The Devil's Whore has been watched and appreciated (with some caveats). I'm not sure about the devil, or the whore come to think of it, but I won't go into too much detail here as I intend to write a longer piece on the series. If you need to catch up on the first episode from last week, click here.

If you need to quickly swot up on the English Revolution why not read Christopher Hill's seminal 1940 essay, The English Revolution 1640. [All complaints about the poor standard of transcription should be made to the CPGB (do they still exist?) and/or Andy Blunden at www.marxists.org - it's enough to give Marxists who care about accuracy a nad mame!].

The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution was written by Hill in 1972 and is regarded as one of the classic academic texts on the Civil War and a major contribution to twentieth century historical analysis. I'm plodding through it now and am getting to know my Levellers from Diggers. The Devil's Whore would not have been written without Hill's contribution to our understanding of this period and the worm's eye view of history that he took.

See you after episode 2.

My expectations are being ramped up to the max before tomorrow's screening of The Devil's Whore on Channel 4. Co-writer and co-executive producer, Peter Flannery, was on Radio 4's Start the Week and actor John Simm was interviewed in today's Times. I am sure you blogged-out, newshounds have tracked down other stuff.

Anyway, the 4-parter has a time and that'll be 9pm. So, I would advise you to get the kids to bed on time (isn't government advice 7:30pm?), open a bottle of red and hopefully (I'm praying), sit back and enjoy an insightful journey into our revolutionary past.

The Devil's Whore is on tomorrow (that's Wednesday 19th November) night at 09:00. Live in the here and now by enjoying a bit of BIG TV now and then. (Of course I'm going to Skyplus it. All precatuionary steps are being taken).

Afterthought...

OMG, I've just earwigged someone in the pub recruit a new believer to the Socialist - Degenerated Workers' State variety - cause. The English Revolution must be in the air tonight...

We all know what's going down, but what's going up?

1. Fawlty Towers DVD sales soar

2. Egg Sales up by 22 Per Cent

3. Sales of The Communist Manifesto have risen by more than 700%

"I too rooted for Obama and I too was moved by his victory speech. I expect him to be far more liberal and successful than his predecessor. But he was swept to power on a wave of emotion - it was, albeit in happier circumstances, another "Diana moment" - from which almost nobody dared to dissent. As hard times approach, I do not think that augurs well for democracy and newspapers in either country."

Peter Wilby with some sensible words.

"I had a dream about Angelina Jolie, Barack and Michelle Obama last

The Devil's Whore is coming to Channel 4. It is difficult to contain my excitement. In a preview in The Sunday Times a whole list of treats are placed before us. First and foremost, this new television drama is written by Peter Flannery the writer of Our Friends in the North. All right, a very close second is that The Devil's Whore is about the Cromwell and English Revolution. Here's a list of other things to get excited about:

- the cast includes Dominic West (The Wire) as Cromwell
- there hasn't been a prime time civil war drama since 1983
- it was filmed in South Africa
- it has a big budget - £7m for a four-parter
- Flannery read the King James version of the Bible (1604) to research dialogue and the use of "muscular metaphor and simile" (it might not rock your boat but it's rocking mine)

Flannery unashamedly engages his audiences with big ideas, his characters are complex and he wants to take you on an unforgettable journey. What more could we want?

"I'm not selling this as a way of passing your GCSE in 17th-century history... I'm trying to write a thrilling story about those times and what the issues were..."

[England's civil war in The Devil’s Whore, The Sunday Times]

Bring on the English Revolution! See you at the Channel 4 barricades on November 19th. [I'm guessing 9pm but the online listings aren't giving up crucial information like that just yet].

The credit crunch has brought home to me how my reading habits have started to change, especially in respect to hard news. I buy The Guardian or The Times every day but my hunger for news from the blogosphere, from BBC correspondents to obscure US libertarians (read unhappy Republicans), is unsated. Get out more! Yes, I know I should but while I am not, I am going to carry on hunting and reading. Discovering a blog, maybe a gem that only a small number of people are reading, has a tragic equivalence with the under-the-bedclothes listening of the late John Peel Radio 1 show (10pm-midnight, Monday-Thursday in the late 1970s). I listened through hours of experimental dross just to catch that edgey, indie band that none of my mates might have heard of. Cassette tape in my Bush cassette tape radio recorder at the ready, great tracks would get recorded for later consumption and distribution. Today, Google Reader and Delicious are the modern equivalents of my cassette recorder for my news reading habits.

