A winter of discontent

Will South Shields see some snow (and how would we shop for it)?

Tomorrow’s Met Office forecast for the north-east:

Starting dry and chilly before cloud and rain, and snow over high ground, arrives from the south late morning. Then remaining cloudy with spells of rain or hill snow. Maximum temperature 5 °C.

It is unlikely to last and unlikely that we’ll see any in South Shields, and if man made global warming predictions are to be believed then our winters will be warmer and probably wetter as the Met Office has predicted that next year there will be a 50% chance that that global temperatures will hit an all-time high. However it is not my intention to go on a climate change bashing exercise in this post, El Nino is not the cause of my discontent either, but looking back some 30 -40 years to my childhood in South Shields winter was welcomed as a stark seasonal change.

Back then we didn’t have gas fired central heating in the home most of us kept warm around coal fires (even in the doctors’ and railway stations’ waiting rooms), neither did we enjoy some of the fabrics which make make our coats, socks, and shoes these days, in fact a duffle coat and a pair of wellington boots might have been the order of the day for most kids, and ready meals bought at a supermarket ready to radiate in a microwave oven simply did not exist, and neither did the microwave, as mothers skilled in home cooking served up large helpings of soups made from fresh vegetable and left over roasts (prepared with stock using the bones) to warm our bodies. Most children spent many hours out of doors in winter weather that was far different to what we have become used to in recent years, a few days of constant heavy snowfall would blanket South Shields transforming our landscapes and bringing a whole new set of adventures. Despite copious amounts of snow on the lines, trains still managed to carry their commuters from South Shields to Newcastle, often with  ice forming on the inside of the windows, trolley buses managed to get around town with only a few minor mishaps as overhead contacts were lost, schools remained open and all sorts of scrap pieces of wood were collected from the waste that shops were throwing out. It has to be said that some would use the wood to burn on open fires, whilst others with skilled dads could watch as sledges were fashioned by hand, and even the metal bands that were stripped from wooden barrels (that’s how your Lurpack was delivered to shops back then) was cut and nailed to the bottom to make your sledge an efficient runner.

For those without a home made sledge, a bread board was an excellent substitute, upturned its two inch lip could be drilled to accept a rope for rudimentary steering and a place to wedge small feet against as we hurtled down some of the steepest banks in the riverside area of town, places like Reid Street, Bertrum Street, and Barnes Road became treacherous for pedestrians and cars as we wore the snow and ice down to a glass like skating rink guaranteed to upend the unsuspecting! Then there were the posh kids, they had their own shop bought sledges (wooden) bought at Rippons or Clarkes, they could afford bus fare, or their parents had a car, they lived in posh areas like Cleadon Park and Marsden, for them Cleadon Hills or Blackberry Hill on the Coast Road were the preferred destinations of choice. Places that had even more snow than we seemed to have, deep, thick, crunchy on top, but soft below. The sort of snow that dived over the top of your wellies and left you with bright red sore welts at the end of the day, and the likelihood was that your fingers would be the same colour too as woollen gloves or mittens became sodden after forming and throwing so many snowballs, but not to worry, mother would have dragged the “tin bath” from the back yard and boiled copious pans of water to fill it as you soaked in front of the open sitting room fire to thaw out.

Tomorrow, if we suddenly got twelve inches of snow, I wonder just how many kids would (a) be allowed to play outside in it out of sight of parents (b) know how to make a well formed spherical snowball, (c) know how to control a sledge (if they have one), (d) would be accused of anti-social behaviour for throwing said snowballs, (e) know how to make a giant snowman, or (f) know how to drag themselves away from the Xbox 360? (Well after all their future career might depend upon it).

But even these minor moans of a grumpy old man are not the reason for my discontent, forget the fact that children would probably not be allowed to make “slides” in the playground for fear of contravening some inane health and safety regulation, forget the fact that paranoid parents won’t let Mary or Johnny go outside into a world pervaded by paedophiles, forget the fact  that PCSOs and Community Wardens see them all as anti-social yobs these days, forget the fact that diets will be dictated by the multi-national suppliers of Tesco and Sainsburys, but instead think about the so called mini uplift in retailing in South Shields.

We now have a Poundland in King Street and a new chemist shop, and a new fashion retailer for women, but if Mary and Johnny really want to go out and play in the snow how do we prepare for a possible winter of fun?

