Dec
31
2007
The BBC provides an archive service, which lets visitors track changes in the bbc.co.uk Homepage retrospectively.
The archives go back to May 2005. Here, for example is a screenshot of the Home Page as it was when the Cutty Sark fire was reported at 8.05am on the morning of 21st May 2007.
The service enables you to navigate through the BBC site by time as well as topic - if, for example, you remember that “something was on the website before I went to work” on a particular day. This is the description of the service:
The Home Archive is a new service, developed to produce a comprehensive library of how the BBC Homepage changes throughout each day. It was developed by Matthew Somerville (the BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites) and was an initiative begun on backstage.bbc.co.uk.
Here, you are able to see the latest changes that have gone through on the Homepage, section by section. Also if you click on the ‘Time’ links on the left hand side of the main column you can see a ’snapshot’ of how the page appeared at that time. The archive goes back to July 14, 2005 and if you click on browse by date you can view how the Homepage changed throughout each day and
also how it looked at a particular time.
Not every change on the Homepage is recorded, however, for example, changes to the weather forecast. Everything else is tracked though, including when the page changes to breaking news or sport or when the main promotion slot changes to full page.
The links:
Homearchive Service
Browse Homepages by Date
A useful service.
One caution: the archive updates run about a month behind the current date.
Tags: matthew somerville, bbc homepage archive, bbc backstage blog
Dec
31
2007
George Bush manages to get in one last
signing statement for 2007 -- these are statements which accompanies legislation that he signs in which he outlines which part of that legislation he won't be obeying. This time, if the Democrats had any sense, the talking point should be "Why does George Bush hate Darfur refugees?" --
Today, I have signed into law S. 2271, the "Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007." ... This Act purports to authorize [US] State and local governments to divest from companies doing business in named sectors in Sudan and thus risks being interpreted as insulating from Federal oversight State and local divestment actions that could interfere with implementation of national foreign policy. However, as the Constitution vests the exclusive authority to conduct foreign relations with the Federal Government, the executive branch shall construe and enforce this legislation in a manner that does not conflict with that authority.
There's no reason to believe that 2008 will be any different.
Dec
31
2007
“Look at those dicks.”
“Hm?’’
“Look at them dicks, I said. Eejits.”
“Aye. I suppose.”
“Such a game. If it is a game.”
“Aye. I suppose.”
“Cricket.”
“Aye.”
“Here in the middle of Dublin.”
“Aye. Cricket. Here in the middle of Dublin.”
“You would think that this part of Ireland have never broken the connection with Britain.”
“Aye.”
“Playing cricket like they were frigging English.”
“Aye.”
“Do you smell that?”
“Newly-cut grass.”
“Nah – money.”
“Money?”
“Privilege.”
“Privilege?”
“They disgust me, the Dublin Four fuckers and their cricket.”
“Aye. Disgusting.”
“But that’s the shower that is in charge of this country, the TCD elite.”
“A right shower. Aye.”
“We should send the whole lot to the firing squad.”
“Aye.”
“I’m telling you. That’s the best way to get rid of them.”
“Aye.”
“Stinking Staters. You’d think they’d be ashamed to play cricket. Scum.”
“Aye.”
“That’s the shower that is in charge of this country. It won’t be long before these students are in charge of the courts and the money and the political parties.”
“Aye.”
“Privilege.”
“Aye. Privilege.”
“They think they’re the aristocracy, the shower that blossomed after the Civil War, the shower that betrayed the Republic. Middle-class vultures. Privileged vultures. Greedy vultures. England’s vultures in Ireland. They’d prefer it if Ireland were still in the United Kingdom.”
“Aye. They would.”
“Dublin 4’s own, green unionists.”
“Aye.”
“Rotten scum. Traitors.”
“Aye.”
“A firing squad. I’m telling you. When an Ireland comes, let’s send them all to a firing squad.”
“Aye.”
“We have to decommission them.”
“We have to.”
“That’s the best way of getting rid of the bullets – by decommissioning that shower and their cricket.”
“What time is it?”
“A quarter to two.”
“The meeting is at two?”
“Yes. In the big hall or the Aula Maximus if you prefer.”
“Do you think there will be many?”
“Oh aye. You’re well known.”
“Aye.” Caoimhín stood up: “We might as well head.”
“Aye,” said his companion, “let’s go before I start boking up.”
Caoimhín took one final look at the students playing. “Perverts,” said his companion in parting, “let’s send the whole lot of them to a firing squad.”
Caoimhín said nothing. He could not. He was enchanted by the sight of the players in their bright uniforms. He delayed for another moment. The bowler surged towards the wicket and threw the little red ball towards the batsman. The ball swung in the air, bounced once and jumped over the willow bat before striking the batman’s leg. The bowler spun on his heels towards the umpire, threw his hands in the air, bent a single finger towards the sky like a pike man and let out a shout that filled the green with its intensity: “Howzatttt!!!!’ He shouted again as if afraid the umpire would let him down, as if offended that he would not believe the honesty of his appeal: “Howzattt!!!!”
The umpire hesitated, looked towards the batsman and made the slightest movement of his head before raising a finger skywards. The batsman turned and walked away. The other players ran towards the bowler shouting. The games was theirs; they had banished the batsman. They crowded together, high-fiving and did a little dance of joy that reminded Caoimhín of Cor Seisear Déag. “Perverts,” his companion said again, “perverts.”
Caoimhín said nothing. The only pervert, he thought, was the umpire. There was no way that that ball was LBW. No way. The ball was too high; it wouldn’t have hit the stump had the batsman let it pass. No chance. He looked at his companion and almost told him that before realising that republicans were not supposed to be interested in cricket, especially if they were ex-prisoners like himself.
“Are you coming?” his companion asked.