There is at least one Guardian journalist who has been prepared to swim against the Obama tide (of near hysteria) and his name is Simon Jenkins. In an article entitled: All the cliches about colour obscure the real challenges awaiting Obama, Jenkins lays down a gaunlet of liberal common sense. I think we should take up the gaunlet and start to get a grip.

"The most overheard media cliche is that "America will never be the same again". Yes it will, as it was when it last elected a Democratic president. Only if we break from the crypto-racist mindset that sees Obama as a black man first and all else far behind can the odds on a successful presidency be assessed."

John was woken at 2.30am on Wednesday 5th November by a telephone call from Mary.

"John! He's done it!" said a merrily drunk Mary.

"Who's that? Who's done what?" groaned John.

"Obama is president! It's Mary... it's amazing isn't it?" Mary carried on.

"It's 2.30am in the morning. I was asleep. You've got to be joking." John complained.

"Now don't try and get angry with me, John. This is history. Isn't it great?" Mary enthused.

"I'm going back to sleep Mary."

John put the phone down. Helen, John's wife, has woken up.

"Who was that, John?" asked a crotchety Helen.

"Mary. Obama's won."

"I'll kill her..."

[The names have been changed to protect my friends identities].

I imagine this script may have played out across the UK, if not the world, in the early hours of Tuesday morning [GMT]. My friends John and Helen have not been caught up in the Obamarama thing but Mary clearly has and at the moment the Obamaphiles seem to be everywhere. The hope that has been pinned onto Barack Obama's campaign, and now imminent presidency, is BIG HOPE for BIG CHANGE. I'm afraid some of us our suffering from extreme self-delusion and others are just going to be plain disappointed.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning [6.45am GMT] and turned on the television, there was the news: America elects its first black/mixed race/biracial - [delete as you feel appropriate] president. My wife was happy - emotional even. My 3rd daughter is 'planning to be born' 9 days after Obama's inauguration on 20th January 2009. My mixed race daughter will be born into a world with a mixed race leader of the free world. It would have been churlish not to reflect on this moment and recognise a sense of achievement, but now we need to move on.

Yes, move on. Snap out of it! Wake up! I've always believed in the human potential of all races to achieve at the highest level because I believe in racial equality. A non-white man has reached the highest political office proves in one simple sense what anti-racists have known along: that anything and everything is possible.

Unfortunately Obama's election promises don't fill me with hope: withdrawl from Iraq but puruse the war in Afghanistan with more vigour, being one of them. The hope invested in Obama has a lot to do with America's internalised self-loathing generated during George W. Bush's two terms in office. So, if Americans now feel freer to engage with the world about the best ways forward during these difficult times then we will all be enriched. However, the narrow, illiberal political agenda of the political class prevalent in the West from Barack Obama to Gordon Brown, fills me full of dread. Without any real economic solutions politicians tend to ramp up the control agenda and want to tell us 'how we all have a responsibility to tighten our belts for the good of the economy and the environment'. Ughh!

Reading across the blogosphere, I find libertarian fears described by American Republicans palpable (and entertaining).

"I want all these willing volunteers who are so eager to help Obama achieve his vision to leave me strictly alone. I prefer that they sink into apathy, or go off and get drunk or do drugs. I don't want to be part of Obama's corps of concerned citizens."

Obama's worker bees [Blog: Miriam's Ideas]

"I don’t need a cult leader and I have no interest in worshipping. Obama represents mob rule and I want no part of his cult of personality. I’m interested in human freedom. I’m interested in less government. I’m interested in choices, rational discussion and education. Where are my people? Where is my party?"

The cult of Obama [Blog: The will to exist]

'Miriam' goes on to describe a less liberal society where Big Brother drones (read former Obama supporters) police her eating habits and gasoline usage. Truly a nightmare. I think we might already be living in it in the UK!

For more in depth analysis, I regularly read spiked. Frank Furedi's article Obama and the fall of ‘the silent majority’, Brendan O'Neill's Voting for Obama: a badge of superiority? and The morning after History was made by Sean Collins raise serious questions about the real trends underlying Barack Obama's victory.

