Eclectic Trains

I've always taken a strange pleasure in a private fantasy that CCTV cameras might reach a finite numerical saturation point because the state would simply be unable to employ enough people to watch the footage. And a private fantasy this must stay because "hundreds of PhD students around the world" are trying to make CCTV smarter. The aim is to fully automate the tracking process by developing sophisticated computer software that can model human behaviour patterns. Smart dumbness for any fellow fantasists who still crave freedom, I reckon.

CCTV to monitor Hampstead Heath

Hampstead Heath is going to have CCTV cameras to act as a deterrent, the BBC story ran today. We already have them in our parks in East London. My photo set on Flickr (see link below) will hopefully highlight the sordid lengths that the authorities will go to make CCTV cameras just a tad more palatable to us all. How about corrupting the concept of public art (with input from local children) by commissioning a sculpture that is really just a housing for 2 large CCTV cameras? How sick is that?

The more I look at the sculpture - and I do a lot because it is on my way to work - the more angry I get. Personally, I think the debate that we seem to have lost over 15 years ago needs to be rejuvenated. Let's start with a slogan, how about: "Take the cameras down". And here is the argument: liberty takes precedence over crime prevention. We might even find that if we take our liberty more seriously, crime prevention will become less of a problem. (More on that idea another time. I need to understand what I'm thinking!).


4 million cameras? 3% crime prevention success rate? CCTV isn't working. They have invaded our public space and effectively removed it. Fun happens in places where we know we are not being watched and that leaves us in our homes - alone.

Rowenna Rowling, a Hampstead Heath regular, said on BBC London TV News this morning: "You come here to get away from it all, the crowds, noise, CCTV cameras and everything. It [CCTV] would be a terrible, terrible mistake."

I agree with Rowenna. Make London parks free of CCTV and give us back our public space.

My Flickr set of the Weaver's Fields Public CCTV Sculpture

BBC News Article

"Part 2 will follow shortly"...

...Ah the promises you make to yourself and your readership (non-existent as we speak). Let this be a warning against the dangers of promising blog serialisation.

I can't blame back-to-back, nightly viewing of Series One of "The Wire". That obsession could only explain a lack of blog productivity in February. And, no I haven't watched it twice, I have lent my copy to London-based Wire Virgins. (When is it correct to use italics? by the way, as I am odeeing on them tonight). I am awaiting a free peak of Series Two and Three from some from Nottingham Wire Heads who cruelly promised they were going to let me take Series Two away with me on Sunday but have since changed their minds because they want to watch the whole series with the subtitles on. If that isn't an example of Subtitle Completism, I don't know what is...

No March, has got washed up with nasty weather; counting the days until Spring truly arrives (I think it has now); bitty work projects; trips to Nottingham and a very special 80th birthday party. Who needs to blog?

Clearly, I think I do.

I shall be returning to "The Wire" but I will leave you with the article by Charlie Brooker that sparked an interest (in a friend), who in turn showed me a clip of the series on YouTube, who then went and accidentally bought me a copy using my Amazon account (don't ask) - whilst managing to also purchase a second copy for himself. Talk about crosswires!

But here is the fiendish link anyway: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/features/story/0,,2246952,00.html

I have never owned a boxed set before. I am the last person on this planet to discover their simple, collectible, repeat-watchable beauty. And lo and behold, since I have now lost my boxed set virginity, it seems that everyone in the world is devouring "The Wire" on DVD. I feel part of a new movement... it's like "The Sopranos" all over again and yet it is not because that was such a live watching experience - now I can pause, rewind... you know, control stuff.

I have some CCTV thoughts to share but they will have to come when they are ready. Series Two and Three are being hand delivered in 11 days, 18 hours, 4 minutes and 59 seconds time.

I'm being pursued by a theme. This theme haunts my peripheral vision and nags at the fringes of my imagination. Surveillance. CCTV. Big Brother.

Why now? 'Where have you been for the last 15 years?' some might say. Sure, I've been perplexed and angered by the rapid rise of Surveillance UK for a long time but the full democratic toll of a wired Britain has just begun to grate on me that little bit harder.

It started with a walk through the park near my office in Bethnal Green late last year and has ended up with a walk down Whitehall on Tuesday (26/02/08) of this week. In between there has been the bugged Labour MP, the wonderful HBO TV series 'The Wire' in box set DVD form and the less convincing series 'The Last Enemy' from the BBC. Not to mention a continuous stream of comment and analysis from journalists who cry that "it has gone too far".

It certainly has.

And then, just as I thought I had escaped the BIG THEME, along came
the DVD of 'The Lives of Others'. Devastating. A damning take on the lack freedom in the former GDR and a severe warning about the future of Surveillance UK.

Part 2 will follow shortly.