“Fire away,” Caoimhín replied and followed. It was a pity the batsman lost his wicket, he thought. He knew what he was about and he had defended the wicket well while stealing runs and hitting the odd four when the opportunity arose. Caoimhín could see why the other team wanted him out. The batsman had controlled the match and set its pace comfortably. It was a shame that the umpire had made such a poor decision. He obviously hadn’t been paying attention and then, when caught out, took the easy way out. “Probably wanted to get to the clubhouse for a g and t,” thought Caoimhín. A bad decision. Of that he was sure.
“You are very quiet,” his companion said, “are you worried about the speech?”
“Jesus, no. I could give this speech tied upside from the ceiling. I’ve been giving this speech since I started in politics. I’ll attack the Brits, attack the Irish government, attack the SDLP…”
“Attack everyone but us.”
“That’s it. Attack everyone but us. We are never at fault.”
Caoimhín carried on thinking about the cricket. He wanted to discuss the match with his comrade but he knew he couldn’t. If he mentioned it, he’d slag him off. He heard the disgust in his friend’s voice again: “Perverts.”
But there was a mystery to cricket that attracted Caoimhín. He preferred it to hurling though he could never mention that out loud. It was part of his political duties to attend Gaelic games so the voters could see him supporting native culture. He had spent many an evening in Casement Park watching Antrim or a local club hurl. He did it because he was expected to do it. It was for the cause; and a couple of votes. Despite that he just couldn’t get worked up about the game. Hurling was just, too, well, too anarchic for his tastes. He could see no rhythm or reason to the swinging hurls or the sliotar. Ash clashed with ash; the sliotar shot forward and it went over the bar or it didn’t go over the bar. He saw nothing of beauty in it; the game was nothing but mad slashing wood with a ball somewhere in the middle of the action. And talk about rough! He winched every time he saw a hurl rise and fall around the players. Hurling was, Caoimhín said under his breath many times, a game for mad bastards.
Cricket, however, was different. Cricket followers were mannerly and played the game in good weather while enjoying fine food. All you had to do was stretch yourself by the side of the pitch and dip your hand into a basket, take out a sandwich and, perhaps, enjoy a nice, cold glass of cider. Now, that’s culture, thought Caoimhín. That’s the way to spend an afternoon.
He remembered one afternoon he had been travelling through Tyrone. There was a cricket game being played. Caoimhín had been heading to an election meeting in Fermanagh when he saw the teams playing under the shadow of an army barracks. He had been in a hurry and almost drove on but something made him stop. A meeting. Another frigging meeting, he thought. He could hear the talk already: the points of procedure; the cúpla focal, a chathaoirligh, a chara; the suggestions; the plan of action; the lists of voters; the cars available; the ex-prisoners and old republicans who had to be visited; the streets and villages that had to be avoided. Another frigging meeting.
He stopped the car and pulled in to the side of the road. They would not know him here. He was not that familiar a face outside of Belfast. He could watch from the car. No, that might be too suspicious. They might think he was up to something. If the cops came, they might make allegations. Better to drive on. Another frigging meeting. No. Stay. Get out off the car. Walk over and blend in. He bent down to the passenger side and rummaged in the plastic bag in which he had thrown a sandwich and a can of coke. He took them out. It was a lovely day, he thought. I’ll take a break. Twenty minutes, that’s all, I’m owed twenty minutes at least.
He had two baseball hats in the glove compartment – one was an saffron Antrim GAA cap; the other was a dark blue one with NY stitched on it. He took the second one and settled it on his head. No one will know me here, he thought, no one. I am safe enough. He crossed the road excitedly. It wasn’t a big crowd but there were enough people so that he didn’t stand out. He found a spot at the edge of the pitch and settled himself down. No sooner had he sat than he heard a loud “pock” and the little, red ball ran towards the boundary. The batsmen didn’t move. “They know they have got four runs,” thought Caoimhín, “they know they don’t need to move.”
The little red ball hopped over the boundary line and a polite round of clapping flitted around the ground. Caoimhín looked around. No one knows me here, he thought and joined in slowly. He looked at his watch. Half an hour, I’m owed half an hour. He took out his sandwiches and snapped open a tin of coke. An hour; I’m owed that much, he thought, as the bowler ran towards the batsman. The ball flew from his fist and the batsman swung at it with easy contempt. Pock! “Another four,” thought Caoimhín and he began to clap. His eyes and ears sucked in every sight, sound, every shout and movement of what happened on the grass.
This was his first live match and he did not want to miss a single second. He examined how the players were set, how they drew into the batsman as the bowler made his approach. He understood what they were doing; they were trying to intimidate him, distract him a little from the bowler, lessen the field and tighten the noose. He could see them going down on their honkers, bouncing like children in the playground, hands sweeping the grass while the bowler strode down the pitch, readying himself and then firing the ball. This, then, was the highlight of the play, this was the moment of truth for bowler and batsman, that little wait of moments before the ball and bat connected – if at all. Would the batsman stab the ball left or right, would he satisfy himself with a simple, safe push back or would he judge, in those few seconds, that the bowler had misjudged his pitch, that he tossed the ball too short and too high and that the batsman could loosen his body and strike forcefully?
Caoimhín held his breath as the ball rose and fell. The batsman came out, swung – pock! – the ball flew towards the boundary. An out-field player threw himself to his left. It was no good. The ball’s momentum carried it past his fingers and away to safety. Caoimhín clapped again, this time, with more enthusiasm. A good stroke, a really good stroke, he thought. The batsman knows his business; the bowler is beat; he simply doesn’t know it yet. He carried on watching. His judgment was correct; the batsman was not about to cede his wicket. He pushed and swung the bat and bullied the bowler and ball into submission.
Caoimhín felt the warm sun on his head and looked at his watch. The meeting would be well under way by now. Stuff it. They owe me a day. One day at least. He lay back on the verge and settled himself. He had forgotten how warm it could become in the open. He had forgotten the sounds of birds, cars, cows and tractors in open spaces. A blackbird hopped down in front of him, fanned its tail and then crooked its ear to the ground.