We still do not have one specialist children’s clothes shop since the demise of Adams in King Street and we haven’t had a specialist toy shop in South Shields of note for many years (Woolworths was the closest we could manage), if you really wanted to buy a wooden or plastic sledge these days you would have to jump in the car and get out out of South Shields to find one, come to think of it winter wellies for kids would be a problem too. We still need a quality tailor or men’s wear retailer, we need more butchers, we need a specialist giftware shop, an additional soft furnishing retailer, a decent stationer, and a model shop too. That dear friends is the reason for my discontent.

I appreciate the difficulties facing those responsible for rejuvenating the retail experience in South Shields town centre (which is still not helped hugely by its cheaper parking) especially in the depths of this recession, but as units start to become attractive to entrepreneurs we must be encouraging them to risk providing for obvious markets which are no longer catered for here. Shoppers need variety, and that variety helps to stem the drain of revenue to places outside of South Shields, it doesn’t help much by adding to what we already have, we need to be filling the gaps in the market that have been ignored for years. King Street does not need to be populated with phone shops, pound retailers, and charities.

End of rant.

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Dear Mandy

An open letter to Peter Mandelson regarding the newly announced Digital Economy Bill. Found this video on Twitter, hoping I help to make it viral.

Lyrics:

Dear Peter Mandelson,

I’ve been following your recent policy proposals, so now they’ve gone through, I thought I’d contribute some vocals. The focal point of my criticism’s the ridiculous decision to bring in a system where you flick a switch and disconnect the internet when it’s suspected that intellectual infringement has been detected, even if the relatives they live with definitely didn’t. I think it’s in your best interest to bin this, yes? ‘Cause isn’t it a respected institution that we’re considered innocent unless different is proven? Er, excuse me – how can you excuse exclusion when you’ve not pursued a definite conclusion?

You’re picking on the little man, the Lilliputian; now there’s a pain in my gulliver and it’s confusing. You’re swift to treat your citizens with such little human humour it’s no wonder that we’re disilliusioned. This resolution’s gonna end in revolution just like any other governance that doesn’t accept evolution. To be perfectly honest, m’lord, there’d be less intrusion if you curtly abolished the law and left us to it.

And why do games require safety ratings, but any age can see adult-aimed plays and paintings? It’s state censorship, the same as Beijing; but even China thinks a pirate isn’t worth the time of day for chasing. I think Chairman Mao would say the same thing – since you became secretary, it’s like the state’s your plaything. You made a massive sacrifice, invaded loads of privacy, but if I wanted to download, there’d be no hope of finding me. I could take my mobile phone to the local library, and utilise the free wireless to find the file I need. Then what are you going to try – to disconnect their ISP? You might as well just burn the books on rights to speech.

Dear Mandy, stay away from my family. Yours considerably angrily, Dan Bull. Dear Mandy, stay away from my family. Yours considerably angrily, Dan Bull.

Who’ll profit from the Digital Economy Bill? Not the public, but the profiteers probably will. Who’ll profit from the Digital Economy Bill? Not the public, but the puppeteers probably will. I’ve talked about how intellectual property kills and you’re still just concerned with who’s copping the bill. It’s quite obvious you’ve been lobbied until the copy holders got control, and you’re probably their shill. It’s not your problem when you’re positioned on top of the hill, in your property that probably cost a couple of mil. But wake up and smell the coffee, the milk is going off and you’re not bothered ’cause your coffers are filled.

Lord, it’s time you took an honesty pill, and acknowledged the majority aren’t horribly thrilled. So what if I watched a torrented comedy film? I don’t need to now my country’s just become a Brazil. You know the truth, Orwell spoke his views, your House broke the news and all Hell’s broken loose. The utopia we hoped for is overdue, so could you help out a little bit and don’t be stupid?

The onus is on you to show us you aren’t using your throne in a way the voters don’t approve. I know you’re very close to David Geffen, so maybe his interests have given you a hazed perception. Hey, do you reckon you’d win today’s election, considering you’re chasing this amidst a great recession? Deception’s the politician’s favourite weapon but we’re already jaded from one too many painful lessons.

Dear Mandy, stay away from my family. Yours considerably angrily, Dan Bull. Dear Mandy, stay away from my family.

Yours considerably angrily,
Dan Bull.

P.S. I love you, Mandy x

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Post Code prattishness

I find myself agreeing with a Lib-Dem and a socialist!

I never realised that a post code could be protected by copyright, and that Royal Mail was in the business of selling them or even resorting to litigation to protect their use. Have you considered how many websites there are in the UK that use post codes in their search utilities? You know, shops, supermarkets, online retailers, maps, etc. How many times have you gone to a major retailer’s site and entered your post code to find out where the nearest local branch is?

