Image from the Stonybrook library campaign site on Facebook.

Over the past two weeks, people have been busy taking out books from their local library.  Really that shouldn’t be particularly noteworthy, but in this case it was to protest the closing of a local library.  And they didn’t just take some books out of the library but they took all the books out of the local library.  All 16,000 volumes in the lending stock.  Every bestseller, every travel guide and Mills and Boon, every dusty copy of local history.  The good folk of Stony Stratford in Milton Keynes came into the library and checked out their maximum allowance and got coverage in a range of national newspapers and from the BBC as part of a “Wot No Books” campaign.

My first thought was “They don’t have a very good stock management and circulation policy, do they?”  But of course, the local librarians were undoubtedly in collusion – they wouldn’t have called for more books.  They wanted all the books to go.  It was part of a campaign organised by Friends of the Stony Stratford Library and the local parish council.  As well as the attention getting Wot No Books, there’s also an e-petition, with 10,000 signatures required to raise a debate at Milton Keynes Council.  And, of course, there’s a Facebook page.  One of the campaigners said: “I put it on Facebook and emailed everyone I could think of and it’s just gone absolutely mad. I think it’s a very simple but clever idea and it’s given something that people can act on and make their voice heard.”

Quite a few libraries will be closing over the next year – and this always causes protest.  Libraries are perhaps the most notionally loved of all council services.   And although we may or may not see another Wot No Books style campaign (undoubtedly clever, but can you do it more than once?), we will see the use of social media, emails and petitioning to register protest at the closing of libraries and cuts to other services. The Twitter hashtag #savelibraries, begun with a Tweet from (apparently from) Shropshire is now trending worldwide.

But there’s something bigger to play for and a role for social media. Protest 2.0 isn’t just about using social tools for protest, it’s about what protest needs to become in this age – a search for solutions. And this should come from both protesters and from public bodies.  Big Society and a re-shaping of public services means that we’re going to need to see a lot more co-production and some radical solutions to local public services.  There are tons of opportunities in libraries to do things with the public from stocking to volunteering to co-location of services both public and private.  And there’s a massive opportunity to use new tools to debate, deliberate and convene alongside ‘traditional’ approaches.  But we need to see public bodies engaging with the tools that protesters are using online to make this work.

Social media offers a tremendous opportunity to organise solutions and new ways of delivering services, not just a way to protest cuts.

Don’t think it.  If you must think it, don’t say it.  If you must say it, whatever you do, DON’T write it down.

And for goodness, sake – if you do write it down for a bit of shared giggles amongst your colleagues, don’t circulate it in a memo to senior members of staff.

Some junior schmuck at the Foreign Office wrote a memo suggesting a variety of activities for the Pope during his forthcoming visit to the UK.  Blessing a gay marriage.  Opening an abortion clinic.  Launching a papally endorsed brand of condoms.

Smirk worthy, crass and vaguely amusing in a school boy sort of way respectively.  But clearly should not have ever, ever risen above the level of 30 seconds of quick banter before actually settling down to work.   I understand how a little inappropriate humor can be a trigger for creativity at the start of a brainstorming session.  But if you must engage in that kind of silliness, leave it at that before moving on to suggest visits to Canterbury or singing children at a flagship Catholic primary school.   Someone is not nearly as funny as they think they are.

Although also on the list of the infamous memo was issuing a public apology to the people of England for the Spanish Armada*.

Which I thought was absolutely inspired.

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Update: not only was the Spanish invasion of England granted papal blessing, it apparently received financial backing, too.

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It’s a strange feeling, being trapped.  I didn’t have any particular place to go.  Wasn’t planning on flying anywhere.  Not expecting anyone to visit in the near future.  I’d have thought I’d felt a bit claustrophobic.  A bit panicky.  Instead, I feel cosy.  No one coming in, no one going out.  That’s fine. We’ve pulled up the drawbridges and everything is settled and secure.  Really I’m just disappointed we haven’t yet had amazing sunsets, perhaps that will come when the ash begins to fall to a certain level in the atmosphere.

Of course, if there’s some kind of major family trauma in the next few days, I’m sure I’d feel differently.  It was hard watching Jen racing against the clock to catch the last flight out of Britain to the US for a death in the family.  I remember my own journey on a similar occasion and can’t imagine how much more difficult it would have been wondering if what (turned out to be) the last fight for days would make the take off window.

