One Thousand Shades of Grey

Everything is OK - direct action with the love police

2010-03-03T21:13:00.004Z

Check out more videos and direct action protest from Charlie Veitch and The Love Police at their YouTube channel Cveitch and on their website The Love Police.

Arrested for asking a policeman for his badge number

2009-06-22T15:13:00.003+01:00

Footage of Val Swain and Emily Apple being arrested by surveillance officers last year after asking for their badge numbers at Kingsnorth climate camp.

Fit Watch activists are opposed to police forward intelligence teams (Fits), the surveillance teams that Record and monitor campaigners at demonstrations and meetings. Attempts by these teams to take pictures are recorded and posted on a website along with the officers' badge numbers

Click here for Fitwatch website.

Leigh Dyer, Metal Sculptor

2009-03-14T12:44:00.002Z

Leigh Dyer"'s new blog Metal Art is now up and running it features some background information about the talented sculptor and also some pictures of his previous works, contact details and pictures of his latest work the fantastic "Run" which includes the extremely life like depiction of a wolf, ram, sheep and lamb made entirely of metal. The wolf which has been installed in Denmark hill is disturbingly realistic, appearing to stalk the area quite convincingly.

Leigh Dyer's blog Metal Art.

Midnight Express - National Hate Film or True Life Story

2009-02-25T13:08:00.013Z

I recently made the effort to revisit the 1978 film Midnight Express. The film depicts the apparently true story of Billy Hayes incarceration in a Turkish prison for attempting to smuggle hashish out of the country in 1970, his experiences in prison and his subsequent escape. The film is reviled by the Turks and as I sat there watching it with my Turkish wife I could understand why, the film wheels out grotesque caricature after grotesque caricature of hideously distorted Turkish stereotypes and insulting attacks on Turkish identity. One of the reasons the film is so hated by Turks is that they feel that the movie has done lasting damage to their image abroad, with its extremely negative portrayals of Turkish personalities and not one single portrayal of even a positive character trait let alone a good Turk.

Truth & Fiction

In Turkey the film is often written off as being a film designed to make the Turks look bad and based on lies. This is largely due to the sensationalist depiction of events in the film and the massive deviation from actually events depicted in Billy Hayes book, so let’s take a closer look at some of the deviations:

In reality Billy Hayes was incarcerated in Sagmalcilar prison, Barkirkoy lunatic asylum and Imrali Prison Island from which he would later escape. Sagmalcilar was at the time a modern prison having been built in the 1960’s. In the film Billy’s entire stay in prison takes place at Sagmalcilar prison which was filmed in an old disused army barracks in Malta, It is depicted as a hellish run down nightmare of a place.

In the book of the same name we are informed that Billy is originally given a thirty year sentence this is later commuted to a lesser sentence twice and at the time of his escape he has only three and a half years left. In the film Billy believes he is serving his last 53 days of a four year sentence when the courts suddenly overturn his sentencing and decide on a life sentence effectively forcing him to consider escape. At his sentencing in the film Billy losses it in the dock and delivers this hate filled rant.
“I wish you could be standing where I am standing right now, and feel what that feels like. Because then you would know something that you don’t know Mr Prosecutor .Mercy! You would know that the concept of a society is based on the quality of that mercy, its sense of fair play, its sense of justice. But I guess that’s like asking a bear to shit in a toilet. For a nation of pigs it sure is funny you don’t eat them. Jesus Christ forgave the bastards, but I can’t. I hate, I hate You, I hate your nation and I hate your people, and I fuck your sons and daughters because they’re pigs. You’re a pig, you’re all pigs.”
In the book it’s more like this. “If you decision today must sentence me to more prison I cannot agree with you all I can do is forgive you.”

In the film Billy is portrayed as being under threat of sexual assault by prison guard Hamidou and eventually kills Hamidou when it appears he is going to rape him, he then escapes; he is also seen to refuse sexual advances from a fellow inmate. In the book Billy engages in a consensual homosexual relationship with a fellow inmate, there is a particularly brutal guard called Hamidou who beats the inmates and who is later shot at a cafe by an ex inmate over a grudge. Billy never kills anyone.

In the film Billy’s salvation comes when his ex-girlfriend visits him delivering a photo album with a thousand dollars hidden in the back, Billy is deranged and in poor health he begs her to expose her breasts then masturbates whilst she cries. In the book it is his ex girlfriend who visits and urges Billy to wait for diplomatic and legal ways to be fully explored and not to jeopardise this by attempting escape.

In the film Billy escapes by walking out of the prison dressed as a prison guard after killing Hamidou, in the book he escapes Imrali Prison Island by hiding in a boat. No one dies.
The over dramatisation and sensationalising of Billy’s experiences depicted in the film are legendary and I could go on but I think you get the point already.

Where are all the Turkish actors?