Caoimhín could almost hear the bird listening for the rustle of worms below. He could feel its little orange-tipped radar scan for monsters of the deep. The bird stamped its feet, moved on, listened. A sudden round of clapping broke its concentration and it rose to the air, shrieking a warning to the world. Caoimhín closed his eyes. What a wonderful sight, he thought, and let himself doze off. He woke with a start. An old man was struggling towards his car with a collection of bats, stumps and jerseys under his arm. “You’re just right, son,” he said to Caoimhín smiling, “there was little there to hold your attention.”
“I fell asleep,” said Caoimhín un-necessarily. He stood and hesitated. “Do you need a hand?” he asked the old man.
“You could grab a couple of them bats,” said the old man. “Everyone likes to play but not everyone likes to tidy up.”
Caoimhín lifted a handful of bats from under the old man’s arm and nestled them against his chest. “I’m just over here,” said the old fellow. Caoimhín followed him and waited until he had opened the boot of his car before setting the bats in carefully. “You’re a gentleman. That’s a great help,” said the old man. “Do you play yourself?”
“No,” said Caoimhín, “I was just passing through.”
“Aye, well, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon,” replied the old man as he opened the car door and got in. “Many thanks, now. Safe journey.”
“Yes,” said Caoimhín. “Take care.”
He looked at his watch. The meeting would be well over by now. Frig it, he thought. They owe me a day, at least one day. Still, they would want to know what happened to him. He couldn’t say that he fell asleep at a cricket match. He needed a better excuse and then he saw it. Two army jeeps passed by and turned up towards the barracks.
Caoimhín smiled: “I’ll blame the Brits.” No one would question that. Frig them anyway. They didn’t own him. He was his own man. The Brits. That’ll do fine. He could hear them now: “We’ll release a press statement. This is ridiculous. There is supposed to be a peace process. You are an important party representative. They can’t do that. Not anymore. We’ll give them hell in the press release.”
And Caoimhín would just say: “Never bother. I’ve put up with worse. Most of us have put up with worse. Just leave it and let’s get on with the election. I’ll save the whole episode for my autobiography.” That would knock it all on the head, he thought. He turned around. The cricket pitch had emptied. He was alone at the side of the road. He got into his car, turned it around and headed back to the city. “I’m going to pack it in,” he thought. “I’ve had enough.”
He had surrendered his whole life to the cause; had spent years in prison and just as many outside canvassing for the party. He wasn’t sure which was worse anymore: the stink of prison cells or the stale smell of endless meetings up and down the country. He had never imagined himself as full-time politician encased in a shirt and tie most of the week, listening to the same oul shite from the same oul gurns, week after week. “We need to canvas here. We need to address this issue. This is what you should say. This is what you shouldn’t say.” And he listened and put up with it. Just as he listened and put up with the meetings and the eejits and the handshaking, all in the hope that he would get a vote or two more. Give me your vote. For Ireland. For the cause. Shite. All of it. Just shite.
He smiled when he thought of the cricket. There was sense in cricket. He saw his first game in the H-Blocks–the West Indies against England. He marvelled at the stupidity of the game for a moment or two; let himself mock the proceedings publicly before moving on. Bit by bit, however, he felt the game exercise its magic on him. There was something mysterious about it – the way in which the players bobbed around the field; the bowler’s natural rhythm; the batsman’s stubborn defence of his wicket; the way in which he alone stood against the other team trying to attack the ball and make some runs while also trying to keep his stumps safe.
The batsman could have been Cú Chulainn at the ford, he thought.
And then there was the sound of the game; it was hypnotic. He could hear the footsteps of the bowler on the shorn grass and the soft sound of bat striking ball; he could hear the batsman’s trousers and pads rustling against one another as he ran. It was the silence that attracted him, the way in which play created a sanctuary in the soul of those who watched the game; it was a magical meditation on physics. All you had to do, he realised, was surrender to the game, give way to its ebb and flow and you would understand its secret and the grip it took on people.
He supported the West Indies and began to scan the Irish News for little tit bits about scores and players. Hadn’t generations of Irish people been banished to the West Indies. Indeed, there were Irish surnames to be found amongst many of the island’s inhabitants, a sure sign that the native Irish had been swept from Ireland by sword and gun by Cromwell and all who followed him.
Yes, he reasoned, he could safely support the West Indies. Then he began to look through the News Letter and the Belfast Telegraph. “You’re not going over to the other side, are you Caoimhín?” they asked him. “Ah, no. Just seeing what they’re writing about us.” Gradually, he built up a picture of who was playing and the ranking of different countries. He carried the information in his head and spoke to no one about it.
The game was even more mysterious when played at night. He had listened to late-night radio reports while India toured Australia, hidden under the blankets in his cell. The voices of the commentators sounded clear through the headphones and totted up the number of runs scored, wickets taken and overs played. He felt comfortable listening to the tour, the earlier sense of treachery gradually fading. After all, India had been inspired by Ireland’s fight for freedom and had even adapted the tricolour as recognition of their common cause. And, Australia, well, John Mitchell had escaped from it and written his Jail Journal about his experiences there. That was enough in itself. His behaviour did not pass without comment, however. “What programme were you listening to last night?” his cellmate asked him. “You seemed to me very taken with it.”
“Oh, something on Australian politics,” Caoimhín lied. “It’s shameful what’s going on out there.”
“The Aboriginals? Aye, shameful.”
