there will be blood - but hey, no pressure

some dangerous lunatics who call themselves the 10:10 Climate Change Campaign have put out a film, featuring children being murdered, in the name of climate change awareness.  This initiative was supported by the Guardian (who else?) but has now been taken off their site.  You can watch it here if you want, but don't eat first.  The film is called No Pressure and was directed by Richard Curtis, you know, Love Actually, blah blah blah, he is a Jolly Good Chap.  Several well-known people have been misguided enough to appear in the film - the footballer Peter Crouch among others.  Why, Peter?  Apart from the moral question that is raised by the use of child murder as a metaphor (in the film children who are not convinced by the prevailing orthodoxy on climate change are murdered and their body parts splattered over their classmates, nice), the premise of the film is nothing short of evil.  It posits, quite simply, that those who disagree with you, or even those who are not convinced that what you say is true, should be killed.  Including if they are children.  That's it.  I cannot understand how anyone who has taken even a cursory look at the history of the last hundred years could think this was a good idea.  Cannot understand.  I can understand very well just why the Guardian thought it was a good idea, because I know what they are, but... the film was withdrawn and a 10:10 spokesperson said this was because people had been offended by it.  No.  Just no.  I watched it and was offended by it, but that is NOT a reason to withdraw it.  And in any case these days there is no withdrawing anything.  The film can easily be found on YouTube.

For shame.

reading

not the town in Berkshire (this time) but the activity of consuming words with the brain.  Norm links to an article by a James Collins in the New York Times who says he does not remember the books he reads, and wonders if he should be concerned about that.  A Prominent Neurologist says he shouldn't, that the data from the books he cannot remember are still there somewhere in his brain, and that he is a different person as a result.  Or something.  I am not clever enough to understand all this Scientific Stuff.  When I was a child my mother called me a "bookworm" because I read a lot.  But it wasn't true.  I did read a lot, but I understood very little of what I read, and for me until at least my teens, and possibly much older, it was the physical activity of reading I enjoyed - I quite often found the text boring, especially if it was hard to understand, either because it was intended for readers older than me or just because I wasn't clever enough to understand it.  I liked the autonomy reading gave me.  It was something you did that no-one else could do for you, that you could do either on your own or when other people were around, and no-one could watch you doing it and say you were doing it wrong.  You didn't get marks for it at school after the age of about eight either.  When I got good reports at primary school my parents said the teacher was stupid and hadn't understood that I Wasn't Clever and Couldn't Do Maths.  When I got bad ones, which I did quite often later on, my parents said they Always Knew.  You will gather from this that I am Not The Clever One in my family.  The picture above (hat-tip Martha) shows me in my 20s doing what I typically did then. Anyway, a few months ago my daughter posted quite a lot of old family pictures on her Facebook page, and in almost all of them I am reading a book.  Some of the ones without me in them have a book on a table, which I know I was reading on the day the picture was taken.  But I cannot remember those books, although I know I read them.  So since I looked at that album of photos I have been keeping a reading notebook.  It is one of these:

Moleskine.  I use them all the time  My reading one is a red hard-cover plain page one my son gave me for Christmas (my family have now worked out that a notebook, Moleskine for preference but any will do, is a present which will always make me happy) and I write down, not so much what I think of what I am reading, but what is happening in it, what the writer is doing or trying to do, and I quote from it, with page numbers.  Sometimes I post reviews of books I have read, as regular readers of this blog will know.  If I didn't have to go to work I would do a lot more of this.  If I don't have my reading notebook with me I write on my iPad, whose Notes app is rather handy (my iPad is always with me)

and then post straight from there.  I wish I had done all this (the paper notebook part anyway) when I was younger.  At home my reading and writing place is the corner of the kitchen, and sometimes I go in there and look at my notebooks and a sigh of pure happiness escapes me.  Anyway.  Where was I?  Ah yes, the process of reading.  There has been a revolution - we can read on e-books now - but the process of reading stays the same as it has always been.  I will post another time about e-reading: I am an early adopter of technology and have had a Sony book reader for quite a long time now, it looks like this (below left).  I don't read much on the iPad because our non-globalised   

markets mean I have to have iBooks.fr - I do read French but there is almost nothing in English there, so not much I want.  I read newspapers on the iPad, especially The Times (I am now behind the Murdoch Paywall of Death), which is excellent.  W.H. Smith inform me that I can no longer purchase e-reading from them, as they now insist on a UK billing address for purchases.  Dingbats.  The Frankfurt Book Fair is currently in progress, and despite the saccharine reporting and thinly disguised product pitches that pass for coverage of that event, it seems that the publishing world is imploding.  Nobody knows how much to charge for e-books, given that most of the cost of a book is in the printing and distribution.  A clue:  a lot less than now.  None of the publishers, despite their hype, knows what to think.  Ha ha ha.  So they are all trying to kill each other.  Ha ha ha.  When I first got my book reader something over two years ago I changed my attitude to the paper books I possess.  I got rid of some, and will get rid of more, probably, but I know which writers I love and will always read, and hope there will be more (the subject of a later post I expect) and have them mostly in hardback, and before I die will have them all in hardback I hope and believe.  Paperback books may die off as a result.  Good (probably).  My first idea for e-book reading: wouldn't it be nice to be able to download a poem for about 50p?

More to come.  

did he do this on purpose?