Another perceived problem is the actors, when watching it with my wife she pointed out that some of the Turkish was so bad (particularly the judge) she struggled to understand what they were saying, I asked what she meant and she said they are not Turkish, it is clearly their second language. Closer inspection of the credits reveals a lack of Turkish actors:
Rifki – Paolo Bonacelli
Hamidou – Paul Smith
Yesil – Franco Diogene
Prosecutor – Kevork Malikyan
Chief Judge – Gigi Ballista
Ahmet – Peter Jeffrey
No surprise then that many Turks feel the film is a conspiracy to make them look racially inferior and backwards.

The damage done and subsequent apologies

Arguably the damage once done is impossible to re-tract; the racist overtones of the film are blatant throughout the movie and relentless in their offensiveness leading one reviewer to write "Midnight Express is 'more violent, as a national hate-film than anything I can remember', 'a cultural form that narrows horizons, confirming the audience’s meanest fears and prejudices and resentments’”. It is not hard to conclude that people of limited intelligence will watch this film and draw unfavourable conclusions about Turks as a whole and you have to wonder about the naivety of Oliver stone (screen writer) and Alan Parker (director) at the time they made the film. Oliver Stone has subsequently apologised for over dramatising the script and the real Billy Hayes has publicly declared that he was disappointed with the portrayal of Turkish people in the film and made an apology to the Turkish people saying “The film wasn't what Turkish people deserved," & "I've always loved Turkey”.

Billy Haye’s Midnight Express in his own words.

An interview with Billy Hayes, first thirty seconds is in Turkish but the rest is in English, subtitles throughout.

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Infected with HIV by the NHS in 1986

2009-01-29T08:30:00.004Z

1986 was a strange year for me I was eleven; my best friend was a ten year old haemophiliac. 1986 was the year my great grandmother died at the age of 89, my cat that I’d known all my life got run over and my best friend got injected with HIV contaminated blood by the National Health Service at the local children’s hospital. Haemophilia is a condition that restricts your blood from clotting; put simply a small cut would without medication continue to bleed indefinitely, where as in an average human the blood would coagulate and a scab would form. That year we had been riding our skateboards together and my friend had accidently hit a parked car, if it had been me there would have just been some minor bruising but for him this meant a visit to the hospital to stop any internal bleeding. The treatment he received (factor8) was to be ultimately fatal to him.

I remember being told by the adults that my friend had AIDS, this turned out to be not entirely correct, but HIV/AIDS was at the time not very well understood and also at the centre of a massive media storm. I went to visit him at the children’s hospital, it took me 15 minutes to compose myself enough to go into his room and once there I was surprised at how upbeat and normal he was, excited about going to Disneyland and racing around the ward with his brand new state of the art radio controlled car. Looking back now I see them for what they were distractions and consolation prizes. At the time I didn’t understand he would live to see his twenties I expected him to just drop dead in his bed.
Eventually he came home and there was all the stigma and unpleasantness that came with being HIV positive in the 1980’s with some parents disallowing their children from playing with him and questioning whether or not he should be allowed to go to school with the rest of us.

As time passed we saw less and less of each other he moved to the other side of town and went to a different senior school, slowly the weekend visits dwindled and he became like many friends from childhood just that an old friend from childhood. I saw him a couple of times when we were both in our early twenties to some extent he had embraced the drug scene I guess as a form of escapism. The last time I saw him he had lesions on his neck and face. Later I heard he died of a deliberate heroin overdose, I guess that was his way of choosing the nature of his death. I only have to read the Wikipedia page about the infections and illness you get when your immune system collapses to suspect in his position I would have chosen the same thing.

So why write this now? Twenty two years later. I read in the paper this week that over 1200 people were infected with HIV in the 70’s and 80’s in the UK after transfusion of contaminated blood, two thirds of these are now dead, 4800 haemophiliacs were also infected with hepatitis C in the same way. The government has never officially supported any inquiry into this debacle, despite it being considered one the worst health disasters of recent times. On top of this the government has been deliberately withholding documentary evidence from the Archer independent public inquiry, apparently to protect the commercial interests of private companies.

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People in Palestine are burying dead children again!