But I am currently feeling somewhat isolated.  Isolated by lack of decent broadband.  For a week now, we’ve had slow or no connectivity.  Our browsers are constantly timing out.  We have windows of access and then – blap – nothing.  I’ve been on the phone to BT Broadband twice for considerable periods of time.  It’s lovely speaking to Dinesh or Dimple in the Bangalore call centre or wherever they are, but they haven’t sorted out my problem or even identified what it is. Changing out DSL filters and hubs and rebooting and checking that our computers haven’t been hijacked and sucking up all available bandwidth to make a denial of service attack on some Baltic nation.

I work from home a lot. I manage several online communities.  So I need a good connection. But it’s also my connection to the rest of the world..  I had to scour through and old newspaper to find the name of the volcano.  I would have looked up the names of the old Norse fire gods online in a few clicks. But instead I had to rely on a children’s book I dredged up from the dark recesses of our overburdened bookcases and which referred to them rather un-poetically as the ‘combustible fire giants’.  As opposed to the un-combustible kind, of course.

I can’t share photos I’ve taken recently – of beautiful cherry blossoms and a perfect blue sky or Bill on the slide.  It’s hard to search for pictures of the volcano or see others’ pictures.  When the ashy fog of poor connection occasionally clears, I get updates through Facebook and Twitter feeds.  I’m writing this blog post with only the vaguest hope that I’ll find an oasis of access in a desert of connectivity. (It’s taken me almost two days….the broadband problem has deteriorated.)

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Sad to say, but this doesn’t surprise me.  Not at all.

But as the media focused on this story over the week and talk shows brought on vapid commentators, the story reached new levels of disgust for me – and in particular a horrible piece on ITV’s This Morning.

Here was the panel.  Hosts, Holly Willoughby (whom I love from Xtra Factor) and silver-haired Phillip Schofield.   Ruth Hall from Women Against Rape and the vile Carole Malone.

Ruth Hall emphasised the points that you might expect as an anti-rape and victim’s rights campaigner and then Carole Malone successfully talked over her with the position that if a gal puts on a short skirt and and gets a snootful then really…what did she expect?  Not that any one deserves to be raped, but…well – what did she expect?

Actually, I think she should – in general – expect not to be raped.  But given that there is indeed evil in this world, she should expect that if she is raped that her case will be dealt with sensitively and swiftly and that the police and crown prosecutor’s office will work together to pursue justice.  And I think she should expect that people like Carole Malone will be treated with ridicule and not given soft-pedal support from vapid presenters like Phil Schofield.   I think she should also expect presenters like Holly Willoughby not to sit there with a shocked and horrified expression on her face – but to challenge cavemen like Phil.  Poor Holly, though – she clearly felt she couldn’t challenge him openly.  Maybe her contract on This Morning is only short term.

I think she should also expect for the old double-standard to be challenged:

1. She was drunk, she’s to blame for her own rape.

2. He’s not a rapist, he was drunk.  His judgement was impaired (plus, the hussy was wearing a short skirt). Diddums.

If that’s the logic, then the drunk driver who hits the drunk pedestrian should be given some counselling while the victim pays for the repair to his windscreen.  Even if our tipsy rambler stayed on the sidewalk.

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In one sense, I do think victims sometimes have to take some responsibility for what happens to them.  My car got broken into when I once left a leather handbag on display. I kept it in the car in case I needed a handbag – it was empty – normally I kept it shoved up under the seat.  I failed to notice that it was partially visible.  The junkie who smashed my window to take the bag and a £4 flashlight from our glove box was apparently more observant that day.

I recognise that I had some preventative responsibility.  But at the same time, my lapse doesn’t in any way diminish the responsibility of the thief who broke into my car.  He (she? probably a he) was the only one who made the decision to smash my windows and steal from me.  I wasn’t the one who committed the crime.  And the punishment of the person who did it shouldn’t be reduced because I was silly.   My lesson has been learned. And I sure don’t need any scorn heaped upon me. I already paid the price for what I failed to do.

It’s the same with rape.  Sometimes there are things you can do to prevent looking like a likely target.  Even if you didn’t, it’s still not your fault if you were raped.  And it for sure doesn’t diminish the responsibility of the rapist in any legal or moral sense.

And sometimes you can take all precautions and still be raped.

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via salvationarmy.org

One of the sermons that has made the biggest impression on me was delivered by a member of the Salvation Army’s Caribbean territory to the non-denominational congregation we attended when we lived in Puerto Rico. They did some amazing, innovative and often counter-intuitive work there. For instance, they ran a jail. A jail for illegal immigrants. That sounds pretty rough. But rougher still were the prisons that these illegal immigrants would have been placed in – alongside real criminals. It was truly a mission of mercy to house these non-violent breakers of civil law, economic refugees from places like the Dominican Republic or Haiti.