He was annoyed by the question but would still not admit his interest in the sport. It was perfectly legitimate to support Australia and India in cricket, he thought. As long as I don’t support England, he thought. England was the enemy. England was always the enemy. My enemy’s enemy, Caoimhín thought, that’s what this is all about; striking back at them wherever possible. There was no loss of principle or disregard for native culture by taking an interest in cricket. It was simply another way to attack the English. They liked to think of cricket as the game they gave the world, he reasoned. If the world took the game from them and played it so much better than them, it galled them. Galled them, yes, thought Caoimhín, galled them, made the very things they thought of as distinctly and uniquely their and made them foreign. That’s all he was doing, taking part in a cultural struggle by changing the terms of reference, subverting them and making the game his own. Cricket was the most English of games. It was their sean—nós with its bizarre vocabulary of googly; yorker; maiden over; leg-spin; off-side and leg-break.
We should study our enemy as much as possible, he thought. We should look at their games and learn about their minds from them and then beat them at all. Yes, beat them at their own game. That’s what we should do. We should put together a team of ex-prisoners and get a grant for it, he thought. That would really put the republican cat amongst the English pigeons. Talk about a revolution. It would annoy the Brits no end to see a republican cricket team walk out at Lord’s and to take their own game from them in their own country. It would be cultural revenge. They had taken our language and we would take theirs in turn. To steal their own game from them.
Such a thought. Such a victory. The English would keek themselves to see a team of ex-bombers and ex-gunmen walking out in the most hallowed of English venues. It could be done. He was certain it could be done. He could see himself hurtling down the pitch, the ball nestled in his palm while one of England’s top batsmen waited for the delivery. He could hear the commentators hush in anticipation and awe as he threw the ball as he bowled: “He’s 8 for none so far. England are in real trouble here if he finishes of these tail-enders with the same ease with which he dispatched the opening batsmen and middle order.”
He could see the little red ball hit the pitch, bounce, swing around the bat and watch as the terrified batsman realised that he was out. He could see the wicket crumple and the bales fly into the air. He would whirl around, punch his hands into the sky and scream at television cameras: “Howzat! Howzat! Howzat!” Ireland have won! Ireland have beaten England at cricket! Yes, it could be done. He could do it. He could beat the English at their own game.
“Hey,” he called to his companion as they approached the Great Hall, “who is in charge of the cricket club here anyway?”
Dec
31
2007
Iain Dale includes a locust swarm for Oxfordshire in his predictions for 2008:
David Cameron forced to cancel trip to Rwanda after his Witney constituency is affected by a plague of locusts.
As it happens I have a solution for them, since Oxfordshire is probably the heartland on earth for Ducks (apart from the “Eeyup Ducks” of Yorkshire and the Midlands).
When I was pulling together my article about the 29,000 ocean current monitoring yellow plastic bath ducks last week, I came across the elite force of 700,000 anti-locust ducks trained up by the Chinese Government. I kid you not - here’s the story on the BBC (and a version for Gallomites - the followers of The Great Profit George Galloway “of the Bungle”):
An elite force of more than 700,000 ducks and chickens has been deployed as China’s latest weapon to take on an invasion of locusts.
The poultry army has been sent to the western front in Xinjiang province where swarms of locusts have devoured more than 3.8 million hectares of crops and grassland.
The birds are trained to seek out and consume the pests at the sound of a whistle which they have been trained to associate with feeding.
“We release them on the grassland, blow whistles and they eat the locusts”, an official with the Xinjiang Locust and Rat Control Office is quoted as saying.
(Pictures: BBC).
(more…)
Dec
31
2007
spi-1977-2.pdf
As 2007 wanes, let’s cast our minds back some 30 odd years to the heady days of 1977. The year of punk, of monarchist celebrations in the UK, a failed UWC strike. And here in Ballymun and North County Dublin we have - by way of an anonymous donation - the newspaper of the Socialist Party of Ireland from 1977. Now, it’s important to make a distinction between the SPI in 1977 and the CWI orientated SP of today. The SPI was - as a most informative, and seemingly broadly accurate wiki entry says - a sort of proto-split from Official Sinn Féin established in 1971. The SPI regarded OSF as insufficiently Marxist (one wonders at who was the ultra-leftist jibe directed - step forward Mr. Costello). However, it also considered the CPI unworthy as a Marxist party.
What is interesting is that this line led it in a curious trajectory towards engagement with a number of other groups such as the indefatigable British and Irish Communist Organisation who found like minds as regards Provisional Sinn Féin and the national question. What is of particular interest is the strong emphasis on social rights issues. The SPI campaigned for divorce, contraception and abortion.
The end point of the trajectory was the Democratic Socialist Party with Jim Kemmy, where much of BICO also ended up. Still, I knew people in the WP in the early 1980s who had joined between 1977 and 1982 in some numbers.
The wiki entry says that Eamonn O’Brien, who in this edition of Advance is lauded as the SP TD for Ballymun, managed to get 6% of the vote in Dublin County North at the election and that ‘this encouraged OSF on the parliamentary road’. Well, yeah. Perhaps. Although I seem to recall a spot of bother in 1969 over abstention which might have had a bearing on OSF’s position long before 1977.
Advance is in fact quite a professional production. The design is good. Kudos to them for the star and torches logo. I’m wondering where they swiped that particular formulation from. There is a strong, and remarkably positive, emphasis on local issues. Internationally there is an identification with Moscow line parties and a run-down of some of the glories of the centrally planned Eastern European economies. There is little mention of PSF or PIRA, but the editorial speaks of:
…the Party [making] the most determined effort yet to eliminate bourgeois nationalism from the labour movement. Its realistic policy self-determination and democratic renewal for the people of Northern Ireland is proven more correct every day as the various paramilitary groups produce ever more futile mutual slaughter and destruction. However, it is still the case that many people with progressive and socialist ideas remain blinded by bourgeois nationalism and have departed completely from Marxism-Leninism in order to favour one or other of the competing paramilitary groups.