2009-01-07T12:49:00.008Z

So like many people I opened my paper yesterday to be confronted by pictures of the three dead children of the Samouni family in Gaza, like most people it sickened me to my stomach so I was both surprised and disgruntled that the first person I heard mention it when I went into town was sticking to the same old line of “its justifiable, Israel are just defending themselves”. I have tried to understand this ideology but it just doesn’t really hold any water, in a purely statistical sense it is recorded that only 13 Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks from Gaza since the attacks started in 2001, so how can that justify the continuous years of massacres and brutality perpetrated on a people forcefully evicted from their homes in what is now part of the state of Israel and pushed into the Gaza strip by a foreign aggressor? The Gaza strip is only 25 miles long and at its widest about seven miles wide, so not dissimilar to the Isle of Wight except it has a population of approximately 1.4 million Palestinians making it one of the most densely crowded places on earth. A place that has over the last few years had its infrastructure systematically destroyed by the IDF who have been known to intentionally target the power station, bridges, mosques and schools. Gaza has been subjected to fuel and electricity blockades’ by Israel, on whom they are now dependant on for their supplies, a blockade that has seen the Palestinians resort to blowing a hole in the Egyptian border in an attempt to get food, medical and household supplies.
So we have a population that has been described by a Palestinian blogger as “Trapped, Traumatized, Terrorized” that is now having to endure a full on ground invasion by one of the world’s best equipped armies that is intentionally targeting the civilian population. I think the doctor Mads Gilbert talking in the video sums it up best when he says “This is an all out war against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza”...”They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage”. Not really very justifiable then.
Despite Israel’s historical and continuing utter disregard to international legal standards the international community appears largely useless to the point of complicity, Bush has pretty much backed Israel as usual and Obama has managed this statement "President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time." I’m sure that’s a lot of comfort to the people in Palestine that are burying dead children today.

Photos courtesy of WAFA and AFP.
More political comment here

Death To Cynicism

2008-12-29T15:46:00.003Z

I find myself wondering what is the point to make new year resolutions, after all they only ever last until the second of January then you find yourself stuffing yourself full of McDonalds,’ getting shitfaced and chain smoking in one all out binge! But that I realise is the problem, the onset of age has slowly ground all the idealism I suffered from in my twenties into so much emotional dust and been replace with a form of cynicism so aggressive that it borders on out and out nihilism. Therein lies the problem with cynicism it actually has me at a point where I just can’t be bothered. I used to like the George Bernard Shaw quote “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” But now I think I prefer Peggy Noonans’ “Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.”
That’s my new year’s resolution to resurrect that little bit of my youth known as idealism, if there had been no idealists in the past where would we be now? You can forget the Magna Carta straight away; forget any concepts like freedom and democracy. I mean imagine if freeborn John Lilburne hadn’t bothered to fight for his freeborn rights!
So there we go that’s my proposal for 2009 a moratorium on cynicism and a return to activism and idealism, this year I will quit smoking, I will return to boycotting McDonalds’, Nestle and Coca Cola and I will take a more active and positive role in the events unfurling on this globe that I inhabit.

For more rants click here....

Hero shoe thrower Muntadar al-Zaidi!

2008-12-18T13:45:00.003Z

Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi throws his shoes at bush whilst shouting “this is a farewell kiss, you dog!” with the first shoe and “this is from the widows, the orphans and all who died in Iraq!” with the second shoe.

Sadly the hero shoe thrower is allegedly so badly beaten by security that he has been unable to appear before court, but once recovered may face a possible two years in prison for the crime of "insulting a foreign head of state".

No accountability for Jean Charles de Menezes execution

2008-12-14T15:43:00.003Z

Picture this: It’s a normal day about half past nine you leave your flat to make your way to work, you get the bus to the tube station at Brixton. Upon arrival you find the tube station is closed because of an attempted bombing the day before. You call a work colleague to warn them you will be late for work and then re-board the bus to get to the next closest tube station. You get off at Stockwell and make your way down to the platform, the tube pulls up, and you get on the train. As you sit down you hear a commotion from the door looking up you see some men armed with guns rushing onto the train, scared you stand up, at this point one of the men forces you to the chair whilst two others shoot you seven times point blank in the head!

It should be unlikely that this would happen in the UK one of the bastions of the free west, but this is what happened to Jean Charles de Menezes on the 22nd of July 2005 at Stockwell tube station. So what was the result of this event, who has been held accountable? The head of Scotland yard at the time of the shooting, Sir Ian Blair has resigned and is writing a book, Cressida Dick the officer directly in charge of the operation has been promoted and apparently bears "no personal culpability" despite a well documented catalogue of errors on the day, John Mcdowell the officer in charge of the surveillance strategy has also been promoted, and the two officers responsible for the actual shooting are now back on active duty with CO19. The inquest was closed on the 12th December with an open verdict, not even going as far as to record this Judge Dredd style execution as unlawful killing(farcically the coroner had already directed the jury that they could not record a verdict of unlawful killing). Bizarrely the open verdict means that the jury did not find the killing to be lawful, which I guess leaves the case in some kind of legal limbo where it is neither lawful nor unlawful??
So does that means no one is accountable; it’s perfectly acceptable in our apparently free and democratic society for a group of state representatives to take an innocent man’s life? And then proceed to lie about it afterwards? This clearly obliterates the argument you always hear when questioning the limits of the power of the state, that you only have something to fear if you’re doing something wrong, well Jean Charles de Menezes was only going to work that day, he had no reason to be scared.
The day after the shooting the Met offered this statement "a tragedy, and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets." So I guess we all feel a lot better now.

