Ok, so Question Time turned out to be more of a witch-hunt than a debate- Straw was bloody useless and Dimbleby flailed in the background at the audacity of the witch himself. I don't intend to offer a viewpoint on every aspect of the thing; I'm actually writing this because I came across someone with a sympathetic view towards him.
I remember thinking at the time that the attack against the bastard could generate empathy, and although he held his own with that stupid smile on his face, he was most certainly cornered. Of course he deserved it, but for those who aren't perhaps 100% aware of his previous convictions and audacities...
The viewpoint that this person took was that he was "traditional". I can perhaps on some small level see their point concerning his opinions on homosexuality being taught to primary schoolchildren, but most won't concur at all! And although I see their point, I don't necessarily agree. Indeed, I doubt most gay men and lesbians bringing up children, or not for that matter, will consider it valid.
Either way, I don't wish to be comPLEtely controversial so I'll refrain from carrying on too much, but I really wanted to say, and I think we can all agree (on no uncertain terms), that first and foremost, Nick Griffin is an absolute DOUCHE.
Sunday 25 October 2009
Friday 23 October 2009
Online Journalism
One of the “best shopping centres” in Oxdown has become notorious for crime after serious incidents continue to be reported, says the Oxdown Chamber of Trade.
Subways which link the bus station to the town centre are now acknowledged as no longer safe to use.
The worst incident to be reported involved a fight between an elderly man, who received a head wound, and a group of teenagers.
Other menaces which haunt the subways during the day as well as at night include beggars, drunks and thieves.
Laden shoppers who frequent the subways are prime targets for muggers.
Philip Rush, Chairman of the Oxdown Chamber of Trade, is calling for the council and the police to take action, whilst he is offering to donate some benches and murals to “give the subways a face-lift”. He said yesterday:
“Occasionally, the police move people on, but it isn’t long before they are back again.
[…]Rubbish lies there for days on end before it is cleared away and efforts to remove the graffiti are few and far between.
[…] We believe that we have one of the best shopping centres in the region, and we want to encourage people to visit us, not to see them put off.”
Mr Rush proposes to meet with representatives of Oxdown Council and Oxdown Police to discuss the situation, but whether sufficient action will be taken remains to be seen.
Subways which link the bus station to the town centre are now acknowledged as no longer safe to use.
The worst incident to be reported involved a fight between an elderly man, who received a head wound, and a group of teenagers.
Other menaces which haunt the subways during the day as well as at night include beggars, drunks and thieves.
Laden shoppers who frequent the subways are prime targets for muggers.
Philip Rush, Chairman of the Oxdown Chamber of Trade, is calling for the council and the police to take action, whilst he is offering to donate some benches and murals to “give the subways a face-lift”. He said yesterday:
“Occasionally, the police move people on, but it isn’t long before they are back again.
[…]Rubbish lies there for days on end before it is cleared away and efforts to remove the graffiti are few and far between.
[…] We believe that we have one of the best shopping centres in the region, and we want to encourage people to visit us, not to see them put off.”
Mr Rush proposes to meet with representatives of Oxdown Council and Oxdown Police to discuss the situation, but whether sufficient action will be taken remains to be seen.
Wednesday 21 October 2009
A brief encounter with climate change... and Alex Carter
The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister warned last week.
On the second day of talks at the Major Economies Forum in the capital, he said that by 2080 an extra 1.8 billion people - a quarter of the world's current population - could lack sufficient water.
But whilst debates between various world leaders rage on at the UN this week, what we want to know is- what is being done on a local level, and what can we do ourselves?
Alex Carter, Managing Director of bus company Go South Coast based in Bournemouth and Poole, says that we can all be more energy-efficient.
"If we can persuade people to switch from cars and other modes [of transport], but cars especially, to buses, then that would be a definite step towards helping to reduce carbon emissions," said Mr Carter earlier this week.
Go South Coast is a branch of the Go-Ahead Transport group, who last month announced a huge 16% reduction in carbon emissions this year, not only from investing in new fleets of greener buses, but on site premises, where employees are being encouraged to be more energy-conscious.
"We've put in a number of measures to try to get our buses running more fuel-efficiently.
We're training drivers to give them techniques to drive more efficiently and we have to support that, in the cab of the buses, a device called a 'little black box' to give them indications of when they're revving excessively…
We've also got more energy efficient lighting on-site which switches off when people aren’t in the room, and saves us about 15% year on year."
For more information visit:
Go South Coast
Summit on Climate Change
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/
On the second day of talks at the Major Economies Forum in the capital, he said that by 2080 an extra 1.8 billion people - a quarter of the world's current population - could lack sufficient water.