For a humorous take on what the young, and unemployed, Obamaphiles are going to do now the campaign is over, watch this clip from The Onion:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

The coverage of the build up to the US presidential elections has had to compete with Brandgate (or Manuelgate or Sachsgate or Whatevergate). The US is about to elect a new leader and we have had another media scandal that engulfs the media in a cannibalistic feeding-frenzy. This alone is quite shocking.

I must admit my head has been spinning with issues that sometimes appear very trivial and then very serious, simultaneously. Ross and Brand weren't funny on this particular occasion - there seems to be a wide consensus on this one. (I'll come clean: I can find Ross funny and on occasions his cheeky childish wit can amuse but his rude, boorish, self-congratulatory shtick - a large part of his act - has started to wear thin. Or put another way, "sisters", I think if I were a female celeb I would think twice about appearing on his chat show. Juliette Binoche, Jane Fonda, Nicola Kidman and even our own Jade Goody have all been subjected to Ross's sexist, car crash sense of humour. Brand's humour has always been too obscured by his ego for me to appreciate his "talents").

Anyway... talk about a diverting issue. As some intelligent articles have pointed out this isn't about Ross or Brand. The column inches devoted to the subject aren't an extension of a public debate about the nature of humour and what makes us laugh. "Can the comedy of cruelty ever be justified. Discuss." No, the official liberal media response to "Brandgate" has betrayed a papable disgust with the thousands that have complained about the Brand-Ross Radio 2 show. Charlie Brooker's column - a very funny column that I read regularly - in The Guardian was entitled: "Want a rush of empowerment? Join the angry idiots registering their disgust with Ofcom". His opening salvo was: "So it's here at last. The dawn of the dumb has broken in earnest."

At the beginning of the week I must admit I was caught up in the fears of the liberal media elite (being a lesser member with aspirations). In particular, the worry that a "Daily Mail witchunt" against Ross and Brand might increase the likelihood of a knee-jerk and censorious response from the BBC, troubled me. But there was something else going on here...

...and then I stumbled on Neil Davenport's article on spiked: A revolt of the masses against the BBC?

Neil takes apart the issue and really explores the BBC's contempt for its audience. The Ross-Brand affair is set in the context of "the media’s low horizons and lack of faith in its audience". This article is a devastating critique of dumbing-down whilst also being a fresh clarion call for funny, and intelligent, comedy. I couldn't recommend it more.

Trundling home on the District Line yesterday I picked up a free sheet and skimmed through its news offerings. Skipping the sports pages just in case there were any mentions of "Spurs", "Ramos" and "Relegation", I stumbled across a piece about Facebook and its addictive properties.

One in ten at risk from 'Facebook addiction'

was the headline. An expert from the priory said that: "at least one in ten Britons could be vulnerable to the addiction".

I chuckled and scoffed the rest of my journey home... had some supper... fired up the pute... kicked-off FB and debated with myself about whether 45 friends was really enough and whether 2 people I don't really know (but have seen across a crowded room) should be accepted as friends...

...come on in, there's room for more...

One of my mates has got 332 friends and admits he is a "friends whore".

A picture isn't needed here. Newman was one of three actors that captured "cool" when I was growing up in the 1970s; Robert Redford and Steve McQueen were the other two, but Newman was my favourite. The faraway eyes and rebel streak made him very compelling to watch. I must have seen "Cool Hand Luke" a dozen times. I was three years old when it was released in 1967, but the movie seem to play back-to-back on television in the late 70s and I never got sick of the hard-boiled egg eating challenge. Newman just cut it as a wilful, independent spirit. His "Mendacity, mendacity" speech, where he railed against his father in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958), was another memorable film moment. The film caught the inter-generational tensions of the late 50s and 60s and still resonates with family life today.

Quotes attributed to Newman are worth a read: Paul Newman: In his own words. All poker players know this one (below) but might be surprised it is one of Newman's.

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you!"

It's only Thursday and this week we have experienced the Lehman Brothers collapse, the AIG shore-up and the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB. Lehman Brothers workers left Canary Wharf on Monday with their desks emptied into cardboard boxes. It's been a whirlwind of a week.