Calling all amateur Christmas drinkers!

2008-12-08T12:05:00.006Z

Did you ever wonder why the barman appears to hate you? I mean what have you ever done to him? Is it really necessary for the bar staff to continually treat you with such disdain?

Time to wake up bozo! This is why, this is what you did when you came to the bar.....

Firstly (and really the very first thing you did irritated us) you walk in the bar, with its traditional roaring fire, with your generic office clone friends and left the door open! Because that’s the reason we light the fire so you can leave the door open, I know its Christmas but you aren’t Jesus and this isn’t a barn
You then continue to barge to the bar and start shoving notes in the face of the bar staff who obviously have to serve you because the forty people in front of you aren’t really all that thirsty after all, you bitch and moan for the entire two and a half minutes that you have to wait for me to come and serve you and then have the audacity to ask me what lagers we sell! HELLO! You’ve been standing in front of the pumps for almost three minutes you illiterate fuck! You then proceed to ask your twenty mates what they would like to drink one at a time so each time I pour a drink I have to wait whilst another one of your retarded work colleagues ask me what lager we sell, because it’s not like I just went over this with the first five of your chimp-arse friends. And don’t even get me started on the office bimbo who ordered some random cocktail then got the arse because I don’t know the ingredients to slippery rusted brain haemorrhage or some other nonsense.
Sarcastically saying “the barman knows how to do his job” when your mate gives me instructions on how to pour his Guinness then raising your eyebrows in disbelieve whilst saying HOW MUCH in the most ridiculous voice you can muster at the price of you gargantuan round (a whole 8 drinks) is likely to get you summarily executed! Obliviously you didn’t realise there was a tax on tossers this week!
Attempting to drink the entire top self or what most people describe as a couple of shots then lap dancing, falling over, starting a fight, getting off with your boss or vomiting in the urinal will result in me relishing with every available witness you dramatic fall from grace, after all whilst we don’t like twats, we do all like free entertainment! Patronising of the bar staff is to be avoided if you like your features the way they are arranged, I will throw you out for fun and if you’re really condescending I may even drag you round the back for a kicking.

So to summarise the advice I’m offering spread a little Christmas cheer by not being a twat this year, remember to say please and thank you, order Guinness first, always end every order with the statement “and one for your good self”, don’t specify you want exactly four ice cubes because I don’t care and the question would you like ice is basically a yes or no answer, don’t patronise me unless your Noam Chomsky or some other relevant intellectual, don’t complain about the price just be grateful that I served you, don’t whistle, bang, click your fingers or wave money in my face, vomit on your way home or in your bed not anywhere inside the pub that is a truly amateur mistake! And lastly end every order with the statement “and one for your good self” I put that one in twice because it’s important.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Book review

2008-11-29T13:26:00.003Z

Again Mr Hosseini takes us back to Afghanistan for another grim look at life under the Taliban in a sort of soap opera style compressed history of how they got there, viewed through the eyes of a myriad of unfortunate characters. A thousand splendid suns spans thirty years of conflict in Afghanistan, from the 1970s to 2003. We follow the plight of the two main heroines Mariam and laila, both stuck in an abusive marriage to Rasheed, devoid of love and fraught with tensions. Mariam and laila’s relationship is complicated beginning as rivals but slowly transforming into their own family unit offering each other companionship as they become more and more isolated from the world and protection from the excesses of Rasheed.

As in kite runner the story concentrates on the emotional journeys of the main characters and their interaction with each other whilst showing us glimpses of life in Kabul as part of the backdrop, including a return to the bloody Ghazi stadium, and a description of the Titanic fervour that gripped the city when pirated films where available to watch on banned TV’s. It’s these details about life in Kabul that make the book for me combined with Hosseini’s ability to write a women’s life story despite being a man himself which is quite a talent.

The kite runner was always going to be a hard act to follow and in all honestly I did not enjoy A Thousand Splendid Suns quite as much, most likely because I related to the characters in the first novel better. However this is still an extremely well written book with all the gut wrenching and emotional ups and downs of the kite runner. I whole heartedly recommend reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.

