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Tavistock Place – Marchmont Street – CCTV

A little while ago, rather than re-educate drivers, cyclists and pedestrians; or enforce existing traffic violations, Camden Council chose to realign a pelican crossing and ban left-turns from Tavistock Place (eastbound) into Marchmont Street.

There aren’t any signs proclaiming that there are new priorities and road changes. Sometimes the police would spend time on a junction like this to help with the education. Not here. For the last few days there has been a little black CCTV car, operated by Camden Council. Don’t accidentally turn left – or you’ll be nabbed.

Nick Clegg, Porn and Light

Yes, it’s time to look at the news from today…

Clegg defiant against the voters

An odd day to read the news, Nick Clegg says people should not “write off” the Lib Dems, despite them slumping to sixth place in the Barnsley Central by-election.

“”In truth it was a no contest for any non-Labour candidate,” … “It was a very safe Labour seat. Labour got a huge majority on an abysmally-low turnout and everybody else was left to pick up the pieces.”

So, if we take that literally, Nick Clegg doesn’t pay attention to what the polls say unless it suits him. I’d rather expect that, as a champion of a new way of politics, he’d take a more measured view of what the people think.

Smith upsets Letts by talking about pornography.

Jackie Smith’s programme about pornography on BBC Radio 5 Live was a hoot. Though I am still left wondering whether her comment that all those shelves of women being objectified and degrading themselves equally means that gay porn is men degrading and objectifying themselves? Barely a smattering of complaints, according to Ofcom, so it went down well, with the listeners at least, but not with Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail. You know the old adage, if you don’t like it don’t watch it? Well, that applies to listening too. Poor old (well, nearly 50) Letts mustn’t have enjoyed listening to “Porn Again”, judging by his reaction in the paper:

“Little Miss Brassy barged her way on to the publicly-funded airwaves last night to present a breathy, oh-so-daring radio programme about pornography.”

“The point of the exercise, purportedly, was to report and inform. Pull the other one. The aim here was titillation and self-promotion.”

“Did the title of the show, ‘Porn Again’, not say it all? A jokey pun, and quest for a second chance. Miss Smith yearns to turn herself into a media celebrity. The BBC wanted to pull in the viewers by having a former Home Secretary say ‘t*ts’ on air.”

Let’s get this right, Letts points out that the programme title should have said it all. I’m struggling to understand how the man who wrote “Bog Standard Britain”, a book about how critical correctness has “crushed the individualism from our nation of once indignant eccentrics” has the gall to whinge when a programme tailored exactly to those eccentrics surfaces.

That same Quentin Letts who wants to flatten town centres, and replace them with houses, because the town centre is ‘dead’.

That same Quentin Letts who is frequently welcomed onto the airwaves of the BBC (particularly Radio Four), to come up with pious shite such as this gem:

“I was just thinking about the Olympics. My feeling about the Olympic Games is that it should be about games, it should be about sport, it should be about men running the 100 yards or the 100 metres and it should be about enormous Russian women putting the shot and it shouldn’t be – at least we think they’re women – and it shouldn’t be – it shouldn’t be about the arts. And it horrifies me when this whole thought of the cultural olympiad gives me a bit of a shiver.”

I’m sure those Russian women putting the shot would love to give you a shiver.

[Any Q’s 25^th January 2008 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/anyquestions_transcripts_20080125.shtml]

More Porn!

Staying with Pornography, since it’s topical, an article from the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362646/Northwest-University-investigate-sex-toy-demonstration-Faith-Kroll.html

It would appear that Northwest University in Chicago has been getting a lot of attention over a sex-display after class, the President of the school is upset, and the right-wing media are setting themselves up to wet themselves over it, but secretly wish they were there, no doubt.

Before we get to the details, the article tells us that the University is one of the top ones, and it charges about 40,000 US Dollars per year to learn. There was a video shown in a “Human Sexuality” class, and the students felt it was not realistic. Thankfully, the guest lecturer, said he could organise a couple to demonstrate a sex toy, and the female orgasm. Attendance was optional, strong warnings on the explicit nature given, and a handful of students left, leaving around 100 behind to watch and behold.