I find myself in total agreement with Lynne Featherstone MP and Tom Watson MP, free up the use of post codes and make the internet easier to use, more efficient, and more helpful.

Royal Mail’s big stick approach and it’s clumsy licensing system is prattishness of the highest order (in my humble opinion.

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Does our Foreign policy lead to torture?

Human Rights Watch condemns British role in Pakistan

Whilst David Miliband the Foreign Secretary and South Shields MP battle with High Court judges to keep the whole of the Binyam Mohamed affair tightly under wraps the campaigning Human Rights Watch puts additional pressure on the Foreign Office and the government’s legal machinery over our role in the questioning of terror suspects in Pakistan.

Researchers at the New York-based NGO spoke to Pakistani intelligence agents directly involved in the torture who say their British counterparts knew they were mistreating British terrorism suspects. These agents said British officials were “breathing down their necks for information” while they were torturing a medical student from London, and that British intelligence officers were “grateful” they were “using all means possible” to extract information from a man from Luton being beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill.

“UK complicity is clear,” the report says, adding that it had put the government in a “legally, morally and politically invidious position”.

Torture is generally regarded as counter productive, does not produce good intelligence or evidence, and provides the opportunity for suspects to say whatever their torturers want to hear in order to put an end to their degradations. It is the last vestige of the bestial, it is the behaviour of the monster, and has no place in any modern liberal western democracy or it’s foreign arms.

An independent judicial inquiry into torture claims must be instigated and people must be held to account for their actions (or inaction), the Conservatives, the Liberal-Democrats have added themselves to a growing list of people calling for an inquiry into Britain’s role. Others queing up to pressure the government include parliament’s joint committee on human rights, Amnesty International, and the former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald. Lord Carlile, the government’s independent reviewer of counter terrorism legislation, Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff, and Lord King of Bridgwater, a former Conservative defence and Northern Ireland Secretary.

It is time for David Miliband and Baroness Scotland to accede to these demands.

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Jones must resign – Monbiot

UK’s leading environmentalist calls for Professor’s resignation

George Monbiot, for long the doyen of UK green activists and environmentalists, has called for the resignation of Professor Phil Jones the man at the centre of the scandal that has hit the University of East Anglia’s Cimate Research Unit (CRU). Monbiot said yesterday:

‘There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a Freedom of Information request.

‘Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.’

Whilst many commentators have hung on to Jones’ words regarding “a trick” of adding in temperatures to a series of data going back 20 years few have attached importance to the reason, an apparent decline in temperatures shown in another scientist’s study of tree rings over the same period.

Meanwhile the media has swung into action with more alarmist climate change stories to help bury the bad news from the CRU as world leaders try to hammer out a deal in Copenhagen (most of them flying there of course) the BBC has this story which supports the theory that climate change causes more African wars in warmer years, and this article about a Met Office projection that 2009 could be one of the warmest years on record. Meanwhile at The Express we learn that hundreds of ice bergs are floating away from Antartcia towards New Zealand and that they are a potential hazard for shipping (but apparently Captain James Cook had to navigate around the same problems back in 1773).

Whilst I still remain sceptical about the claimed scientific consensus on global warmimg/climate change it appears that I am little different to the average man or woman in South Shields, in the latest opinion poll for The Times on the heated subject, it was revealed that less than half of us believe that man is to blame for any rise in global temperatures. The scientists and politicians who have campaigned for policy change clearly have a whole lot of convincing to do yet, and they need to be far more open, transparent, and honest with their work if they wish to succeed.

Certainly in the area of “peer review” there needs to be good open honest scrutiny as Mt Eugenides demonstrates over in The Devil’s Kitchen with a very insightful post, may I recommend you to take a read?

There has still been no reaction from South Tyneside’s Green blogging community to what Monbiot has described as a “hard knock” which has left him “dismayed and deeply shaken”.

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Homecoming Parade for TA heroes

Parade at South Shields Town Hall this Sunday

I am delighted that this homecoming parade is taking place in South Shields and I hope that as many people as possible from South Shields, South Tyneside and the surrounding area will turn out to welcome the five members of the Territorial Army who have just completed six months service in the troubled Afghanistan province of Helmand. The parade and march past in front of the Mayor of South Tyneside by TA soldiers from 205 Battery Royal Artillery, based in Horsley Hill, South Shields, and the 12th Company of the 4th battalion Parachute Regiment (Volunteers) will be led by the Pipes and Drums of 101 Regiment and starts at 12:30 -  a great opportunity for all of us to express our thanks for their commitment and professionalism.

