people working for News International and that payoffs were made in return for silence about the matter, a.k.a. "out of court settlements".

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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Twitter ye not?  

Willesden Herald (willesdenherald) on Twitter

Resistance is hopeless. They all twitter in the end. Why not make it easy on yourselves?

Feargal

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Straw proposes new powers to prosecute himself  

Straw proposes new powers to prosecute war criminals in Britain | UK news | guardian.co.uk: "New powers to prosecute war criminals living in Britain who have committed atrocities dating back to 1991 were unveiled today by the justice secretary, Jack Straw."

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Monday, July 06, 2009

Clouds  



Strange pink clouds drifting towards a peachy horizon, with doorlights and spires

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Sunday, July 05, 2009

WGwg at Respect Festival 2009  











WGwg at Respect Festival 2009 - a set on Flickr

More pictures (better ones) courtesy of Off_ Magazine

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This evening  



Shoal of clouds/A mackerel sky

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Today/this evening in Roundwood Park  

Respect maypole dancer"Brent Respect Festival is a fun, friendly, family festival that celebrates Brent's talent, diversity and creativity in the setting of one of Brent's finest parks. Brent has been organising a Respect Festival since 2003 to coincide with the Mayor of London's Rise Week and it in continues to be a vibrant event and is an integral part of national campaigns such as Big Dance and 2012."

Respect jerk chicken stall
"At this year's festival you can learn to play the steel drums, practice your Bollywood dance moves, create a costume for carnival, join the football tournament or make your own compost. If you just want to relax, Brent's talented dancers and musicians, including well-known artists and rising stars, will be up on stage to entertain you."

Respect festival main stageTaking up where Rise left (was dropped!) off, the Respect Festival keeps on keeping on. Again we rise! Dance, music, food, all in a gorgeous London park. Brochure (pdf)

Respect gospel choirThere are literary workshops and events in the Sshhh! tent, including the WGwg tour with "What we were thinking just before the end" from 6 pm to 8 pm. Catch good friend of the Willesden Herald, Steve Moran reading "Piano Smashing Blues", which appropriately enough is set in a local park on fair day.

Note: The Jubilee Line is closed today but there is a free shuttle bus from Willesden Junction station to the festival. (More transport details)

Ossian

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Criticism of the fire brigade  

Fire victim pleaded to be rescued - Telegraph: "A mother who died in a tower block fire that claimed the lives of six people had a final, desperate conversation with her husband as smoke poured into their 11th floor flat where she and her two children were trapped."

Why do politicians always instantly say how marvellous the emergency services are? Because they are ultimately responsible for the incompetence that is all-pervasive in this bureaucracy. The testimony of the father who lost his wife and children is very moving.

Zoz

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Saturday, July 04, 2009

10,000 for me, 127 for you  

Troops' lives 'at risk through vehicle delays' - Telegraph: "The new second-generation Mastiffs should have arrived in service with the Army by the middle of last month, but commanders have now been told not to expect the full consignment until later in the year. [...] By contrast, the US Department of Defence has managed to procure more than 10,000 of the American version of the Mastiff, known as the Mine Resistant Armoured Protected Vehicle (MRAP), in just 18 months."

The members of parliament have been too busy "flipping their second homes" in order to avoid capital gains tax.

Zoz

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Incident in a police state  

Is the state guilty of child kidnap? - Telegraph: '[...] on May 18, when Mr and Mr Jones, accompanied by their younger son, arrived at school to pick up their daughter, they were met by a group of strangers, one as it turned out a female social worker. She asked, without explaining why or who she was, whether he was Mr Jones. When she three times refused to show him any ID, he was seized from behind by two policemen, handcuffed and put under arrest. ... He was driven by a policeman to a nearby mental hospital where he was told that, because of "a number of concerns", he was being detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act and "sectioned" under S.2 as of "unsound mind". His wife, it turned out, had been similarly arrested, for loudly protesting at the handcuffing of her husband and the forcible seizing from her arms of her young son. The three children had been taken into care by social services. ... Mrs Jones was allowed to return to an empty home that evening. Mr Jones was permitted to attend court two days later, to hear the magistrates grant an interim order for the children to remain in the care of social services. Because he was "sectioned", he was not allowed to speak. The chief magistrate, it later emerged, was chairman of the trustees of the mental hospital in which he was being detained.'

And what was his "mental illness" - perceived delusions of grandeur and paranoia about the safety of his children?