There was a video clip going around the internet a few years ago, where power-tool style sex toys were being used by a woman, and in this case, that’s what was chosen as the tool to display sex toys and the female orgasm.

The president of the University says it was poor judgement. Unfortunately, for many women and quite a lot of men, the education on the female orgasm was worth more than the lesson itself.

Naked Women!

Speaking of Pornography, the newspaper really doesn’t know which side of the fence to sit on, as it displays “Olympic Water Babes” naked, underwater. Their snapper used a Nikon D300, apparently, though I rather expect that any men reading are more interested in the names and ages of the athletes – thankfully the Mail has given a handy key to that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1362768/Meet-Britains-Olympic-water-babes-whove-shed-inhibitions-costumes.html

And Finally…

Tensions were growing today after the Sun reported from a soldier that the MoD paid £22.51 for a light bulb worth 65p.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/3445710/Ministry-of-Defence-pay-22-for-65p-lightbulb.html

Unfortunately the invoice printed in the paper does not display whether the invoice is for £22.51 or 22.51p. Big difference. Not sure why we only get such a small snippet to make it quite so impossible to give the story legitimacy, either.

Liam Fox was uppity though, lambasting Labour for waste. Yes, 11 months after the general election, Cameron, Duncan-Smith, Hague, Clegg and Fox still can’t quite get their head around the fact that they should have had more of an impact by now. That said, I am worried why the Government are rushing to throw the baby out with the bathwater, without investigating other efficiencies they can make – such as reducing the cost of the bloody lightbulbs!

Where is Gaydar Radio on Sky?

As of 18 February 2011 Gaydar Radio is no longer available on Sky in the UK. The audience reach for the station on Sky wasn’t enough to justify the cost of providing the service.

That leaves the Gaydar Radio website, iPhone app or DAB radio in London and Brighton as the only ways to catch the station.

Currently, Gaydar Radio is still broadcasting its signal to the satellite, but as Sky are not listing it, the station long longer appears in the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).

To get Gaydar Radio (for the short while until the transmission is wound down), go to the “services” menu on the Sky Remote control, and navigate to the “Add Channels” section. On Sky+HD it’s in the options section.

The information you need to put in is:

Frequency: 11.224
Polarisation: V (Vertical)
Symbol Rate (Mbaud): 27.5 or 27500
FEC (Forward Error Correction): 2/3

Search for channels, and if Gaydar Radio appears in the list, go to it and follow the on-screen instructions to add the channel, and remember to store your selection.

It’s difficult to say how long Gaydar Radio will be available using Sky or Freesat receivers using the Eurobird 1 satellite, which is at 28.5 degrees East. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Welcome to 2011

You know you’ve hit the ultimate consumer society when the Wii is advertised as a way to keep fit and “burn off those Christmas pounds”.

Kate Adie Values The Arts

Kate Adie - image: Steve Brock

Dear Friend,

I am so pleased that, like me, you are supporting I Value the Arts. The campaign aims to provide a voice for everyone who values the arts in their community and it has now received 16,430 pledges of support. This is great news, and a true reflection of how cultural services are an integral part of every community. However, in light of recent developments it is now more important than ever that everyone has the opportunity to sign up. I would like you to help raise the profile of the I Value the Arts campaign and get more people involved. It is vital that you get in touch with as many people as you can and ask them to pledge their support at www.ivaluethearts.org.uk

As you may know, the recent Comprehensive Spending Review left local councils facing an average cut of 28 per cent. The non-statutory status of local funding for cultural services has meant that the arts sector is left vulnerable to bear the brunt of these local authority cuts.

Unfortunately last month, Somerset County Council became the first local authority to announce that it was axing all of its arts funding. Not only has this signalled a cultural decline for the county itself, it has also set a precedent for other local authorities to follow suit.

The arts are an easy target for cuts, and the repercussions of Somerset _ s decision are already being felt. Darlington Borough Council is preparing to withdraw the subsidy from Darlington Civic Theatre and the Darlington Arts Centre; which may lead to their closure, as it attempts to trim £22m from its £107m budget. The arts in Rochdale are also facing significant cuts, as budgets for all parts of the arts and heritage service are to be severely reduced, often by 50 per cent.