I was at the March meeting of South Tyneside Borough Council when a unanimous decision was taken to arrange this parade after opposing councillors gracefully accepted each other’s amendments to the original resolution. It was one of those rare occasions in the council chamber at South Shields Town Hall when unity counted for far more than dissent, and with no need to introduce politics, sentiment, personal circumstances, family or friends’ opinions, pro war or anti war positions, – it was a real pleasure to see each and every one of our councillors wanting to support this kind of public measure which displays our appreciation and honour for our armed forces wherever they have been sent to serve.

So it is with great disappointment that I see one political group appearing to steal a march on the show by almost single handedly claiming credit for the parade. One of my commenters has just emailed me the link to the piece which reads:

Almost 8 months later the South Tyneside Independents are proud to announce that a civic reception and homecoming parade for veterans from the borough will be held on Sunday 29th November.

You can find the link to their website in the side bar, just why they think they have some prior right to proudly make an announcement on behalf of the whole council, nay on behalf of the whole borough, is quite beyond me. The council has made an announcement non politically, on our behalf. The South Tyneside Independents may be as happy as any other group on the council but to almost claim credit is a travesty and does a great disservice to all those who either supported their amendment, changed their own resolutions, or altered their words in order to find amicable unanimity. This is an occasion where the people of South Tyneside can claim credit for all their own pride in our armed services, an occasion where the petty politics can be left at home thank you very much!

Update

In a magnanimous gesture, the admin person (now who could that be) at the South Tyneside Independents website has agreed to change the wording in their post  -to keep politics out of the issue.

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Do you worry about what Johnny gets up to on his X Box?

Game consoles with internet connectivity open new worlds to kids

Just as you start getting concerned that young Johnny is spending far too much time playing multi-player online games on his X Box Live console, instead of concentrating on his homework to boost Ofsted’s measurements of South Shields’ schools, your fears are instantly allayed. (Come to think of it I’ve even seen games consoles installed in staff relaxation areas of local companies.)

He’s only wanting to do his bit for Queen and country!

“GCHQ is keen to recruit a diverse range of people – many of whom will not have considered this type of work, or even be aware they might be in demand by the intelligence services. Many gamers have the right skills and we know they’re particularly receptive to advertising within their space. With this in mind we hope we can encourage even more people to investigate the many career opportunities at GCHQ.”

And there was me repeatedly reminding “Junior” that life is not like a game!

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Is climate change consensus collapsing?

“Hacked” emails may shed new light on scientific community

I’ve had a busy day today helping shop for Christmas, primarily with “Junior” in mind and also doing some heavy processing of pictures of an engine bay from a large motor, but I had not intended to make a post today. However the revelations over the past few days about the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and the “hacked” emails prompted me to take a look around the mainstream media and the other local environmental blogs in South Shields to try and find out what all the fuss was about.

Essentially the CRU appears to have been at the least complicit in an underhand campaign to modify data to suit the climate change agenda, and the scenario plays nicely into the hands of the sceptics who are more used by now to being labelled deniers. Without any great surprise I learn that the BBC treats the story as any other sort of data loss news and quickly relegated it down the pages and buried it, likewise The Times, and The Guardian quickly found someone to turn the tables by Sunday.

I am admittedly one of those still waiting to be wholly and fully convinced that any global warming is primarily caused by the human race burning fossil fuels and overloading the upper atmosphere with greenhouse gases, I too am sceptical that a new quasi religion has spread throughout the western liberal world and found an ideal way to raise additional taxation to spend as politicians please, and more to the point blame us for causing them to do it. I am one who wonders why contrary arguments are derided as though they were propounded by heretics and that scientists with alternate theories over global temperature change cannot find ways to have their work peer reviewed, or are removed from committees and symposiums as though they are suffering from leprosy.

Little wonder then that this particular story is being quickly dropped by the mainstream media and television stations in particular, if the released emails are genuine, and so far nobody has made a firm denial that they are, then it would be appropriate as former Chancellor Lord Lawson suggests today that a fully independent inquiry into the climate change methodologies used by British scientists should be launched immediately.

Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.