But developments on a far smaller scale have been distracting me. I've have been monitoring the credit crunch and it's micro effect on the local economy for some months and small things keep on catching my eye. I walk past a pie and mash shop on the Bethnal Green Road most days on my way to work and in July there was a small, apologetic note in the window that read something like this: "With regret the price of pie and mash will have to go up to £2 on Monday because our suppliers have increased their prices". I meant to snap it with my mobile's camera but I was a bit self-conscious. (The owners might have thought I was from a rival PnM shop or just an arty-type studying East London anthropology and eating habits). The note's honesty struck me. Here was a food outlet that knew its clientele. Wholesale food price hikes were unavoidably being passed onto the punter but with a graceful, and regretful, warning.

Meanwhile just up the road - in fact on the Roman Road - a cash machine that dispenses £5 notes was allegedly being installed. I haven't checked it out yet, but the local free newspaper ran the story and described the decision to install the machines as a response to the gloomier economic conditions and the need for people to access smaller amounts of cash. It seems slightly mad when you think about it. Why bother? And yet, when you start to look at your own spending habits - or saving habits - a cash machine that gives you the fiver option seems like a good idea...

"...I just need a bag of chips (£1.70) and a sausage (£1), I'm covered on the drink front - 2 cans of London Pride in the fridge at home. What's this? A cash machine that only dispenses fivers? Just the ticket. I'll have £2.30 change to buy a loaf tomorrow, make some sandwiches for lunch and skipp the caff..."

Who needs excess cash when the aim of the frugal game is to underspend on your monthly budget and have some shrapnel at the end of the month? Let's have cash machines that dispense pounds and pence! Let's march arm in arm down the street and demand a CASHFLOW REVOLUTION! Yeah!

I've been sitting at the computer grindstone over the last few evenings, battling with blogs and the technology that lies behind them and drawn a blank. PHP? It's not for me. I can barely get my head round entry level HTML. Anyway...

...I let Last.fm - what a wonderfully simple hyperlink, by the way - drive me on, as I play with coding that is going to eventually raise up its head and spit me in the eye. This magical radio station supplies a fantastic range of music to the ears of unrevenged, low-level, techy nerds such as myself (see my previous entry Rediscovering Music with Last.fm). I know I am being hard on myself but when you come to the realisation 21 years after you discovered computers and signed-up for a COBOL programming course (which you sensibly abondoned), that you ain't got what it takes, then it's time to take stock. Just as well I'm a Producer-Director-Writer in the creative world of Video Production and all this computer stuff is just a hobby. (Hobby? Obsession, more like). Where was I? Ah yes, music...

...Well, in a way I blame Last.fm for driving me on in my hopeless pursuit. Can I sue an internet radio station for keeping me focussed on the unconquerable tasks in front of me? Probably not. So there I was trying to get my head round how to customise a template in Wordpress by jigging with it's CSS, when through my headphones comes the sounds of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Yes! I can get this code to do my bidding, I think (re-energised by the "jazz piano" tagged music). I'll hack it and crack it and blow its house in! I'm sitting up straight in my seat, leaning over my computer with authority, trying not to bang the keys in a smart-arsey, syncopated way to the intricate rhythms of the music, because it is, after all, 2am in the morning and I might wake the kids up. The track is called "Eighty-Eight Days in My Veins" and to date it has only been played 301 times on Last.fm (20:52 08/09/2008). What a discovery! The piano and double bass melody took me on a journey, a trip dare I say, where I was slaying PHP coding snakes and dragons all around me...

..the need for sleep eventually kicked in. The taste of defeat still slushes around my palette but my ears have received all the benefits of great tagging and my brain is slowly working out the potential benefits of getting out more.

Epilogue

What a shock to read in Friday's Guardian, an inspiring article by Jamie Cullum about the band's leader, Esbjörn Svensson, who died in a scuba-diving accident in June. This is a band I would have turned off the computer for and driven miles to see. If you hurry you can download MP3s of "Tide of Trepidation" and "The Well-Wisher" for free.

Slogan of the day:

Don't let great contemporary jazz piano music trick you into thinking that you have slewn the coding demons that are really only sleeping when you should be.

05 Sept 2008 - Jamie Cullum's article - Farewell to a maverick.

16 June 2008 - John Fordham's article - Jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson killed in scuba accident.