For more book reviews click here

Eskişehir (Turkey) as a travel destination

2008-11-22T11:48:00.006Z

Eskişehir (meaning old city) is located on the banks of the river Porsuk in north-western Turkey in Eskişehir province on the main road and rail route between Ankara and Istanbul. Eskişehir is currently largely ignored by western tourists (although has a thriving tourist industry of visitors coming from the east) presumably due to its landlocked location and sometimes harsh climatically conditions. However Eskişehir is truly one of the gems of central Turkey, the city itself is very modern and beautiful and offers a range of eateries, shopping destinations, Turkish baths, nargile houses, museums and Ottoman architecture. The two universities give the cosmopolitan city a lively and youthful vibe; it’s a fantastic destination for foodies as the quality of the restaurants here is very high. The city has a few local delicacies including helva, boza and my personal favourite çiğ börek, a fine dough mixture filled with ground meat, spices and onions then pan fried in hot oil and chased down with a glass of ayran, perfect
In recent years Eskişehir has been rapidly modernising and every time I return there are more improvements such as the relatively new tram system and the parks popping up left right and centre, one of which has an artificial beach complete with sun loungers and changing cabins which has been constructed on a small part of the redirected river Porsuk. The bath houses of Eskişehir are famous due to the hot drinkable spring water that is reported to cure, or ease many aliments. The city has a long history of “thermal tourism” whereby people have travelled specifically to experience the waters curative properties.
Near the centre of the city you will also find the Odunpazari quarter with its charming traditional Turkish architecture and old Ottoman style buildings. Outside the city in Eskişehir province you can’t take a step without tripping over some fantastically interesting historical goodies be it the recently restored headquarters of the Turkish war of independence at İnönü or any of the countless Phrygian, Hittite, Assyrian and Roman settlements including the tomb of king Midas and the village of Nasreddin Hoca. The area around Eskişehir is literally teeming with areas of archaeological and historical interest.

click here for more about Turkey on this website.
Turkish language site here

Azincourt by Benard Cornwell -book review

2008-11-15T10:34:00.007Z

Mr Cornwell is as usual on form, when it comes to historical novels Bernard Cornwell is absolutely at the top of his game, seemingly churning out novel after novel of brilliantly researched historical novels that literally takes the reader and places him in the centre of various historical events. This time we are at the battle of Agincourt with long bowmen Nick Hook (another typically lovable rouge) stumbling about in the muddy battlefields of medieval France. Cornwells narrative and attention to detail is spot on both on and off the battle field and brings to life the six hundred year old battle as if Cornwell was an eyewitness, present on the sidelines taking notes in his jotter. The historical context is also supremely well researched with the narrative starting with the persecution of lollards in England. As always I highly recommend this novel or any novel by Bernard Cornwall who is a truly masterful storyteller.

Eskişehirspor for life

2008-11-14T12:42:00.005Z

It might come to some as a strange turnaround for me to decide to support a football team for the first time in 33 years having spent the rest of my life sitting on the fence as to which football team I support. When it comes to supporting national teams then no problem I always follow England and Turkey as family ties dictate, but when it comes to supporting local clubs I have never found one relevant enough to me to take an interest and to support any of the teams my friends support i.e. Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester united just makes no sense after all I’m not from north London or Manchester so these clubs hold little relevance to me on a personal level.

That all changed on the 26th October in Eskisehir when the decision was taken out of my hands. I went with my brother in law, sister in law and wife to watch Galatasaray play Eskisehir in the Turkish super league at a bar in Eskisehir city centre just outside the stadium. In an historic game Eskişehirspor hammered Galatasaray 4-2 and the city erupted into a mass outpouring of fanatical football fervour of which I of course joined in. This included the shaking from side to side of pretty much every car driving up the high street, a lot of chanting and dancing all in good spirit I might add. A video of this can be seen here.
However it was at this point we come to my inauguration as official Eskişehirspor for life supporter, I was dancing madly away to a guy playing a Zurna when I became aware of the fact I had drawn rather a lot of attention to myself, a tall pale Englishman dancing madly at the absolute epicentre of the nights football fervour, everything suddenly hushed for a moment and there was a murmuring in the crowd as all eyes fell upon me, someone asked my sister in law Sirma who I was, she giggled slightly nervously and whispered ES ES into my ear at which point I let rip with a full bodied rendition of Eskişehirspor’s football chant “Es Es Es Ki Ki Ki , Eski Eski Es!" which proceeded to be taken up by the thousands strong crowd of supporters around me, which I must say has been one of the highlights of my life so far leading a thousand plus people in a football chant in the city centre, priceless! After which many of the fans came to shake my hand and introduce themselves in the process adopting me as a fellow supporter, which kind of makes sense as Eskişehir is the closest thing I have to a home town in Turkey.

“Es Es Es Ki Ki Ki , Eski Eski Es!"

How to ease work related stress....

2008-11-13T12:36:00.006Z

Boss getting on your nerves? Find yourself constantly fighting the urge to stab your team leader in the jugular with a biro? Fantasise about beating your work colleagues into a bloody pulp with the waste paper bin? You’re not alone whackyouboss.com offers you the opportunity to live out your dreams without the inconvenience of a hefty jail sentence or the embarrassment of having to explain to your family why you brutalised your boss with the office stapler....
Kill the bastard here....WHACKyourBOSS

Odds - On Obama

2008-11-06T15:41:00.000Z

So we wake up today to the first black president of the USA, I the noticed odds on Obama winning the presidency at the William Hill website were:

BARACK OBAMA is now 1/ 2 favourite to win the US Presidential Election with William Hill who make John McCain the 6/4 outsider.