Healthy reasoned debate needs to take place between the scientists and the politicians in an effort to ascertain finally whether or not there is a real consensus or whether it was always bogus. James Delingpole at The Daily Telegraph has already stuck his neck out and started a discussion calling it “Climategate (yuk) how the MSM reported the greatest scandal in modern science”, and had a further 400 odd contributors in this article. Iain Dale was one of those who started the ball rolling in the blogosphere and he has linked to Devil’s Kitchen where there is a mass of posts about the CRU affair including news that the Tax Payers Alliance is to report the University of East Anglia’s CRU to the Information Commissioner for what appears to be a deliberate attempt to breach the Freedom of Information Act.

Bishop Hill is busy trawling through the emails with painstaking effort, you can find a searchable database of them here.

Steve McIntyre the renowned climate change sceptic says in this post that the biggest loser is science itself and that the “peer review” system can no longer be trusted:

The next global warming believer who raises “peer review” as a defence of global warming deserves to be metaphorically tarred and feathered and laughed at for the rest of his or her natural life.

In a separate post he revealed that:

The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight that his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to be genuine.

In an exclusive interview, Jones told TGIF, “It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

So we know that the emails were genuine, and that data has been amended, that FOI requests have been interfered with and results skewed or even deleted, journals have been destroyed and sceptical scientists have had their university affiliations denied, and these are just at the tip of a very large iceberg!

So wanting to know how South Shields environmental activists were reacting to the “death of science” this weekend, I went in search of comment at Tyne Dock Green, Rossinisbird, Shirley Ford, and the South Tyneside Green Party, sadly they haven’t found time to address the issue. However, I ought to reiterate what some in the climate change camp are saying, and that is that the hacked emails do not in themselves prove any conspiracy exists, and that the scientists are not proven to be in the pay of some multi-national secretive group driving a hidden agenda. I do say though, that what they do reveal is a real need for more openness and honesty with public and politicians, and a methodology which plays directly into the hands of those who are yet to be convinced.

I am not surprised in the least that this has not become the major news story over the weekend, after all a climate disaster that breaks bridges in Cumbria is far more important than a few scientists fiddling the figures used by politicians to raise revenues all over the western world. Nor am I surprised that the new spin on the story is all about the ethics and legality of the release of the emails – funny there were no such responses when emails were leaked from politicians surrounding the Prime Minister, politicians are fair game scientists and academics apparently are not.

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It’s time to stop covering up

Miliband’s stand smacks of big government.

The involvement of the Foreign Secretary and South Shields MP David Miliband in the ongoing legal wrangles involving Binyam Mohamed and a panel of judges at the High Court is beginning now to look unseemly, and smacks of “big government” determined to have it’s way and protect the public from knowing just how involved Britain is in using medieval torture methods to gain what we think is “intelligence”. The longer he holds out the faster he loses the argument that we are fighting abroad to protect ourselves at home, no person of sanity can possibly accept that torture and abuse of human rights is acceptable in any western liberal democracy or society, and if it is abundantly clear that we condone such methodologies then we ought not to be surprised that we become the legitimate target for retaliation.

The judges revealed that seven paragraphs in a key document Miliband insists must remain secret “relate to admissions of what officials of the US did to BM during his detention in Pakistan”. They repeated their earlier finding that “what is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.

The court has heard that a British security service officer interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan and officials passed information about him to the CIA. It was clear, the judges said, that the relationship of the UK to the US in connection with Mohamed “was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing”.

In one stinging passage, the judges said yesterday the foreign secretary “was not prepared either to produce evidence or address argument to us”.

This is not a sustainable position for Miliband or the government to make a stand on and his repeated rebuff to the High Court damages the reputation of Britain and our position in the world as being a place where justice is seen to be fair, one would hope that he might be prepared instead to reject the advice being offered to him by the security services and accede to the requests of the court.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary Ed Davey has said of the case:

“The Government’s claim that this evidence would endanger national security looks more flimsy than ever. David Miliband must end this shameful episode now and allow the judges to publish the redacted material from their judgement.

“It is especially galling that the Foreign Office has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money in an attempt to cover up the truth.”

On December 10, 1948, The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights set out that all people anywhere in the world are entitled to basic rights: life, liberty and security, religious and political expression, freedom from torture and cruelty. Britain is a signatory to this landmark UN Declaration and Miliband must be reminded of this fact, God forbid that one day soon when Amnesty International gathers together evidence for it’s annual report on nations abusing human rights that the UK will be featuring prominently within it along with the USA.

We cannot be seen to be totally Janus headed over the issue of human rights and have a Foreign Secretary bemoaning the failures of others if we are just as involved ourselves.

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