The Salvation Army has a history of working with people that others won’t. They already have a long term presence in Haiti, running an orphanage – among other things. They are running medical clinics, they are bringing aid to Haiti. And they have a reputation for doing a lot of the second stage disaster relief – helping people clean up and get their lives back together.

I donated money to the Salvation Army to help their relief and long term efforts in Haiti. I hope you will, too. Although there are many other places that could make good use of your money.

Read more about the work of the Salvation Army in Haiti and donate online.

Posted via web from Ingrid’s posterous

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Bill likes British chocolate

As Cadbury’s the British chocolatier for the masses faces a hostile takeover by Kraft or a possible friendly-ish merger from Hersheys the American chocolatier for the masses, chocolate is a hot topic in the news.  Yesterday’s PM news on BBC’s Radio 4 featured a blind taste test with an expert chocolatolgist to decide which was better, Cadbury or Hershey.     The chocolate dude admitted that a blind taste test was pointless, given that he knew which was which.   And then he went on to slate the Hershey bar for texture, taste and a dubious set of ingredients.  And oddly he criticised it as well for the rampant sweetness of the Hersheys (which is the same criticism I have of Cadbury’s chocolate – at least with Hersheys I can taste some cocoa).

I grew up on Hershey Bars.  I like them.   I prefer them.  Given a plain Hersheys or a plain Cadbury’s Dairy Milk – I’ll take the Hershey’s every time.  A Hershey’s kiss – chocolate perfection*.  The pleasure of unwrapping, the cute little paper flag, the perfect not-too-melty-but-not-too-solid plop of choc on the tongue.

I don’t want to diss British chocolate – it’s alright.  But I just want to make a defense for American chocolate.  It’s yummy.  It doesn’t deserve the criticism it receives this side of the pond.  And it may just be the thing that saves the integrity of British chocolate.

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* Well, it was until my palate was educated with really good chocolate, boutique confections from the Continent – and occasionally from the UK.

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My dad and I went to see this yesterday.  Pretty good.  Excellent curation of Mexican and Spanish (and British) holdings from the period of Montezuma’s brief reign.  But I didn’t really feel I got to know much more about Montezuma the man.  Why did he capitulate so easily?  Was he some kind of fragile freak (according to Wikipedia some of the rules surrounding his sacred person – no one could see him eat, no touching, etc) were at the inception of Montezuma himself and not a feature of royal Aztec personhood.   Did he really believe that Cortes was ordained to bring an end to the rule of the Aztecs (modern historians say no?)

Whatever, you have to hand it to Cortes – even if he did get help from the State of Tlaxcala – an independent island in a sea of Aztec client states.  The Tlaxcaltecans get a bad rap sometimes for helping the Spanish, but since they were being preyed upon by the Aztecs for sacrificial victims and could see the end of their state down the line, you can’t blame them too much for taking a punt on the Spanish.  Not sure it helped them out much in the end, though.

The Royal Academy did a more generalized exhibit on the Aztecs a few years ago which I remember as larger and more comprehensive but certainly not focused on an individual. (It was so good I bought the exhibit catalogue)   Interestingly, the a series of nearly contemporaneous Spanish oil on wood paintings inlaid with shell and mother of pearl depicting the end of the empire were perhaps the most striking thing for me.   It was in a style that I’d never seen before.

I was asked for a report on this exhbit.   If you went to the Royal Academy exhibit a few years ago…don’t bother. (Tickets are fairly scarce anyway)  But if you haven’t seen a big blockbuster Aztecs exhibit, I’d say this was well worth visiting.

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Of recent years, one of the things I’ve enjoyed at the British museum is going upstairs to see the etchings.   They have a space for temporary exhibits of prints and drawings, often associated with (though not always) the major exhibition.   This time it was Revolution on Paper – Mexican print works from the radical set.  This includes some of the famous Mexican muralists and a lot of other great works.   I really like this period of Mexican art and so I really enjoyed this one….except for one thing.

Many of these artists were communists.  Fine.  The content of their print work was avowedly Marxist, sometimes revolutionary.  OK.

The laughter of the people - away with your nonsense, José Chávez Morado, 1939, lithograph © DACS 2009

But I wasn’t quite as happy with some of the commentary.  There was a fabulous poster print of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – condemning the US prosecution and execution of the pair for treason and claiming they were victimised because they “loved and believed in peace.”  Well, actually – it’s because they passed secrets to the Ruskies.  The exhibition notes implied that they were caught up in a McCarthy witchhunt.   But no mention of their guilt (corroborated from Soviet sources) or that they were in fact genuine communists.    Though fair enough questions still remain about the depth of Ethel’s guilt or why this pair were executed for their crimes when others who’d passed more harmful secrets received far lighter sentences.