The cynic in me suggests that this was a deliberate downplaying of their more scarifying policy on the North for electoral purposes. But perhaps there is another reason. In fairness it seems like a better read that the Irish People posted up in the Archive earlier in the year. But then, the cynic in me also suggests that that wouldn’t be difficult.
Happy New Year…
Dec
31
2007
What can I say? The appointment of Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal and husband as respectively chairman and co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party is surely evidence of the bankruptcy of that party as a vehicle of political change. Because the calculation that is being made is so obvious, so overt, so cynical, as to be unconscionable. And it clearly goes along the lines of ‘use the name’.
As the Guardian reports:
When Bilawal read out his mother’s political will it emerged that her first choice was her husband, Zardari. But the party elders deemed that fresh blood was needed.
With his political inexperience, shy demeanour and Armani glasses, Bilawal was not the obvious candidate to lead his mother’s party. During the press conference Zardari deflected reporters’ questions away from his son, pleading that he was at a “tender age”.
One feels that tenderness is not a feature of the Pakistani political system at this point in history.
His son’s name would be changed, he said, from Bilawal Zardari to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari - a key piece of branding in Pakistan’s tribal-feudal political system.
“We will avenge the murder of Bhutto through the democratic process after winning the elections,” he said.
“God willing, when it is the People’s party’s reign, when the People’s party government is formed, then we would have taken revenge for Bibi’s blood and that blood would not have gone to waste.”
But this is all awful stuff. Benazir Bhutto was party president for life. Quite a title, but one which had real effect. The appointment of Zardari and Bilawal is a neat piece of dynastic politics. But one which merely cements further elite groups within an already perilously flawed political system.
Who can know the mind of Benazir Bhutto now? Christopher Hitchens has argued that she had an Electra complex. But was that complex strong enough to wish this upon her 19 year old son? And it is fascinating and depressing to note that party elders forced the son into the limelight. Where are those within the PPP who genuinely hold a left line? Are they satisfied with this political coup de main by the Bhutto family? And shouldn’t any one who does hold a left perspective think long and hard about belonging to a formation that would continue in this line? Myself and Mick Hall have been discussing the issue of Bhutto herself over the last day or two. While I disagree with some of his thoughts on the matter today’s events certainly support his broader thesis of a political system beyond repair. But… since that is the analysis of commentators as diverse as Hitchens and Tariq Ali then perhaps we should expect no progress at all…
Dec
31
2007
A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start.
Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Michael Aspel and guest panellists Sara Cox and Reginald D. Hunter.
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If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems.
Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble
Dec
30
2007
From a New York Times
assessment of Benazir Bhutto's influence in Washington --
Last week, Mr. Siegel said, he e-mailed Ms. Bhutto to tell her he had heard that their publisher, HarperCollins, was pleased with the book the two had just turned in, “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West.” He received a happy response from Ms. Bhutto by BlackBerry. “Which we called her ‘crackberry’ because she was so addicted to it,” Mr. Siegel said.
Isn't it someone's job -- either Siegel, the writer of the article, or its editor -- to make it clear that it's not like these people actually came up with that term themselves for the addictive Canadian device?
Dec
30
2007
I have posted the third in my series of articles about starting a Political Blog over at Poliblog Perspective.
My first article, Starting a Political Blog I: Blogging is like Traditional Campaigning , introduced a parallel between political blogging and traditional political campaigning.
The second article, “Starting a Political Blog II: How to Get the Basics Right “, highlighted the extreme transparency that exists when you write a blog, and the need to engage with your potential audience in a long-term strategy.
This post looks at some of the basic principles to follow in order to write a credible political blog.
Principles to Apply
Be transparent
One major difference between blogs and newspapers is that blogs are usually more transparent. Newspapers often do not declare gifts and travel expenses paid; good bloggers do. Many blogs have their own voluntary “register of interests”.
If you write about something, but do not declare a personal or financial interest, you will (rightly) be treated quite roughly when you are found out - especially if you are a public figure.
Read the full article at Poliblog Perspective.
Dec
30
2007
This is the fourth in my series of articles about starting a Political Blog.
My first article, Starting a Political Blog I: Blogging is like Traditional Campaigning , introduced a parallel between political blogging and traditional political campaigning.
The second article, “Starting a Political Blog II: How to Get the Basics Right “, highlighted the extreme transparency that exists when you write a blog, and the need to engage with your potential audience in a long-term strategy.
The third article, “Starting a Political Blog III: Principles to Apply to be Credible“, looked at some principles to follow in order to remain credible in the blogosphere.
This article outlines some technicalities involved in maintaining a blog. The technical bits of creating a blog are the boring bits, but also cause the most problems in the future if you get them wrong.
These are my views, and some others will not agree.
Put your blog in the right place
Blogs suffer very badly when they move around the internet, because links and authority in search engines are based on specific web page addresses (called “permalinks” in blog-speak).
A blog that moves to a new location has to start from scratch again. It can be done, but it is an intricate process that takes up your valuable time - and is not necessary when you plan properly.
Read the full article over at Poliblog Perspective.
Dec
30
2007
This is the fourth in my series of articles about starting a Political Blog.
My first article, Starting a Political Blog I: Blogging is like Traditional Campaigning , introduced a parallel between political blogging and traditional political campaigning.
The second article, Starting a Political Blog II: How to Get the Basics Right , highlighted the extreme transparency that exists when you write a blog, and the need to engage with your potential audience in a long-term strategy.
The third article, “Starting a Political Blog III: Principles to Apply to be Credible“, looked at some principles to follow in order to remain credible in the blogosphere.
This article outlines some technicalities involved in maintaining a blog. The technical bits of creating a blog are the boring bits, but also cause the most problems in the future if you get them wrong.
These are my views, and some others will not agree.
Put your blog in the right place
Blogs suffer very badly when they move around the internet, because links and authority in search engines are based on specific web page addresses (called permalinks in blog-speak).