Basher has posted what is below, which I reproduce in full and invite my more thoughtful readers to consider. The only direction in which I would point them is to the indication that RBC was first told that Wokingham was starting a review on 26th March, before this year's election, when Reading was still under Labour control, and when Fatboy Hartley was still the Cabinet member for education. The officer concerned indicates that papers were circulated for that meeting, and Fatboy would have received those papers - I am quite sure the officer is correct in saying that there was no specific information in those papers, but was not the fact that Wokingham were starting a review enough to set off alarm bells? Maybe even use it as an election campaign issue? No. Fatboy, notoriously lazy, did not read the papers, or if he did he did nothing about them. Shouting about them now will not wash. Or is Basher using this to expose Fatboy for the lazy fat-arse he is? I think we should be told.



Questions have been asked about when Reading Borough Council knew that Wokingham Borough Council were going to propose changes to the Maiden Erlegh Catchment Area.

Jon Hartley, Labour Councillor; Park Ward, has asked Reading Officers to confirm when they were aware of the changes. They confirm that Wokingham advised them in June that changes to the catchment area were proposed. While not for now, as we are where we are, however this date asks questions of Tory Councillor Mark Ralph's commitment to Reading's residents as this would have been one of the first things across his desk in coming to his role as Lead Councillor for education.

The officer's full response to Jon's question is attached below for your information.

---------- Forwarded message ----------


From: Wright, Anna
Date: 30 September 2010 13:35

Subject: RE: Reading Borough Council involvement in Wokingham's

Designated Area Review

To: "Hartley, JonX">

Dear Jon

I have consulted with colleagues and can clarify that we were invited to

an initial meeting at Wokingham to discuss their review on 26 March

2010. Noone from Reading went to that meeting as it was billed as a set

up meeting covering terms of reference etc. The papers were circulated,

but no proposals for change were contained in them and the meeting just

covered background information.

The next meeting officers attended was on 13 May 2010 when the over

subscription criteria were discussed and the focus was on Wokingham town

centre schools in the main, in particular Holt and Forest.

The meeting concerning designated areas for all Wokingham secondary

schools was held on 10 June 2010 and at this meeting we first learned

Wokingham's plans for changing the DA of Maiden Erlegh.

Best wishes

Anna

........................................................................

...............

Anna Wright

Director of Education and Children's Services

Reading Borough Council

pants on fire - again

Cllr John Ennis, Salter's boy, has been at it again.  All blogs are a presentation of the author as the author wants to be presented, well, mostly, but there is no point in publishing straight lies.  You will be found out and ridiculed or worse.  Ennis has done it here:

Ed is enthusiastic and motivated to lead a new party into a new era. Yes we have to acknowledge the wrongs of our past Government, such as the Iraq War says who?  and why didn't Salter vote against it then, though he told us he did?, not winning the argument over immigration and the 10p tax debacle .However, let us not forget the three general election victories of 1997, 2001 and 2005 when Martin Salter had a 9.000 plus majority for Labour in Reading West due to raising living standards and promoting full employment.


The highest majority Martin Salter achieved was in 2001, when it was 8,849.  In 2005 it was 4,672.  Lies and the lying liars who tell them.  Remember that when he asks for your vote.  Liar.

In a shock move too, Independent Jones tells us he has rejoined the Labour Party, and that he is quite fond of Cllr Ennis.  Who would not be my choice of supper companion, he would probably tell you the meat was beef when it was wildebeest or domestic cat, but there you go.

stalker watch

this site is cyber-stalking (and possibly worse) the head of the student body at the University of Ann Arbor Michigan.  but even worse, the author of the site is the deputy District Attorney of that state!  Can this be right/legal/allowed to continue?  Michigan is one of the US states which allows people to be fired from their job for being, or apparently being, gay or transgender, but this person is an officer of the law, effectively.  Stop it now.  Hat-tip Chris.

Ed Miliband is to...

Someone commented after the leadership election that comparing with the Tories Labour had skipped William Hague and gone straight to IDS. Possibly. I suspect that Mili-E is the Segolene Royal of British politics. Remember her - she was presidential candidate in France in 2007, and one of the less clever things she did was go to Lebanon and be pictured drinking tea and nodding and smiling with a bunch of Hamas terrorists. She says in her book that the interpreter didn't translate everything, so she didn't know what they were saying at the time. No excuse, Sego. You should have taken your own interpreter, or learned Arabic, for f***'s sake.

Anyway, seems that Ed has attended the Labour Friends of Palestine annual reception. Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say. No, but, well, use a long spoon... However, he spoke and was pictured in front of an al-Aqsa banner. You know the chaps, Jew-haters and Holocaust deniers. Oh yes. Oh no.

he wants a job!

I am much indebted to a correspondent for pointing me in this direction.  If I am looking for a job, or applying for one, I send my CV of course, as everyone must,  but having it linked to by some bloke (Basher of course) who is also unemployed and with a record of violent behaviour seems an odd way of getting it out there.  Have a look - Mr Salter describes  himself as good at "crisis management".  Crisis?  What crisis?  Oh and one of Mr S's referees is John Denham MP - I hope he is happy to have his name bandied about like this.  Dear oh dear, well I declare.  Readers' views most welcome.  I always think CVs make fascinating reading, but I wouldn't publish mine on line, it might end up on a blog not necessarily designed to be helpful to me.