And in another poster a greedy company owner was eating coinage which the commentary said was foreign money – American dollars – because of foreign investors skimming away profits from Mexico.  Although, if you actually looked at the money – it was clearly Mexican pesos.

Shame British museum for introducing your own (flawed) political commentary instead of letting the art speak for itself.

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OK, no traitor link on this one…as far as we know.  But the British museum is currently exhibiting about a dozen pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard – and amazing collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and metal working  This was discovered only in July of this year and after going on a brief display at the Birmingham Art Museum (which I wasn’t able to catch, but really wanted to) it’s been removed from display and I guess is being studied now and offered up to various museums after its valuation.

The few pieces that I saw were indeed pretty cool – fine gold work (a bit smushed by time and the weight of the soil) and garnet inlay.   But I was disappointed to see that they were dirty.  Still covered from the soil they were buried in for so many centuries.

I couldn’t help remarking to my dad that it was still dirty.

“What do you expect, they only found it in July!” exclaimed a British patron. “You are just incredibly lucky to see it.  What do you expect?”

1. Not to be personally accosted at museums

2. 10 seconds under the tap wouldn’t have gone amiss.

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PM Gordon Brown has been at the centre of a penmanship furore.  Apparently it’s his practice to write to the families of British soldierswho fall in the line of duty.  The mother of  Jamie Janes, killed in Afghanistan, received such a letter from Mr Brown.

She wasn’t too happy.

In the hand written  letter, it looks like she’s being addressed as James.  This must be a common misspelling of her name, and one she’s fairly sensitive too.    Brown claims that it was his handwriting what’s to blame, or perhaps his poor eyesight.   Maybe or maybe not.   It looks like James to me, but it’s possible that’s just the way Gordon Brown forms his Ns.

The slain boy’s name was also scrawled a little messily, and although Mrs. Janes claims that it’s misspelled, I don’t think it is.

When Downing Street apologised, they made the classic mistake of  apologising for any hurt if she felt mistakes had been made.  The classic non-apology – we’re sorry if you felt that our excellent service failed to meet your over-exacting standards.   Blech…I’ve received those kinds of apologies, and they just make you angrier.

A colleague/acquaintance was defending Gordon Brown and suggesting that the mother was politically motivated, as when Brown phoned to issue another non-apology she had a go at him about resourcing the troops and the lack of helicopters in the Afghan theatre.

I’m not sure.  I’m not really willing to criticise a mother who’s lost her son.  And frankly, why shouldn’t she be political?  She clearly has bears a greater burden than most for the Afghan war policy and with another of her children still serving in the military she has a continuing interest in the proper resourcing of the military.

Gordon Brown’s handwriting may be messy and handwritten notes are the least he can do – but from where I stand I wouldn’t criticise him for the letter he sent (I cannot say that I wouldn’t have reacted angrily to it if it were my own son).   Mrs Janes criticism on that may not be fair, but as she’s lost her son and the buck stops with Gordon, he’s just going to have to suck it up.   Her criticism of the way the operation is being conducted is entirely fair, as Chancellor he was responsible for the budget and as PM he takes overall responsibility.

Captured moments in the fields of remembrance

Conservative leader (the opposition) David Cameron this morning receives criticism for taking publicity shots in the Field of Remembrance.  The Field of Remembrance is a central place for small poppy markers remembering the dead.  It’s a really special place a temporary memorial at Westminster Abbey, and I usually try to make a visit there every year around the time of Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day (Veterans’ Day in the US).

Cameron is a PR professional, so I have no doubt that he’s fully aware of the positive publicity potential for being shown honouring the fallen of war.  But the criticism seems slightly unfair on several counts.

In The Mirror it’s reported:

Mr Cameron had clearly been instructed on how to behave and moved briskly from pose to pose, often bending down to read the names on crosses as he was snapped.

Actually, you don’t have to be instructed to do that at all. In my several visits to the area over the years, that’s just the kind of thing that many people do and which I have done myself.

There does seem to be some criticism about the behavior of the photographer himself – that he was ‘barking’ orders. If that’s the case, that’s shameful – it’s a place of largely quiet contemplation. Not library quiet, as it’s in an outdoor area. But within the area of the memorial itself people are reflecting and when they converse its sotto voce or at the most normal conversational levels.