Some good photos of EST live by Manuel Cristaldi on Flickr - Esbjörn Svensson Trio photos.

I think I might like the work of David Hare but unfortunately I have seen very little of it. I saw "Skylight" in the 90s with Michael Gambon and Lia Williams at the National Theatre which I really enjoyed at the time. I stumbled across a trailer the other night for "My Zinc Bed" and decided to stop everything and watch it with my better half. What a disappointment. I am a fan of all three actors: Jonathan Pryce, Paddy Considine and Uma Thurman, but their talents were lost in a "tv play" that just felt forced and quite undramatic. Anyway, I never planned to write a review, or anything so formal, but isn't it nice when you find an articulate reviewer who says everything you want to say and more? Lucy Mangan's review in today's Guardian did just that. I leave you with two intelligent quotes that re-raise some very pertinent questions about the nature of good tv drama.

I can't work out if it is a depressing testament to the debasing effects of the junk-television diet we habitually follow that the heightened language of My Zinc Bed - unashamedly writerly writing - felt like an affectation and distraction, or if it is simply a sign that the intimate medium of television does indeed require a less mannered form of language, lest it overwhelm rather than serve the piece.

...Even an ideas play needs drama as well as discussion.

This great review, which also takes a swipe at BBC policy towards commissioning drama, can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/28/television.television1

Thank you Lucy.

Qualified, Postive Stuff
Not even the sight of an over the hill musical hero of mine blasting out a rock classic with the Magnum-smooth vocals of last year's X Factor winner could destroy the good vibes emanating from Bejing's Bird Nest Stadium. Jimmy, we all know you want to get that reticent lead singer pal of yours back on the road, but did you have to go this far? But hey-ho, if the choice was between Jimmy or Brain May playing "We Will Rock You" (which some Team GB Art Director's brainstorming session must have thrown up, surely) then we were truly saved.

All right, some Negative Stuff (I'm holding myself back)
I think we have to probably face up to the fact Britain is seriously creatively challenged if Lewis, Page, Beckham and a Routemaster bus is all that we could come up with. I read with amusement that the lyrics to "Whole Lotta Love" had to be altered to tone them down for the closing ceremony. "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love" did not make sense for a female singer to sing, Leona Lewis advised. How quaint and subtlety put. Lewis's suggestion of swapping "inch" for "bit" was agreed by the "band" and so we have been all saved our blushes. [Led Zeppelin classic 'too racy' for Olympics].

Back on track, more Positive Stuff
Creatively challenged we may be, but I think our sporting heroes have been truly inspiring. The work has been put in and rewards were reaped. Rebecca Adlington's gold double in the swimming were the cream of the Brit crop for me. She swam as fast as Johnny Tarzan Weissmuller... wow! And she now has her own Wiki [Rebecca's Wiki]. And she's from Mansfield, Notts (a place I know). We've got an Italian coach for the English football squad and several Australian coaches in Team GB, let's get an international art director for the opening and closing ceremony. Who have we got anyway? Has it been decided? It's Tracy Emin isn't it? Sorry, I was getting negative again...

Very Positive Stuff
My defining memory from the Games was Usain Bolt's 200m record smash. The track side moving camera shot picked up Bolt on the home straight. It was filmic television at its best. Bolt was in sharp profile in the foreground and the Bird's Nest crowd on the other side of the stadium was one big, blurry shallow focus smudge. This was the moment. He had to get it! He had to beat Michael Johnson's record, who had just said in the BBC commentary box that he expected Bolt to run 19:50, i.e. not break Johnson's 12 year record of 19:32. Bolt had his eye on the prize - and, allegedly, on the "electronic timeboard" throughout the race - and Johnson escaped with only a speck of egg on his face. (If anyone could send me a link to that profile shot of Bolt I would be very grateful).

And finally...
The shots of street celebrations in Kingston when Bolt picked up his third gold and made a defining contribution to the 4x100 relay team were just sublime. The camera moved through and over an ecstatic crowd who knew that victory was theirs. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7573482.stm].

You know when you find a website that just takes your breath away... well Last.fm has done that for me. It's a music social networking web 2.0 site thingamyjig. It's basically a music website that allows you to listen to vast amounts of music for free*. The clever "scrobbling" software behind the scenes tracks your tastes and suggests to you other music you might like. As Last.fm exlains itself:

"Millions of songs are scrobbled every day. This data helps Last.fm to organise and recommend music to people; we use it to create personalised radio stations, and a lot more besides."