I wonder if William Hill will be offering odds on the amount of assassination attempts during his presidency (two assassination plots already during his campaign) and the possible outcomes. After all isn’t that the historical precedent set by previous visionary groundbreaking American presidents.

This blog is banned in Turkey????

2008-11-06T11:15:00.000Z

So I have arrived back in England after a two week visit to Turkey a country which I absolutely love, I am one hundred percent self confessed Turkophile. However whilst I was there I tried to update this blog with some random ramblings about what I was up to out there and was met with the following message:

Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir.
T.C. Diyarbakır 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi 20.10.2008 tarih ve 2008/2761 sayılı kararı gereği bu siteye erişim engellenmiştir.
Access to this web site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2008/2761 of T.R. Diyarbakır 1st Criminal Court of Peace.

My first reaction was confusion, surely there must be some mistake but no, I tried clicking the link again and was met with the same message. My second reaction was akin to some kind of violent suppressed rage as it dawned on me just how wide and indiscriminate the website ban in Turkey was, I mean I had heard talk about You tube being inaccessible due to a slanging match between Greeks and Turks in which the Greeks had besmirched the name of the great Atatürk and the Turks had accused Greece of being the birthplace of homosexuality.But I had not realised how deep this went I actually felt that I had been violated by the state, how dare they impede on my freedom of expression albeit only for two weeks. A feeling suffered by the Turkish people on a daily basis, the Turks I spoke with are deeply angry about this and see it as another attack of state paranoia. As far as I can gather this overreaction blanket ban on all blogger.com sites is temporary and is a result of illegal streaming of football games, but what about the other 850 websites that are banned? Most are speculating that this is a way to suppress and censor political speech thinly disguised as way to ”prevent access to primarily pornographic and obscene web content”.
It is also possible for individuals to petition the courts personally on the basis of slander to get individual websites barred.
Turkish transportation Minister Binali Yildirim has been quoted in the Turkish daily news as saying the bans were to “encourage the appropriate use of the Internet for the betterment of society” and “The spirit and purpose of the law is to make civil society and public administration work together and thus keep the bans to as low a number as possible, bringing precautions to the forefront”

Britain’s Orwellian nightmare

2008-09-24T10:25:00.000+01:00

The UK is allegedly the most recorded populous on the face of the planet with the average Londoner being caught on CCTV three hundred times a day, and apparently one CCTV camera for every 12 people in Britain. The Guardian recently reported that thousands of CCTV cameras across Britain have now been converted to read number plates using auto number plate recognition technology and that nationally roadside cameras are now reading fifty million number plates a day, and that the details of these “recorded” journeys will be kept on record for five years. The scary thing about surveillance techniques applied, apparently put in place to protect us from crime is that they are frequently and systematically being used to control minute aspects of communal living, with councils using CCTV and other surveillance apparatus to record and fine litterbugs, parking offences, bin men, shopkeepers and in Derby even noisy children this is all perfectly legal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 an act allowing councils “the right to place residents and businesses under surveillance, trace telephone and email accounts and even send staff on undercover missions.” an act originally introduced to fight crime and terrorism being used as a weapon against ordinary citizens.

You are not even safe in your own home, the time when an Englishman’s home was his castle are long gone, the powers of entry act allows for “266 powers allowing officials to enter your home, and not all require a warrant.” Ranging from your electricity service supplier and landlord to officers searching for foreign bees (yes bees).
So when is it going to stop, what will it take for the average everyday citizen to stand up and say yes I do value my civil liberties and this has to stop? This is a country where students can be arrested and interrogated without charge for six days for no discernable offense and no one blinks an eyelid, soon it will be perfectly legal to detain someone for forty two days whilst the police and security services attempt to make a case against them, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? The right of habeas corpus enshrined in the Magna Carta in 1215 has just been repealed, the government of this country is literally wiping their arse with the Magna Carta and there is barely even a whiff of dissent in the air. Hello.....anyone there?

NUJ film showing police systematically harassing journalists

2008-09-24T10:22:00.000+01:00

“Broken Britain’s battle of Hatings” what a load of hack bullshit.