But the core of the criticism seems to be the fact that pictures were taken at all.

The Field of Rembrance is located in a high density photographic area, it’s in the grounds of Westminster Abbey, it’s  literally across the street from the Palce of Westminster and the Big Ben clock tower.   When I visited this past Saturday, I noticed – in contrast to the first time I visited – that a significant portion of visitors had digital camers in hand and were taking pictures.

I thought even then that things have changed with the advent of digital and the affordability of digital cameras.  Now the experience has to be recorded, shared, perhaps even published online or it’s as if it didn’t happen.  An unshared memory of an experience is not enough any more.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing either , as I certainly took pictures, too.

The American section

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It’s good that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  One more win for America. We should have everything.  USA! USA!

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At the gym yesterday, I was watching Bonnie Greer (American commentator-artiste type with longstanding British connections) and some pasty-puffy neo-con-ish British politcal pundit having a discussion on Sky News about whether or not Obama deserved the prize.  Bonnie was saying “It’s in the gift of the Nobel prize committee, they can give it to whom they like.”

Well, that’s certainly true.

And pasty-puff guy was saying “But he hasn’t done anything yet except be elected. He hasn’t really had time to do anything yet.”

Well, that also seems to be true.

Then I noticed that the Shakira She-Wolf video was playing on another channel, and that seemed a bit more important, so I switched the sound channel to that.  When Shakira stopped with the heavy breathing and the cage dancing (she certainly is limber).   Bonnie and the pundit were still going.  Here’s what they said:

Her: It’s in the gift of the Nobel prize committee, they can give it to whom they like.

Him: But he hasn’t done anything yet except be elected. He hasn’t really had time to do anything yet

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You know who I feel sorry for in all this? Michelle Obama.

Last week Simon and I moved the bed in our room and since the floor slopes so badly in our old terraced house, we had to do some secondary re-inforcement [bodging] so our feet wouldn’t be higher than our heads.   I was less than happy with the stability of the arrangement.  Simon assured me that the stability was fine, I did not agree.

Me: It’s not ok.

Him: It’s fine

Me: How many civil-engineering courses have you had?*

Him: are you trying to pull some kind of “science” rank on me.

Me: Yes (although technically engineering is not science)

So imagine the Obama household.  Some kind of argument or bickering.

Michelle:  I think we should vacation in the Hamptons and not Hawaii this year.

Barack: Are you the President?

Michelle: Well, I don’t really think that’s relevant.

Barack: I think you should seek an alternative path to resolving this dispute.

Michelle:  What?

Barack:  How many Nobel Peace prizes do you have?

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If the Nobel Peace Prize is awared to Barack Obama for potential and a call to action, shouldn’t the real prize then go to the American people.   So that’s about 3 kronor-cents per person or whatever they call it.  By the way, I found more kronor than that when I was going through the glove box of my old car.

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* I’ve had hydo-geology and geo-hydrology (one’s more science slanted, the other more engineering slanted) so in fact I am qualified to determine the porosity and permeability of our furniture.

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License-to-kill London birds, to license to the kill the birds

Yesterday out of the corner of my eye I saw this Evening Standard teaser board and my first thought, crazy thought, I know…was “license-to-kill” James Bond parakeets, ‘cos that would be cool.

But I knew without looking up the story that this was the declaration of open season on London’s growing population of feral green parakeets. There are various explanations as to how the parakeets came to London in the first place, escaped from the film set of the African Queen, released by Jimmi Hendrix as a symbol of psychadelic peace, escaped from a pet store…and so on. But however they came, they can be spotted in many of the parks of South West London.

I love them. I think they’re cheery, especially since their breeding season is in January so their bright green is often the only thing that colourful in gray and bleak midwinter. But apparently many people think they’re a nuisance – and apparently a group of them chattering in the early hours in your back garden can drive people to distraction.

So now they’ve removed some layers of bureacracy when it comes to a parakeet cull.

In hiding

According to the Daily Mail:

Other species also added to the ‘general licence’ hit-list include the monk parakeet from South America, which can occasionally be found in the northern Home Counties, the Canada goose and the Egyptian goose.

Can’t say I’m particularly cut up about Canadian geese having their numbers reduced, but Egyptian Geese!  I’m shocked and deeply disappointed.  Egyptian Geese are my favorite birds, the only goose I’m not absolutely terrified of.

No open season on the Egyptian Goose please

The commonality of all the birds on the hit list is that they’re foreigners.   Blatant discrimination.  The fact is these birds will work harder and for less bird seed than the native working birds, who frankly have become a little soft.

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