Zoz

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Stevie Wonder: Live at Last  

BBC iPlayer

Broadcast on:BBC HD, 11:40pm Friday 3rd July 2009 Duration: 60 minutes Available until: 12:34am Saturday 11th July 2009

"Recorded during a two-night residency at the O2 Arena in London, Live at Last represents a rare occasion to experience all the funky energy of a Stevie Wonder concert. A pioneer in modern R&B, the American pianist, songwriter and tremendous performer comes back in top form after having spent ten years away from the spotlight. ... An electrifying journey into Wonder's long and successful career, Live at Last includes all his classic hits such as My Cherie Amour, Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours, Superstition, Higher Ground, Living for the City, You are the Sunshine of My Life, I Wish and Isn't She Lovely, performed with his daughter Aisha Morris. All in all an unforgettable spectacle."

You won't want to miss this, particularly if you're into funky jazz fusions (or whatever this is called). Pure virtuosity and joie de vivre.

Watching and posting

The opening harmonica instrumental is lovely and subtle in the way it builds and blossoms and ends with a feat of virtuosity (needless to say).

The third track is a very soulful reworking of "Lately" - obviously heartfelt, especially when he uses his own name in a variation to the lyrics.

He's starting some communal singing for the next song, My Cherie Amour. Maybe I might update this post again later.

The audience are having a ball. Dancing, kissing...loving the music.

Excellent: Signed, Sealed, Delivered - hot from the Obama campaign revival. I like his singing in this concert - seems better than ever. How can one person write this stuff, be such a virtuoso and entertainer. Michael Jackson was something special but nobody can rival Mr Wonder himself.

At about 35 minutes in: Gorgeous "You are the sunshine of my life". The singers are perfect and full of joy. Now it's on to "I just called to say I love you", with a few ad-libs.

The whole time I'm watching this, I get the feeling that this is our present day Mozart, and just so wish we could bring Mozart back to life and hear what he would make of Motown and all that. Same thing with Shakespeare and present day writers. Pity - but maybe it will come to pass through time travel if ever that is enabled. (I know you may say that these people have lived their lives and "it didn't happen" but I'm telling you: they will live again! Hallelujah. ;-)

"Superstition" - just noticing the band is more like a small orchestra, with a rhythm section consisting of two separate drummers with drum kits as well as a percussionist on congas and other things. "Superstition" morphs into a medley with "What the fuss?" Brilliant.

45 minutes, band call out. Two percussionists and a drummer. 5 singers. Etc. I can't give you the names. (One I can, Aisha - his daughter, as mentioned in "Isn't she lovely".) He's going to end on "As" and he has an interesting speech near the end, all about love and his late mother. Sounds odd when I write it like that, but he's all heart, has a natural way about him and makes a great exit.

Bartell

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Friday, July 03, 2009

Northern sunset  



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Monday, June 29, 2009

Boris on Jacko  

Michael Jackson: It would be wrong to sneer at this outpouring of public grief - Telegraph: "[...] Never was someone so obviously and so literally unhappy in his own skin, and by his obsessional suffering he earned the potential sympathy of everyone who feels doubtful about their appearance, which is a fair chunk of the human race. [...] And by his musical triumphs, he proved the essential point, that you can look weird, feel weird, be weird – and still be a genius. In one sense Michael Jackson was beaten by the star system, in that it made demands about how he should look and behave which he felt he could never satisfy. In another sense he beat the system. He beat it by writing Beat It." (Boris Johnson)

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Virgin Mobile insurance con  

"3 months free phone insurance. Cover your Virgin Mobile Pay Monthly phone, and the first 3 months are on us. After that, its just £5.99 a month."

£5.99 per month to insure your phone? What a rip-off, a tax on the busy parents of impressionable youngsters who demand mobile phones, not anticipating that this financial trap is being laid for them when they click through online. All "first 3 months free" schemes should be banned.

Feargal

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BBC - Glastonbury - 2009  

BBC - Glastonbury - 2009

Lots of videos, including Neil Young and extended highlights from Bruce Springsteen's brilliant headline set

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Saturday, June 27, 2009

Path lights  



Willesden sports centre

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Wild wonders of Europe - National Geographic  



European bee-eaters, Puszta, Hungary

PICTURES: Wild Europe Exposed by Giant Photo Project

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Richard Littlejohn's racist rants etc.  

Happened to be in the barbers today and nothing else to read but the Daily Mail rag. To be fair, this housepaper-in-waiting for the genocidal BNP dictatorship had one good double page memoir about sexual mores in France, which was worth reading - an eye opener as they say. However it also contained a pageful of brutal and racist rants by a big Jeremy Clarkson-like buffoon called Richard Littlejohn. Like Clarkson this blatherer Littlejohn has made a living out of being an arse in the media for years.