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. I have managed to discover music that I just hadn't heard before. "Unlimited free, legal music!" you say in complete surprise. Can this be true? No, not exactly. In the process of playing certain tracks to death, I discovered that Last.fm will try and restrict the frequency of access to tracks by only letting you hear 30 second excerpts. Why? *Because they want you to subscribe to the service (£1.50 per month) or buy the track. Okay, so there is an business model beneath the surface but what the heck it's still brilliant! Personally, I think it blows iTunes out of the water.

I went to a gig in 1992 at the Jazz Cafe. Abdullah Ibrahim was playing with a 4-piece band. I thought he was amazing and one particlar track just mesmerized me. After the gig I tried to find the track, but to no avail. I bought a few albums but he is very prolific and the internet didn't exist then. I even resorted to singing the flute melody to staff on the jazz floor of London's Virgin Megastore. They were sympathetic, and highly bemused, but couldn't help. Last.fm helped me discover this track in a matter of minutes. My quest has ended but really it has only just begun. In case you would like to hear this tune here is a link below. It's called "The Mountain" and I believe it is the title track of an eponymous album and with it's oriental themes, should have been the BBC's ident music for the Olympics (or perhaps not, some gem stones are best left undisturbed).

www.last.fm/music/Abdullah+Ibrahim/_/The+Mountain

I have eclectic music tastes as my moniker suggests. I have a penchant for classic rock and was lucky to go and see Led Zeppelin in December 2007 at the O2. Please read my blog entry on the Zep gig if you fancy: eclectictrains.blogspot.com/2008/01/zep-at-o2-belated-tribute.html

But that ain't half the story. I love jazz, blues, Beethoven, Bach, Stravinsky, Mozart, Mahler and am still listening to "London Calling" by The Clash.

I've been meaning to sign up to Last.fm for a while. The company is based near my work - www.xube.co.uk - in the East End of London, I believe, so I feel a kind of parochial pride in it's success. What a great idea!

electictrains @ Last.fm

During our working lives we are often confronted with new jargon. Sometimes we are expected to use it even if we know it's temporary adoption will make fools of us all. In Michael McGrath's beautifully conceived short film, a competition between middle-ranking managers to 'push the envelope' with their usage of new business jargon is taken to hilarious extremes. Please enjoy the unity of great cinematography, a classic score and "I Dream of Genie" sound effects. The directing and script aren't bad either.

This film is at least 4 years old and Mike is a close friend who I've been cajoling to put his films out on the web. Thanks for giving in Mike.

Oh my goodness! It's the 30th June and no blog-posting to speak of, or write of, in June. My promise to myself - so you really don't need to know this - was to post at least one blog a month and I'm barely hitting that target. It's positively Stalinist in it's 5 year planishness, if you get my drift...

...So here is a posting with lots more promised in July when my life slows down. I'm just work busy (a good thing, I suppose), forget hectic social life excuse - that's for 20 year olds!

However, I did manage to steal a family holiday in late May (half-term break) in the only country I will ever have the chance of learning the language of - France. Brittany, to be precise. And I have to report that all we seemed to meet were universally friendly French people which is certainly not how the alleged curmudgeons are perceived from this side of the English Channel. Now you might argue, cynically, that these Frenchies were only being friendly because they were taking my money e.g. the main people I had to try out my "O" Level French on were indeed: waitresses, supermarket checkout staff and the gites owner. You suspect that under their breath you can hear them mutter: "Here comes the stupid English family holidaying in France when the Euro is so strong and we've just put up our food and fuel prices to catch up with les Brits...mutter... mutter...". I know what you are thinking, but no. I like 'em. I like their roads, their food and wine, their countryside and their wildcat strikes when they have just about had enough of anything that is fromaging them off.

And do you know what? secretly, oh so secretly, I think they like us...

...In Dinard near to where we stayed, just across the bay from St Malo, they hold a British Film Festival every October... More about this in my next posting (I promise).

But if you can't wait here is a link: http://www.festivaldufilm-dinard.com/index-en.php

...there's even a statue of Hitchcock in the town...

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