But whilst debates between various world leaders rage on at the UN this week, what we want to know is- what is being done on a local level, and what can we do ourselves?
Alex Carter, Managing Director of bus company Go South Coast based in Bournemouth and Poole, says that we can all be more energy-efficient.
"If we can persuade people to switch from cars and other modes [of transport], but cars especially, to buses, then that would be a definite step towards helping to reduce carbon emissions," said Mr Carter earlier this week.
Go South Coast is a branch of the Go-Ahead Transport group, who last month announced a huge 16% reduction in carbon emissions this year, not only from investing in new fleets of greener buses, but on site premises, where employees are being encouraged to be more energy-conscious.
"We've put in a number of measures to try to get our buses running more fuel-efficiently.
We're training drivers to give them techniques to drive more efficiently and we have to support that, in the cab of the buses, a device called a 'little black box' to give them indications of when they're revving excessively…
We've also got more energy efficient lighting on-site which switches off when people aren’t in the room, and saves us about 15% year on year."
For more information visit:
Go South Coast
Summit on Climate Change
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/
Messy Church
Parents in Poole might find themselves being dragged towards the Longfleet Baptist Church by their children this Wednesday.
In a bid to bring families closer together, the church is one of the first in the area to adopt the scheme 'Messy Church'.
The project, named so by St. Wilfrid's Church in Portsmouth of which members laid its foundations, has been running since 2004. It is assisted by the charity Barnabas, and represented by Christian actress Lucy Moore, author of Messy Church.
Rev. Brian Bishop, vicar of Longfleet Baptist Church said: "It isn't an after-school club- the kids go with their parents, and activities are organised by church-goers who volunteer, and cook the evening meal at the end of each session."
An age-old super-power within the country, nowadays the Church of England is deemed inconsequential by many- with the country's dire economy ever-looming in the background one must ask: is going to church still prioritised?
Longfleet strives to be "culturally relevant" as one of the newer churches in Poole, Bishop writes on the website.
Irene Pullin, Longfleet's Secretary said: "The scheme came from a wish to expand the old idea of Sunday School, which I went to when I was a little girl.
Sunday School is a great place for children to learn about Christianity, but Messy Church is born from a desire to help families grow together in their walk of faith- not see Christianity as something you grow out of when you're eleven."
Sarah Garner, co-founder and dubbed 'Queen of Mash' by the children of St. Wilfrid's commented: "In this day and age the church is becoming more and more foreign in today's society, but Messy Church is a package deal.
It's support, it's families coming together to worship, but most importantly it's fun- that's what we all need."
For more information visit:
http://www.messychurch.org.uk/
http://www.longfleetbaptistchurch.co.uk/
Keeley Graham
In a bid to bring families closer together, the church is one of the first in the area to adopt the scheme 'Messy Church'.
The project, named so by St. Wilfrid's Church in Portsmouth of which members laid its foundations, has been running since 2004. It is assisted by the charity Barnabas, and represented by Christian actress Lucy Moore, author of Messy Church.
Rev. Brian Bishop, vicar of Longfleet Baptist Church said: "It isn't an after-school club- the kids go with their parents, and activities are organised by church-goers who volunteer, and cook the evening meal at the end of each session."
An age-old super-power within the country, nowadays the Church of England is deemed inconsequential by many- with the country's dire economy ever-looming in the background one must ask: is going to church still prioritised?
Longfleet strives to be "culturally relevant" as one of the newer churches in Poole, Bishop writes on the website.
Irene Pullin, Longfleet's Secretary said: "The scheme came from a wish to expand the old idea of Sunday School, which I went to when I was a little girl.
Sunday School is a great place for children to learn about Christianity, but Messy Church is born from a desire to help families grow together in their walk of faith- not see Christianity as something you grow out of when you're eleven."
Sarah Garner, co-founder and dubbed 'Queen of Mash' by the children of St. Wilfrid's commented: "In this day and age the church is becoming more and more foreign in today's society, but Messy Church is a package deal.
It's support, it's families coming together to worship, but most importantly it's fun- that's what we all need."
For more information visit:
http://www.messychurch.org.uk/
http://www.longfleetbaptistchurch.co.uk/
Keeley Graham
Monday 12 October 2009
Journalism in France
In preparing for a presentation on world journalism (my chosen country being France, because I spent a year in French-speaking Switzerland), I realised that my Powerpoint bullet points had turned into mini essays, so decided to whack them in a blog.