2008-09-05T14:13:00.000+01:00

Last week the Sun ran an article on the recent tragic killing of 16-year-old Mohammed Al Majed, a Qatari foreign language student in Hastings. I don’t usually bother to read the Sun as I prefer to source a cheaper and softer quality of toilet paper, however they made the effort to write a full page article slagging off my town so it was inevitably bought to my attention. I just wanted to congratulate Anila Baig on some truly top quality journalism! I mean why bother to get on a train from London just to hang around outside a games arcade an interview a couple of local chav’s who predictably spout the kind of xenophobic rubbish you would expect from people whose main occupation of their time is loitering around the arcades. In fact I guess you used that location because you knew that was exactly the kind of response that you would get, it is clear from your article that you have made every effort to paint Hastings in the worst light possible, as a decaying seaside resort with no prospects full of uncaring racist yobs, unmoved by Mohammed’s death. At no point in your article have you made any attempt to mention the view of the majority of Hastings citizens who are saddened and disgusted by the death of Mohammed and who love living here. It’s not as if you even bothered to be accurate, the police state that Mohammed’s injuries are not consistent with being kicked in the head, his friend who was with him at the time states that he thought that Mohammed was going to be fine and did not realise how badly injured he was until he started talking gibberish, but yet your article states “A mob of hoodies took turns stamping on his head”.
Is it worth continuing? Is this your idea of balanced reporting or are just that desperate to sensationalise and in turn exploit Mohammed’s tragic death that you don’t really care to write an article based in fact and would rather write a story?
The award for “utterly shit hack journalism of the week” goes to Anila Baig.

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Giles Duley photographer

2008-08-20T20:33:00.000+01:00

Giles Duley returns from the dark side with a new portfolio albeit in a different direction to his previous works. The images in Giles’s new portfolio are drawn from a range of different themes he has decided to masterfully document with his camera, many include captioned comments to further inform about the subjects depicted.
The subjects range from nuns and orphans in a catholic mission in Angola, malaria infected children, a man dripping with sweat as he works on a de-mining operation, portraits of veterans of Angola’s conflict, the stark and disturbing photo diary of nick a self harming autistic to crazed hippies cruising around the desert in a wide variety of homemade vehicles at the burning man festival.
The photos are all imbued with atmosphere, emotion, sympathy and humanity. A rare talent is blooming to check out Giles portfolio click link.

Giles Duley portfolio

Postal service deemed “Not man enough for Booze”

2008-08-06T17:11:00.000+01:00

I read an article in the Sunday papers referring to a small town in the Yorkshire dales called ‘Booze’ apparently this small ex mining village (with a fantastic name but sadly no pub) has been deemed to dangerous for the local postman, who presumably suffers from some kind of chronic fear of lanes or other equally disturbing mental disorder. Booze has had uninterrupted postal service since the postal service began, and now finds itself in the dubious position of being even more isolated by cost cutting bureaucrats with risk assessment forms instead of logic. This is a damning state of affairs, Is England really that sad a place that we can’t find a postal service manly enough (sorry ladies) to tackle a winding country lane.

Holiday in America, why bother?

2008-08-04T17:15:00.000+01:00

The land of the free has led the charge again in an astounding attack on the individual privacy of pretty much anyone entering the country. US border agents are now empowered to seize then search electronic devices of any traveller, without any grounds for suspicion or probable cause. Be it your laptop, mobile phone, MP3 player or your child’s hand held game console it’s all perfectly justifiable. A data trawl that can snoop anyone unfortunate enough to step of a plane onto federal soil. Once searched, they can decimate the information between the empires other government agencies as they see fit. There is no guarantee your device will even be returned, as some travellers to the states have already reported.

However do not be alarmed this is all part of the department of homeland security’s drive to protect you (American citizens) from terrorists, junk peddlers and nonces. It’s only a matter of time before they put you in cage where you will be nice and safe, presumably with curtains after all they wouldn’t want to invade your privacy.

On a personal note I think I’d rather go to Cambodia, Cuba or Cameroon anyway.

Humanity for the inhumane

2008-07-29T22:38:00.000+01:00

Humanity:
1. All human beings collectively; the human race; humankind.
2. The quality or condition of being human; human nature.
3. The quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence.

Humane:
1. Characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals,
esp. for the suffering or distressed

A friend commented recently that the word “Humane” was possibly the most absurdly ironic word in the English language and is in desperate need of review. Who defined the quality of being humane as pertaining to kindness and benevolence or compassion for the suffering and distressed? Was it a particularly good year? I had a quick scan through the Times concise history of the world and have failed completely to find the year that we (humanity) collectively spent some time being kind and benevolent to each other. However I did find countless years of senseless brutality, intolerance, xenophobia and general all round unpleasantness.
It comes to me suddenly that we humans are living in a chronic state of denial, whereby we actually believe that being human is a to belong to the pinnacle of natures possibilities as opposed to the reality that we are the most brutally destructive mammal ever shat from mother natures womb. Presumably she is pulling out her hair in eternity wishing that, just that one time she had considered an abortion.
Given that the average human beings motivations for almost every decision are innately self centered, our inability to mix with humans from other “tribes” or social backgrounds and our total lack of interest on the impact our lifestyle or beliefs have on others. Given all that, I have revised the definition of humane accordingly.

Humane:
1: Characterized by, selfishness, brutality, ignorance, and fear of other humans.