A blog that moves to a new location has to start from scratch again. It can be done, but it is an intricate process that takes up your valuable time - and is not necessary when you plan properly.
Read the full article over at Poliblog Perspective.
Tags: political blogging, iain dale guide to political blogging, politics, matt wardman
Dec
30
2007
An entertaining (albeit for the wrong reasons) article by the usually somewhat better Tom McGurk in todays Sunday Business Post. Tom has taken it upon himself to worry about:
[a] political cult, a complex 21stcentury miasma of world-enders, global warmers, suburban hysterics and political correctors; they are the new puritans come among us to spread the new materialist guilt. Daily they pronounce on all the new sins, from big petrol-guzzling engines to hunted foxes, one-off houses and the carbon costs of a family holiday in Torremolinos.
Why yes, that’d be the Green Party then.
Under the title “Greens must not be allowed to sabotage our ancient rituals” his ire is raised by;
[the] increasing concern in rural Ireland about the Green agenda in government, particularly among the equestrian and country sports communities.
Early this month, two well-attended public meetings at Slane in Co Meath and at Gowran Park in Co Kilkenny demonstrated the growing unease about the Greens in government and their attitude to hunting and other rural sports.
The Ward Union Hunt in Meath was the first to feel the displeasure of environment minister John Gormley, who delayed for months before finally granting the hunt its licence. In the event, Kafka ruled - conditions attached to the licence were such that to attempt to hunt and obey them was going to be farcical.
The true horror of this situation only brought home to him”
not only by Gormley’s attitude - to a hunt that is over a century old and unique in Ireland, if not the world - but also by the sneering cynicism with which he acted. But then, as someone remarked, Meath’s Ward Union was easier to kick around than Meath’s new highway through Tara.
In rural Ireland, many feel that the Ward Union battle marks the beginning of a campaign by the Green Party and other environmentalist lobbies to put manners on Ireland’s traditional hunting, shooting and fishing community. One Green Party website has been describing all country sports as ‘‘blood sports’’.
Good Lord. A Green Party website ‘describes’ all country sports as ‘blood sports’. Beyond belief isn’t it? So different say to a Sunday newspaper columnist who describes John Gormley as… as… Kafka!
Still, he is right, isn’t he? The ‘ancient ritual’ (Meath Ward Union: estd. 19th century) has been knocked back by the granting of a license.
McGurk further argues that unlike the UK there is no class dimension to hunting. Well, yes and no. Firstly that is to suppose that class issues are unchanging. Sure, no doubt there are many ordinary people who hunt in Ireland… McGurk says:
Hunting in Ireland is enjoyed by the local butcher, baker and farmer; it’s not about killing foxes, but about the enjoyment of horses and the countryside. Given the historic battle for the repossession of the land and our emotional relationship to it, the Greens could be picking a fight with forces they are badly underestimating.
But, so what? The class issue has always been the weakest plank in the argument against hunting. He is on even more contentious territory when he suggests that hunting is part of some integral relationship between us Irish and ‘our’ land. There is a clue in the date of the establishment of the Meath Union. The reality is that land ownership amongst the Irish in a broad sense was a factor of the 19th century (and through into the early 20th century). The sense of alienation was very much a class issue, and one directed against those who had previously expropriated the land. And it is this alienation and consequent identification amongst a broader population, and some aspect of the ethical issue as regards animal rights and welfare, much more than his straw man of:
two and a half thousand suburban votes in Dublin 4 and 6 - thanks to the vagaries of proportional representation - can result in such a threat to the wealth of our rural traditions.
…which leads to a degree of unease about hunting. A rural tradition of hunting on horseback which is a century old is a fairly shallow tradition. I’ve never been overly exercised about hunting, but I have encountered hunts in the countryside (as recently as it happens as last week) and there is something about large groups of people on horseback that raises a, perhaps, atavistic response in me. It’s an obvious response… one borne of the power relationship that humans on horses generate, a relationship not unnoticed by security and police forces the world over.
So, would I ban the hunts? Well, let’s just say that I’m happy enough with the Minister setting conditions. Still, it is later that McGurk’s argument becomes even less coherent.
Where once rural Ireland was seen as the place from which you escaped, there is now a growing sense that the quality of life there far exceeds anything to be found in towns. Communities are stronger, there’s better value in housing, there are superior schools and there is seemingly more space and more time. Perhaps most importantly of all, technology has profoundly reduced the disadvantage of distance to manageable proportions.
I suspect that it is into this new 21st century political territory that the Green campaign against country sports is heading. This is a territory where, as we saw in Britain, prejudice rather than rationality held sway. For example, in a world dependent on factory farming and globalised animal production, the notion that the killing of a small number of wild animals by that minority of the populaton involved in country sports is morally different is simply absurd.
The first paragraph is full of unsustained assertions. Perhaps he’s right to shed a tear for ‘community’, or perhaps not. Others with an equal measure of sentimentality and distance shed a tear for the rare ould times in Dublin’s inner city twenty years back, when said city was plagued by crime deprivation and drug abuse. And no doubt some in twenty years will look back with equal fondness on the present situation urban and rural. But… if - as we see - urban sprawl and a movement of people back to the land through largely unrestricted development, that too generates its own traditions which are at odds with the supposedly ‘ancient’ ones he defends.
The second paragraph contains an odd argument. Purpose is all, or at least it has some traction in this debate. Killing an animal for sport is not the direct equivalent of killing an animal for food. And farming is increasingly regulated to provide for animal welfare. It’s not enough and there are many who find the killing of animals simply abhorrent, but it is a factor. Still, he doesn’t see it that way.
The cruelty argument against hunting has neither a scientific nor a moral basis, given the farming methods by which our species survives. In fact, it is hard to imagine a community whose relationship with animals is closer and more intense than the farming community from which most of the hunting community is drawn.