My "area" in the group was regulations, and the issue of public and private in the media, which seriously intrigues me. It seems that, at the moment especially, within the French media there is a growing problem with general relations between journalists and politicians. I say 'especially' in reference to the Mitterand case- Sarkozy's minister for culture, who has recently been slaughtered by the press for various reasons all stemming from his writing about his sexual escapades with "young boys" in Thailand.
My reasons for using this as my example follow thus: 1) he's a politician, and he's very prominently "in the news"; 2) he used to be a Television personality; 3) he wrote the book in which he confessed his paedophilic sins four years ago.
The third point is, in my humble opinion, the reason why Sarkozy is now defending Frederic Mitterand- the President hired the guy knowing that he harboured disgusting sexual habits amongst, no doubt, several STIs... However, why this is is totally beyond me. So I've come up with a formula if you will, as to why the French are only now making a huge deal out of the whole issue.
Basically, selected aspects of the public versus private interface are changing in France, quite specifically and significantly concerning the mediatisation of politicians. It is my belief that there is now no political, journalistic, and certainly no popular consensus as to where this dividing line should, if at all, be drawn. I've designed a formula to lay out this theory:
Maybe because he was a TV personality, choosing to bare himself. Now he has a hand in running France. While this possible answer could and does make sense, it doesn't offer an explanation as to why he was still widely liked after the book was first published, and more importantly- why he was elected as Minister of Culture. And on a vaguely humorous note, how very ironic: he certainly has succeeded in showcasing some Thai culture across the pond.
Anyway, since I'm English, could we possibly compare this problem with the MPs expenses scandal? Are we intruding into their 'private sphere' by demanding to know what they do and how they spend in la quotidienne? Not really considering most of them are blowing our ridiculously large taxes on gardening. But something to think about nonetheless.
Until next time...
Keeley xx
My "area" in the group was regulations, and the issue of public and private in the media, which seriously intrigues me. It seems that, at the moment especially, within the French media there is a growing problem with general relations between journalists and politicians. I say 'especially' in reference to the Mitterand case- Sarkozy's minister for culture, who has recently been slaughtered by the press for various reasons all stemming from his writing about his sexual escapades with "young boys" in Thailand.
My reasons for using this as my example follow thus: 1) he's a politician, and he's very prominently "in the news"; 2) he used to be a Television personality; 3) he wrote the book in which he confessed his paedophilic sins four years ago.
The third point is, in my humble opinion, the reason why Sarkozy is now defending Frederic Mitterand- the President hired the guy knowing that he harboured disgusting sexual habits amongst, no doubt, several STIs... However, why this is is totally beyond me. So I've come up with a formula if you will, as to why the French are only now making a huge deal out of the whole issue.
Basically, selected aspects of the public versus private interface are changing in France, quite specifically and significantly concerning the mediatisation of politicians. It is my belief that there is now no political, journalistic, and certainly no popular consensus as to where this dividing line should, if at all, be drawn. I've designed a formula to lay out this theory:
- Politicians need to use the media for the purposes of self-publicity and to project a coherent electoral image.
- Journalists operate in a highly competitive market which is dominated by the pursuit of audience and advertising revenue.
- The French public, as voters, have become somewhat disenchanted with the political class. As users of the media they view politicians rather as celebrities, and have an insatiable appetite for personal information on them.
Tony Blair once said: "Everything private is potentially public." Apparently so.This is potentially why "sex tourism culture minister" Mitterand is being absolutely slaughtered by the disillusioned, somewhat bitter French. Especially now because he is supporting a man who believes a thirteen-year-old is old enough to decide whether or not to have sex, or know whether she is in love. Debatable of course, but we can all agree that the law is in place for a reason, and it is in place. Of course, no one cares that Mitterand's having a bad time anyway, because he's a 'pedofile degoutant', but this is besides the point. Why wasn't he told off four years ago when we read his book the first time around?
Maybe because he was a TV personality, choosing to bare himself. Now he has a hand in running France. While this possible answer could and does make sense, it doesn't offer an explanation as to why he was still widely liked after the book was first published, and more importantly- why he was elected as Minister of Culture. And on a vaguely humorous note, how very ironic: he certainly has succeeded in showcasing some Thai culture across the pond.
Anyway, since I'm English, could we possibly compare this problem with the MPs expenses scandal? Are we intruding into their 'private sphere' by demanding to know what they do and how they spend in la quotidienne? Not really considering most of them are blowing our ridiculously large taxes on gardening. But something to think about nonetheless.
Until next time...
Keeley xx
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