He criticizes the police in a strange backhanded way, for example he complains that a guy was Tasered three times while spreadeagled on the ground while also describing him as "a piece of lard who probably deserved a good kicking". He gets some things sort of half right, probably by accident, including pointing out the stupidity of Tasering a sheep that was blocking a road. He then goes on in another strange backhanded sort of way about police swimming lessons being cancelled in Wales because it would put Muslim women off joining.

What I really didn't like was how he then went on via a tenuous link to say (and I quote) that "the Warwickshire police are holding a pikey's picnic this weekend, inviting all members of 'the travelling community' to a day of festivities at the force's Leek Wootton headquarters. The manicured lawns of the country house HQ will play host to a traditional Roma band, story-telling and even 'a graffiti project'. I hope they remember to lock up their lawn-mowers." [My emphasis]

It's not just the word "pikey" - which is offensive enough, I think, but that remark about locking up their lawn-mowers. I don't think you need me to draw the historical parallels of vilification that little jibe evokes. Have people like him learned nothing from history? As long as this country thinks he and people like him are, in the American term, "good old boys" we are headed for the horrors.

Remember today, remember everything you see around you: the communities, the arts, the hospitals and hospices, the schools and special schools, the languages you hear everywhere, the public transport passes for pensioners, welfare for people in hardship, benefits, pensions, freedom, rights. All these things will be violently and wilfully destroyed and disappear forever if people like him have their way, if they ever gain power. All that will be left is a feudal system of mansions, with unrepaired roads between them and surrounded by hovels, the Brazil of Europe, a banana republic with no bananas and no republic, run on the divine right of inherited privilege.

We can start the fight by binning the Daily Mail. Let's also oppose the Tories 10% cuts proposals and their alliance with the far right parties of Europe. New Labour sucks, and Gordon's expenses fiasco (yes, let him own it all) sucks majorly but look around, there is regeneration everywhere: new sports centre, rebuilt secondary school, rebuilt community hospital all within five minutes walk of where I live. When you go to a hospital appointment, you don't have to wait as long to be seen. There are new tests that are pro-actively promulgated for preventive medicine. There is a minimum wage. These are just some of the things one could list.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, let's purge lazy and concupiscent MP's but let us not install Lord Snooty and his friends to try to turn the clock back. Don't let them dismantle, sell off and vitiate the investment that has been made. At the very worst, a Lib-Lab pact can survive. It is by no means over till it's over. Cameron is "measuring the curtains for 10 Downing Street" and therein lies his party's Achilles' heel: they think they have it in the bag, they have seen the winning post too soon.

Feargal

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Talking dog  



This is good. (Montel Williams show)

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Let's do this  

Auto-ban: German town goes car-free - Europe, World - The Independent: "Vauban hopes to forge a model community without that great staple of modern life – the car. Now the sound of birdsong has replaced the roar of traffic and children can play in the street"

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He made some good records  



Michael Jackson - One Day in your life



Michael Jackson - Earth Song

The symbolism in the Earth Song video is messianic. Jackson redeems the world at the end by stamping his foot. The stamping of his foot as the world is regenerated is a primitive dance element and also (perhaps appropriately) how a petulant child demands something.

I don't know if he was guilty as charged although acquitted but that child abuse trial must have destroyed him. There was a chance of suicide at that time, I thought. Some good things are made by people who are not all good. Just one opinion.

Jacintha

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Pointless violence  

Battle of Barbaji: A fight for hearts and minds in Afghanistan, but none are to be found | UK news | The Guardian

"[...] The wide street, lined on each side with garage-like concrete alcoves that serve for shops, was strewn with rubbish and, the Jocks discovered, eight separate IEDs. The only people in the shops were youthful members of A Company, who spent their time frying up some of the potatoes the traders left behind. ... His company finally found two local people to engage with on the fourth day [...] The first was a teenage boy caught foraging for stale bread in an empty compound [...] The second was a grey-bearded old man the British found sitting under a tree, outside a tiny mud-brick home the size of two telephone boxes – the only inhabitant of an otherwise entirely deserted village to have stayed behind. Only his bad legs, and the trouble he has walking, had prevented him joining the exodus. ... No fewer than three British officers set about trying to extract information and to deliver their key messages. [...] The old man wasn't having any of it: "Last year a big British bomb in Nowzad killed 600 people," he said. "Another 170 were killed at a wedding party."

Meanwhile, John Bercow and the government are fiddling while Afghanistan burns.

Zoz

Update 26/6/2009: Obama must call off this folly before Afghanistan becomes his Vietnam: Senseless slaughter and anti-western hysteria are all America and Britain's billions have paid for in a counterproductive war (Simon Jenkins)

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10:42 PM | 1 comments |
 

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