To prevent lasting damage being done to the arts, I Value the Arts has given supporters in affected areas relevant and useful information about plans for the arts in their community with practical suggestions about how they can make a difference. Of course, the more signatories we have, the more people there are to take action. So please, forward this email to as many people as you can and ask them to pledge their support at: www.ivaluethearts.org.uk

The more support we have the louder our voice and the louder we shout the more likely we are to be heard.

For more information about the campaign, go to www.ivaluethearts.org.uk or you can call the National Campaign for the Arts on 020 7287 3777

Thanks for your support

Kate Adie
Chair, National Campaign for the Arts

Red Ed? Someone called that one wrong.

“My speech was seen and heard on the BBC and in the interests of impartiality and fairness, so the prime minister’s should be.”
Ed Miliband.

Sorry, Ed, I missed it. I’ll probably miss Cameron’s too. No hardship, I missed the Liberal Democrat leader’s speech. Greens and UKIP too!

Party Leader speeches are just over-rated opportunities for the leader to spout bollocks in front of an affirmed supportive audience. To make themselves look good.

To choose who I want to lead the UK, I pay attention to what’s said by the leaders of each party when in more impartial settings than their own party party where the leader of the gang gives a parting serenade of gratitude, proving how manly and heroic he is, that the leader is better than the man who invented the next best thing since sliced bread. It’s the last dance, so to speak. Then we all clap gratefully for the cameras.

The BBC going on strike and not broadcasting this bollocks from every leader would probably do the country a whole favour about now.

73

Take the 73 in London. There’s a lovely posh lady telling you the name of each bus stop before you reach it.

Euston Square Station gets a special addittion – “Alight here for University College Hospital”.

Isn’t that a little confusing though, when the next stop is called “Universtiy College Hospital”?

Lynne Featherstone and the Coalition

I listened to Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone on Friday gone, as she told the TUC’s LGBT conference that she fully supported them. This talk was followed by a Q&A session, cut very short because she had more important things to do.

The questioning, as you might expect, was slanted towards “why have the Liberals got into bed with the Tories so readily?”. To be very honest, I have yet to hear a convincing answer. According to Featherstone, it’s our own fault because of the way we voted. How demeaning.

There was a lot of talk about the Tories’ past record on LGBT rights. Featherstone said we should not judge the ConDems on their past but on the way they are behaving now. At the same time, however, the ConDems are quick to blame a lot of things on Labour.

Featherstone, as Minister for Equalities, was largely dismissive of delegates concerns over the partnership. The Liberals and the Tories do have different viewpoints on equality issues, so there is no real surprise at the contention. There is surprise at the reaction of the committed Liberals, who on the face of it don’t seem to be able to comprehend that those of us with an interest in equalities can not understand why the Liberals got into bed with the regressive party on that aspect.

Bearing in mind that this opposition to the ConDem relationship is quite apparent, and anyone with half a brain cell would be able to guess that a room full of Trade Unionists from an LGBT background would be more than willing to voice this opposition, why was Featherstone quite so surprised by the grilling she got?

Had the ConDems done research, and rubbed their empty heads together, perhaps they would have figured it out, and briefed the MP so she could pretend at least to understand the views she was being given. It would have been much more helpful if, as an Equalities minister, she understood the views she was being given in the first place.

To quote the Mirror, it’s a Con Dem Nation now.

VAT Time Bomb

VAT in the UK will rise to 20 percent come January 2011, as announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer today.

George Osborne MP announced the tax rise whilst flanked on either side by Liberal Democrat MPs.

I was reminded of this advert from the Liberal Democrats back in April this year.

Campaign against something in April, get elected in May, and do the exact opposite in June. That’s good going.

Holborn Tram Station

I forgot to upload this a while ago. Anyone who’s been around Holborn will have noticed the old ramp down to the tram station, and wondered what was below Kingsway.

Behold the solution to London’s transport problems. One complete shell for a station. Yeah, the DDA and narrow platforms may be an issue, but isn’t that just a great arterial route waiting to be used.

But no, it’s being used as storage for Crossrail.