The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini

2008-07-25T18:12:00.001+01:00

This is without doubt the best novel I have read so far this year, the book is beautifully written and slowly builds up in pressure and tension until at points I had to actually put it down in disbelieve take a deep breath then re-read the last paragraph, just to be sure of what I had read. The book is set in the back drop of a steadily unraveling Afghanistan and charts the friendship and later betrayal, guilt, loyalty and love shared between the two main characters. I won’t go into to many details of the plot in case I let slip some spoilers, but I will say if you are looking to buy a book this week buy this one. Hosseini is a master of manipulation and storytelling; I will be interested to read his second offering, A thousand splendid suns.

Bonekickers

2008-07-22T22:19:00.000+01:00

A contender for the most appalling badly scripted pile of cak on British TV, we are only on the third episode and already we have discovered and then burnt the true cross (i.e. the one Jesus was crucified on) saved A black American senator’s reputation apparently ushering him one step closer to becoming the next president of the United States and found the secret love chamber of Boudica including her perfectly crystallized body.
I never realised archeology was so exciting, in three episodes these guys have racked up more death threats then Salman Rushdie, George Bush and Kathy Sierra put together, excavated in a tidal estuary and a collapsing cave full of sulphurus gases.
The dialogue is so poor that I can only assume that the writers are either deliberately taking the piss or freshly flown in from the Hollywood school of (crap) writing. I was particularly impressed by the scene in tonight’s episode when they had to negotiate a mine field made of buried Roman hand grenades!
I can only assume that the sword that she is obsessed with will turn out to the weapon of the archangel Gabriel.

Total crap.

Books: One Soldier’s War in Chechnya

2008-07-18T17:19:00.001+01:00

Babchenko went to Chechnya twice, his book one soldiers war in Chechnya is a memoir of his time there. Written in a style that is unflinchingly direct and desperately cathartic, Babchenko’s memoir is distant as if he has no feeling about his own experiences except the urge to lay them bare for the world to digest. The book deals with his perspective as cannon fodder on the front line and rarely mentions or address's the historical and political context of the conflict, but rather focuses on his day to day personal experiences from seeing captured comrades beheaded to the barrack room bullying(dedovshchina) that is apparently standard in day to day life of a Russian soldier.

“At the edge of the square they’ve dug an improvised torture rack into the ground, a thick water pipe that has been bent into the shape of a gibbet. At the kombat’s orders, the platoon made it during the night by placing the pipe against two concrete piles and using an armored car to bend it in the middle. Two ropes now dangle from it. The anti-tank gunners are led out, hands bound behind their backs with telephone cable and dressed in ragged greatcoats and long johns. Their faces are already swollen and purple from the beating and there are huge black bruises where their eyes should be, oozing pus and tears from the corners. Their split lips can no longer close and pink foam bubbles from their mouths, dripping onto their dirty, bare feet. It’s a depressing sight, After all, these are not tramps but soldiers, ordinary soldiers; half of the army is like these two.”

Compelling reading, brutal and in your face, ultimately very hard to put down.
One soldiers war in Chechnya by Arkady Babchenko

Personal services required- Earn £1.45 an hour as an au pair

2008-07-17T15:06:00.000+01:00

If you saw personal services required on channel 4 last night then you caught a small glimpse of the life of an au pair in the UK. Ridiculously long hours a job that doesn’t match the description, employers that want to pay you below minimum wage to work seventy+ hours a week, lack of decent food, no privacy and limited access to the bathroom. My wife did some time as an au pair as an opportunity to improve her English, the idea being (like most au pairs that come here) that she would work 30-40 hours a week cleaning and babysitting etc, then spend her free time studying and communicating with native English speakers. The guidelines are as follows:

Works 5 hours per day, 5 days per week
Baby sits 2-3 evenings per week
Receives 2 free days and evenings off
Weekly salary ranges from 52 - 65

She worked for a few different families and the reality was that she worked six days a week, she was always up when the young poorly disciplined children were up even on her day off, she rarely had time to go to English lesson as this conflicted with the two full time jobs she was doing for a room and £60 a week. It translates into an existence of pure domestic servitude. I worked out she was working from six in the morning till 10.30 at night six days a week, normally with two hours free-time in the afternoon, that’s fourteen and a half hours a day six days a week, so eighty seven hours a week not including helping the kids on Sunday mornings. That works out about £1.45 an hour. Plus the lodging worth about fifty pounds a week. I would include the food that’s supposed to be supplies but that rarely happened.

In one situation when she was working as au-pair for an MP’s family and dared to mention that she was not happy with the working situation, she was locked in the kitchen and threatened with immediate deportation (they were scared she would talk about her experiences to the press) when she refused to get in the car to the airport they dumped all her belongings into the drive way and she had to find her own way into the nearest town, homeless and alone in a foreign country.

My advice to anyone considering coming to England to study English is come on a student visa that allows you to work, you can get reasonable shared lodgings with like minded people, work part time and get minimum wage at least and have time to study as well as free time just to enjoy being here.