When prejudice, not to mention hysteria, takes over, and the arrogance that goes with telling other communities - which have spent many generations with animals - how they should treat them, the debate will sink up to its axles in its own pointlessness.
I love this argument. The logical conclusion is that democracy, or indeed potentially any level of animal welfare, should not apply in certain circumstances. But worse again it would sanction any sorts of behaviour simply because it had gone on for generations. Nah, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t believe that.
He concludes with a bizarre point:
Extraordinarily, they (the Greens) are happy to cover the historic landscape of Ireland with enormous windmills, but go berserk at the prospect of someone digging a new septic tank. The now extinct PDs have vacated the moral high ground, only to be replaced by ‘know-all of Sandymount’.
You read it here first - next year all of this will have political ramifications for Fianna Fail and its rural vote if the Greens turn out not to be the house-trained environmentalists that Bertie had anticipated.
Examples perhaps of the supposedly ‘beserk’ behavior? Why none. What is one to make of it? A media keen to find an ‘enemy’ now that the dreaded Shinners have been badly wounded and an election is still 4.5 years away? An excess of Christmas pudding leading to dyspeptic fears for the future?
As it happens I think there are interesting debates to be had as regards the rural and the progressive (including different forms of hunting), and I suspect some may throw up outcomes that are less than congenial to progressive thinking. But… to argue that a rather mild-mannered Green presence in government and response to a hunt is a harbinger of political Apocalpyse and the egregious destruction of all that is rural is no more than hyperbole.
And returning to:
the world-enders, global warmers, suburban hysterics and political correctors
Does one sense that here, as in so many other places in our supposedly ‘liberal’ media, there is a retreat from actual engagement with issues into facile denigration and name calling? Or is it just the rush to make that New Years deadline? Must do better in 2008…
Dec
30
2007
According to the BBC, Gordon Brown has declared that 2008 will be:
“A year for stepping up major long-term reform to meet challenges ranging from globalisation and global warming to the great unfinished business of social reform in our country.”
Let, me help, Mr Brown. Here are a few paragraphs you could use when setting out your agenda in Parliament:
All Members of this House and all the people of this country have a shared interest in building trust in our democracy. And it is my hope that, by working together for change in a spirit that takes us beyond parties and beyond partisanship, we can agree a new British constitutional settlement that entrusts more power to Parliament and the British people.
You have spent most of the last 6 months since you became leader attacking other parties - notably the Tory record in the years up to 1997.
Should you not be defending the 10 year record of the administration where you were the second biggest player - with an effective veto on policy - for the last decade?
(more…)
Dec
30
2007
Perhaps you haven’t heard the name of Jef Denyn, another fabulously famous Belgian to go alongside Hercule Poirot and Jean Rey.
I hear you say:
Who he?
Only the most famous Carillon player in history.
Carillons are musically tuned bells which are usually installed in continental belltowers attached to churches or town halls.
You can find more information about the school at their website here.
Personally I prefer Change Ringing.
Tags: carillon, jef denyn, campanology, change ringing
Dec
30
2007
Suzanne Breen has an insightful round-up of the North’s politics during 2007 in the Sunday Tribune and she even looks into her crystal ball for the coming year. She wonders whether the Rev Ian Paisley might step down as First Minister during 2008 (he is 81 years old) and make way for Peter Robinson. Paisley, she writes, has said he won’t go but Breen reckons that there are some in the DUP who have a different view. Robinson, she writes, has moved well ahead of his party rivals and “has excelled himself in the finance department. His professionalism and competence have won him admiration from even those in the fundamentalist wing of the party, who had long disliked him because of his eagerness for a political deal”. Breen argues that Robinson as First Minister would not “necessarily mean fireworks between the DUP and Sinn Féin, but the nature of the business could be affected”.
She writes that Sinn Féin’s dominance of Northern nationalism is undisputed but that the election in the Republic did have an impact: “Gerry Adam’s poor performance during the Republic’s election campaign, coupled with the fact that Martin McGuinness is now Sinn Féin’s main man at Stormont, have placed a question mark over Adams’s future in the cut and thrust of everyday politics. Maybe an international statesman-like role beckons?”
Turning to the SDLP, she writes that the party “seriously needs a reality check”. She quotes one unnamed SDLP Border-based member as welcoming Fianna Fáil’s overtures but Breen thinks any merger will be a case of “unrequited love”. She does not see the SDLP running Sinn Féin close in the North without Fianna Fáil. She praises SDLP social development minister, Margaret Ritchie, for taking a “principled and lonely stand” against funding the UDA.
She also praises former Sinn Féin representative, Jim McAllister, for his “remarkable courage” after the murder of Paul Quinn: “McAllister’s public support for the family when they were still too shaken to face the cameras ensured their story was heard.”
She continues: “The last day of January will be the third anniversary of Robert McCartney’s death. Let’s hope 2008 brings justice for the Quinns and the McCartneys, and a future when thugs who think they’re still somebody become well and truly yesterday’s men.”
Amen to that.
Dec
30
2007
A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start.
Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Jo Brand and guest panellists Julia Hartley-Brewer and Andy Hamilton.
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If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems.
Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble
Dec
29
2007
This Christmas I was given a book on the last 50 years of spaceflight: Space, the First 50 years. It’s great, co-written by the grand old man of astronomy (and remarkably reactionary) Patrick Moore and it’s a great addition to a small library of space science books. Incidentally for a fantastic book with a broader remit can I direct you towards Cosmos: A Field Guide which I picked up in Chapters in Dublin last year. I’m not sure what it is, but paradoxically the rationalist and materialist in me finds a somewhat pantheistic comfort in the incredible imagery of space that this era has provided.
Anyhow, I’d been thinking of writing a post on Astronomy Ireland and their efforts reported on Monday in the Irish Times to counteract the light pollution which has effectively made the night sky a pale shadow of its true glory [click on the above image to see how bad light pollution has become]. They’re pushing, as part of an international campaign, led I think by the International Dark-Sky Association, for better more energy efficient public and commercial street lighting.
David Moore of Astronomy Ireland is reported as noting that as much as 30 per cent of the bill for public lighting (€300 million a year) could be saved in a transition to energy/light efficient fittings.
He says that: ‘What we have… are light fittings that are incredibly badly designed. They are just a bulb hanging out of a pole and so much of the lighting gets wasted because it goes upwards and not where it is supposed to go. With light shade deflectors you can go down to a lower wattage bulb, space them further apart and save energy’.
‘It’s a win-win situation. Astronomers get their skies back and the public get lower energy bills and a lower carbon footprint’.
Not just astronomers though. We all get our skies back. So, here we have a convergence of science, environmentalism and green politics in an area which will allow us to actually reap a serious benefit both in terms of energy efficiency and giving us back something that we’ve lost from our personal environment in the past fifty odd years or so… a genuine appreciation of the night sky.
I can count the number of times I’ve seen the Milky Way in such a way as to truly appreciate the term ’star field’. Once on Inis Mean in the early 1990s, once in Tunisia and once in the countryside outside Kilkenny. That’s absurd in the context of decades on the planet and a lifetime looking at the sky.
Anyhow, curiously enough, there was a powercut tonight in the part of Dublin I live in. Spooky? Well not really, it was fixed within an hour or so (and oddly enough another gift I received, a windup torch, came in handy). But what was revelatory was how even a limited reduction in ambient street light allowed a significantly enhanced view of the sky (mind you, it played havoc with alarms and such like, and was actually genuinely spooky before torches came on to be caught within a near pitch black environment).
This is the easy stuff, improved technology, better planning and consequently a genuinely better standard of life. Mick of Organized Rage made the point recently that little, except perhaps true love, exists outside political culture. Well, while this is love (of a sort), it’s also political and cultural. And most importantly it makes good sense.
Dec
29
2007
This is the third in my series of articles about starting a Political Blog.
My first article, Starting a Political Blog I: Blogging is like Traditional Campaigning , introduced a parallel between political blogging and traditional political campaigning.
The second article, “Starting a Political Blog II: How to Get the Basics Right “, highlighted the extreme transparency that exists when you write a blog, and the need to engage with your potential audience in a long-term strategy.
This post looks at some of the basic principles to follow in order to write a credible political blog.
Principles to Apply
Be transparent
One major difference between blogs and newspapers is that blogs are usually more transparent. Newspapers often do not declare gifts and travel expenses paid; good bloggers do. Many blogs have their own voluntary “register of interests”.
If you write about something, but do not declare a personal or financial interest, you will (rightly) be treated quite roughly when you are found out - especially if you are a public figure.
Be consistent
Do not start something you will not be able to maintain. Your blog is yours, and it is up to you to set your targets and to meet them.
There is no problem if you wish to post daily, weekly, occasionally or even seasonally - as long as your readers know what to expect. Do not, however, give hostages to fortune.
And please, do not apologise for “lack of blogging”. One of my pet hates is people who do that all the time. They would be able to do much more writing if they did much less apologising.
If you find yourself needing more material for your blog, why not make it a “team” blog, or use “guest bloggers”. The latter is one good reason to develop a network of “blog friends” - or to join a network such as Blogpower (www.defendingtheblog.blogspot.com).
Be circumspect
A blog is a publication, and you are subject to the same laws as your local paper - without a legal specialist. Be (reasonably) circumspect, and do not give too many hostages to fortune. The Internet does not forget anything you say.
Good ideas are to check two sources for anything questionable, and to ask a specialist blogger if necessary - most will give a little time to help a fellow “amateur” understand their subject. If you receive help, link back to their blog as a thank-you.
Be anonymous?
There is a place for the anonymous blog. The upside is that what you say will not affect your daily life and reputation - unless you are unmasked. The downside is that what you say will not affect your daily life and reputation - unless you are unmasked.
If you are running a political blog aiming to help your political profile in the wider society, an anonymous blog is not an option.
My blog - The Wardman Wire - is pseudonymous because I like to keep my online political writing separate from my work.
Enjoy it!
And finally, dont be surprised at your own success. If you stick at writing a political blog, you may find that after a year or eighteen months you have as many visitors as the circulation of your local paper.
At that point you will have understood the fun of political blogging, and will have a number of new friends (and a few enemies).
If you last 18 months of posting regularly and thoughtfully, you will probably deserve the success.
Wrapping Up
In my fourth article tomorrow, I will look briefly at some technical questions in positioning your blog on the Internet.
Many political bloggers have not got the basics right in my view - whether it is sticking for too long with a blog built on somebody else’s website, or having a web address targeted to North American traffic rather than visitors from the UK.
The upshot of that is that of the political bloggers profiled in Iain Dale’s Guide to Political Blogging published in the autumn of 2007, something well over half are stranded - like beached whales - on domains that are punished by Google UK in their search results.
Tags: principles to apply in political blogging, poliblog perspective
Dec
29
2007
The Pentagon website still carries a
week-old story "reassuring" soldiers that delays in Congressional funding won't mean any layoffs in the department of defence, but makes no mention of how George Bush's end-of-year veto will delay the implementation of a pay raise for soldiers which was due on New Year's Day.
UPDATE: On New Year's Eve, there is finally a Pentagon
announcement about the vetoed pay raise.
FINAL UPDATE: In fairness to the Pentagon, this story
straightforwardly notes that the veto is adversely affecting army recruitment because of the uncertainty it created about bonuses.
Dec
29
2007
A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start.
Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Omid Djalili and guest panellists Danny Baker and Julian Fellowes.
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If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems.
Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble
