This man speaks pure Geordie.

No corruption after over twenty years in Oz!

Amazing really, left South Shields twenty odd years ago after a career in the Royal Navy to make a new life in Australia, his professional position often takes him to Hong Kong and the USA, but unlike many others who manage to acquire a Cockney accent after 12 months in Putney, or a mid Atlantic accent after three years in New Hampshire “Andy” sounds as though he’s just stepped off the No. 42 bus from Henderson Road.

This photograph was taken last night in The Beacon on The Lawe, South Shields where a few of us gathered to meet and greet the man who reputedly fiddled around on with Freddie Flintoff’s lap top during the last Ashes tour! The small crowd who were there to greet “Andy” are all members of the Curly’s Corner Shop Message Board, the busiest little online facility in this part of the world for Sanddancers, ex-pats, and foreigners to get together for a friendly chinwag. “Andy” is back in South Shields with his wife and daughter to visit his mother, and on Sunday we will be hunting down David Miliband down at The Stadium of Light to request that he recommends “Andy” for some sort of special award for resisting the onslaught of “strine” for so long. He knows exactly where his Geordie roots and culture come from and he does his very best to export our hospitality, generosity, and common sense to our cousins down under.

As far as adapting to Oz cultures and habits “Andy” said he couldn’t give a XXXX!

Welcome home Andy.

Btw, can I recommend the Deuchars IPA.

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CCTV isn’t working!

“Big Brother” cannot save us from crime

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

Well, no surprises here then.

I’ve been beating this drum for two years at least now and my opposition is based on the same perceptions as those revealed by Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit, with a few other points to add.

CCTV cameras are all around us, there are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands in South Shields alone, on streets, in buses, on Metro trains, in the train stations, in shops and offices and public buildings, they were put there by some over officious clowns who thought that they would make us feel safer as went about our lives. They thought that the cameras would be a great deterrent against crime, something in which they have singularly failed. They are the apparatus of the Big Brother state a tool that will eventually develop into the creation of another great database, this time collating our images as our lives are recorded for the greater safety of mankind.

Criminals have no fear of CCTV cameras, we see pictures almost daily on television screens and in newspapers asking if we “recognise these faces”, the camera did no prevent the execution of the crime, the deterrent failed, it’s only use now is as a (fairly poor) investigative tool. Hence the calls now for the development and building of yet another dangerous piece in the surveillance society’s armoury, the digital image database.

It’s time for our politicians to wake up to the dangers in these calls, building bigger databases is not the answer to crime, neither is the greater proliferation of more technically proficient CCTV cameras and operations rooms filled with extremely bored personnel monitoring the screens. Criminals will only be deterred when they see more uniformed policemen and women on our streets (not in stations filling out triplicate forms), communities will begin to feel safer when individuals have the courage to pick up the telephone and tell the police that they’ve just seen Johnny daubing on a wall, or running out of the corner shop with the takings stuffed into his pockets! When society starts to favour and value the important individuals who make the whole, then we may start to see results.

Community policing is part of the answer to crime, reducing the wastage of police time is another great step forward, the role of the CPS and it’s bureaucratic straight jacket needs to be re-assessed. Once the police have some of their restrictive administrative tasks removed they will feel less encumbered and be able to integrate more effectively with their community neighbourhoods, we might even get back to the days when the policeman was seen as our friend! The greatest steps forward in the fight against crime will come when we feel sure that the telephone call to the police will be responded to quickly, and when both sides feel sure that the giving and taking of a statement and/or the identification of a suspect will lead to satisfactory results. This human intelligence is worth far more to the police and the courts than the poorly lit grainy image from a CCTV camera.

The other deterrent has to be sentencing, and again the philosophy here has to be that it values the rights, the sensitivities, and the strengths of the individuals who make up society, and more importantly when sentencing is seen to mean something to the victims of crime will we all feel that something is being achieved. The present perception is that sentencing is seen as something that favours the criminal with Labour’s policies of early release schemes and under investment in the Prison Service devaluing the efforts of the police.

Back to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville;

It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”

More training was needed for officers. Often they do not want to find CCTV images “because it’s hard work”. Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.

Sounds like a very familiar story, right on the first point, right on the second point, but utterly wrong about his proposed solution;

“We are [beginning] to collate images from across London. This has got to be balanced against any Big Brother concerns, with safeguards. The images are from thefts, robberies and more serious crimes. Possibly the [database] could be national in future.”

The right solution lies in the education of children, and the willingness of families and communities to accept responsibility for their actions and the consequences, when criminal behaviour is seen and accepted as totally wrong, repugnant, and socially destructive, then society as a whole will move towards better self policing and gain a more cooperative strategy with it’s local neighbourhood police. Greater intrusive incursions into our privacy and the collating of more personal information is unlikely to increase our cooperation with the state!

We don’t need “Big Brother” just better mums, dads, teachers, and role models, and a willingness to supply information about criminal activity without fearing being labelled “a grass”.

Related posts

• Spyblog
• Boing Boing

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Boing Boing

The power of a link

Crikey more traffic in one day than what I see in the average week!

Thanks Bill Thompson, whoever you are.

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Racist?

Downs Syndrome boy charged

I’m finding it incredibly difficult to prevent the steam from escaping my ears after reading this howler about an eighteen year old boy who has Downs Syndrome, with a mental age of five, being charged with a racially motivated assault and a breach of the peace. How the hell did it take 7 1/2 months for the ridiculous charge to be dropped?

Heads ought to roll in Strathclyde Police and the Scottish Procurator Fiscal’s office for this gross insensitivity.

This is yet another illustration of how some in this once free and fair country of ours find it so easy to throw about wild and unfounded allegations of racism and somehow hope that in the fullness of time they will be quietly forgotten about, I’m glad that Fiona Bauld and her legal representative persisted in keeping up the pressure to ensure the correct outcome, it’s no fun being on the receiving end of a scurrilous racist charge no matter who you are, or whatever age you are.

On March 31st. I made a post suggesting that Max Mosley the head of the FIA should quit his position over a private matter which will affect his public standing, it was accompanied by a satirical picture and drew a response from a certain Big Al asking if my father was at this Nazi rally and suggesting that I have racist leanings (without any attempt to justify or produce evidence to back it up). On April 1st. I made a post regarding the Fitna film by Dutch MP Geert Wilders involving a temporary censorship by British company Live Leak, again a Big Al jumped in accusing me of being racist and having anti muslim sentiments, he also asked if I am a member of the BNP. Once again these accusations are totally without foundation or evidence of any kind to support them.

I know exactly the IP address of Big Al (who foolishly tried to hide behind an insecure http proxy server) and immediately emailed the person who I believe posted those ridiculous, scurrilous, and libellous comments, a vehement denial by telephone followed soon after. I have given Big Al another opportunity to confirm the IP address since than with a request that the comments be withdrawn and an apology offered, so far Big Al has failed to respond.

Big Al in his telephone conversation also stated quite clearly and emphatically that he does not comment on this blog, nor others, and certainly does not comment under a variety of pseudonyms.

Tomorrow, unless an apology and a request to withdraw the remarks is made overnight, I will post the voicemail message that Big Al voluntarily left on my phone, I will also publish the evidence that I have with regard to the use of a variety of pseudonyms used by Big Al on another web blog, and link them firmly to the same IP address used to post the comments on this site.

I will also name Big Al using evidence of previous comments posted on this website using the same IP address.

I firmly believe that it is in the public interest to name Big Al, his “electronic fingerprints” are all over the libellous comments left here and other comments left under different names at another place. They are wholly at odds with, and totally inconsistent with, his clear statement made to me by telephone and with a public position that he has made on many occasions.

Unless Big Al takes steps NOW to rectify these dreadful comments, then I’m afraid I will have to tell the world who I believe has been responsible and support it with solid evidence. There is no such thing as anonymity for those who think they can throw about grossly unfounded, untrue, malicious, and hurtful remarks on the internet. Not only has he maligned me, he has also involved my 77 year old Jarrow born father who grew up in England during the Second World War (his father was a serving soldier in the defence of the King and country.)

Like Fiona Bauld, I do not intend to let this matter of a racist charge rest.

Stay tuned.

Related Posts

• A word to “Big Al”
• The response to the “Big Al” comments

Update

Negotiations between two parties are currently under way with the hope of reaching an amicable solution to this impasse. Therefore, to ease and facilitate this process, no further comment on this topic will be made as we attempt to reach a mutually satisfying outcome.
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What is multiculturalism?

It’s what we have here in South Shields

We had the first settled muslim community in the country, we had Iraqi bargemen protecting our Roman fort Arbeia (the place of the arab), and we have had Yemenis and other nationals settled and living in South Shields since 1894. As far as we know there have only ever been two racially motivated large scale incidents in South Shields and they were in 1919 and 1930.

Since the arrival of Ali Said who opened the first Arab Seaman’s Boarding House in August 1909 in the Holborn riverside district of South Shields, we have welcomed Chinese, Vietnamese, Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Moroccans, Albanians and countless others, yet we all seem to get along just fine with many second and third generations talking with our familiar Geordie accent.

So how do we do it?

We are hospitable first, open hearted and generous people, fair, with a sense of what is right and what is wrong, for years our households operated an “open door” policy with our neighbours, we converse easily and profusely, and our community spirit was strong, rich, and welcoming despite never being being amongst the most affluent areas of the UK. We just get along with each other, simple as!

We share the same schools, we share the same foods where we can, we respect each other’s religions and learn to understand differences in cultures without allowing those differences to hinder personal relationships, I guess that makes us more tolerant. We appear to accept and welcome diversity and the richness it brings.

If you are to visit us from other areas of the country between now and the 5th. May, then why not take a little time to drop into the Baltic Centre at Gateshead to see Last of the Dictionary Men . It’s an exhibition by photographer Youssef Nabil and film maker Tina Gharavi, the driving force behind the exhibition. It will feature photographs of the 13 remaining first generation settlers, taken in black and white and then hand-coloured using old-fashioned techniques popular in Nabil’s birthplace, Cairo. The men also talk about their experiences in video portraits.

The exhibition is completed with a film of the visit that Muhammad Ali made to South Shields in 1977 when he had his marriage blessed at the Al Azhar mosque. Here’s a Tyne Tees Television video clip of the event.

Austin Mitchell MP supports photographers

Early Day motion tabled in Commons

After my experience the other day following a visit to South Shields Ocean Beach Amusement Park, I am glad to see that certain Members of Parliament are also concerned at the growing culture to frustrate and restrict the ability of photographers to enjoy the hobby, record life as we see it, and provide reportage directly as events happen.

Austin Mitchell the Labour MP for Great Grimsby has tabled this motion, which has gained the support of 80 MPs so far

That this House is concerned to encourage the spread and enjoyment of photography as the most genuine and accessible people’s art; deplores the apparent increase in the number of reported incidents in which the police, police community support officers (PCSOs) or wardens attempt to stop street photography and order the deletion of photographs or the confiscation of cards, cameras or film on various specious ground such as claims that some public buildings are strategic or sensitive, that children and adults can only be photographed with their written permission, that photographs of police and PCSOs are illegal, or that photographs may be used by terrorists; points out that photography in public places and streets is not only enjoyable but perfectly legal; regrets all such efforts to stop, discourage or inhibit amateur photographers taking pictures in public places, many of which are in any case festooned with closed circuit television cameras; and urges the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to agree on a photography code for the information of officers on the ground, setting out the public’s right to photograph public places thus allowing photographers to enjoy their hobby without officious interference or unjustified suspicion.

Please note my emphasis.

If CCTV camera operators and monitors are doing their jobs effectively and efficiently, then those people in police control rooms handling calls would be in a far better position to screen out those calls which do not display sufficient evidence of criminal actions or intent, thus resulting in a more effective use of police time and resources.

Seeing as Cabinet ministers by convention cannot append their names to EDMs, it would be nice to see our other South Tyneside MP, Stephen Hepburn, signing this motion as an expression of concern and support for the ordinary Joe in the street, and as a sign that he is prepared to back the fight against over officious regulatory behaviour that we see far too much of these days.

Hat tip to The Green Room 

Sex pictures shock!

Curly taken for a ride

Did I mention something about being taken for ride in my last post?

Well I was, but I never imagined that a trip to the Ocean Beach Pleasure Park in South Shields would result in a ride in the back of a police car, being questioned about taking pictures of a sexual nature (and we are not talking of someone of Britney Spears age either!)

Have I ever mentioned CCTV cameras in the past?

Yes on numerous occasions.

Have I ever stated that we are becoming a nation of suspects in the past?

Yes, on numerous occasions.

Have I ever voiced the fear that we may quietly lurch towards a police state in the past?

Yes, on numerous occasions.

So let me start at the beginning - I parked my car at the Littlehaven Hotel, South Shields, this afternoon and walked across the beach with two intentions in mind (a) recording the extent of the damage to the sea wall on Harbour Drive for a post in this blog tomorrow, and (b) taking some pictures in the fairground for use in South Shields Daily Photo, as an illustration of the sort of things that South Shields folks get up to on an Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Please bear in mind that presenting a site such as this requires a lot of photographs with regular fresh input, nothing is worse than repetition.

I was well wrapped up, as usual, wearing my normal photographic kit which has many large deep pockets suited for carrying lens, spare batteries, flash gun etc. I also had my normal heavy bag with me just in case I decided to use any other filters or a third lens. I spent some time at both locations but at one stage had to take shelter in the waltzer as hailstones beat down, stinging the face and battering against the camera. Whilst under shelter I continued to shoot scenes (I found it fascinating that people still wanted to wander around the park and have fun, despite the atrocious weather.)

After an hour and a half I made my way back to the car satisfied that I have gained enough new material over the past couple of days to keep the site running for the next week or so. I drove through another hailstorm towards the South Marine Park and then along Ocean Road to check the size of the queue at Colmans, from there I proceeded towards Anderson Street and see a police car coming towards me from the direction of the Town Hall, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, in an obvious hurry to get somewhere. It did a U turn and came up behind me, by now I had slowed to a stop along with a couple of other cars, as we all assumed the police car wanted to get past. It appeared that he didn’t, perhaps he wanted to turn left just in front of the Voyager, so we all moved off again to give him room. But no, he’s still behind me, now flashing his headlights too, good God, he wants me!

My mind runs around thinking of things like tax disc, lights, body damage, and satisfied myself that all was in order, so I turned into Beach Road, parked up and approached the police officer. He wants me to go back to my car switch everything off, lock it and get into the back of the police car!

Crikey, what the hell do they think I’ve been up to? If, like me, you have never been in this situation in your life before perhaps you can imagine the slightly panicked state of mind.

“You wish to speak to me?”

“Yes sir, if you don’t mind stepping into the rear of my car”

“Is there something wrong with my car or my driving?”

“No, no sir, nothing like that at all, we are responding to an emergency call from someone in The Sundial who has reported you as taking pictures of children in the play park”

“Play park? I haven’t been near any play park! I’ve been on the beach and in the fairground, and I’ve never been anywhere near The Sundial either, surely you must have the wrong person?”

“Sorry sir, but we tracked you on the CCTV cameras, got your registration number and that’s why I need to talk to you, you are exactly as described”

After confirming name and address, date of birth, electoral roll, and telephone number, I offered to get my camera and show the officer all of the pictures that I’d taken this afternoon (click the thumbnail above, for an example).

“Dodgem cars, fairground rides, beach, is that all sir?

“Yes, help yourself, view them all”

Whilst he was viewing, I gave him one of my cards confirming that I have an occasional monetary interest in taking photographs, and whilst he was getting interested, news came through on his radio that I was a Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator and had reported a number of crimes and leads in my area (not that it’s the most crime ridden street in South Shields) and it became clear that an innocent individual had been lifted off the street at the behest of some illiberal busy body who thinks the man with a camera is obviously a dangerous paedophile.

“I’m sorry sir, this is obviously a terrible misunderstanding, but I suppose you realise that we get more and more of these calls every week these days. I was looking at a bloke’s camera recently, and I can tell you the pictures weren’t the sort that you have taken”

“What I cannot understand is, you said someone in The Sundial rang 999 and reported me, I haven’t been anywhere near The Sundial, I haven’t been anywhere near the park, you said I was tracked by the CCTV cameras, so you should have known that I’d been in the fairground!”

“So sorry sir, we have to follow these calls, and may I thank you for being so co-operative. Have a good day sir”

Have good day sir, hmph! Well to be fair he was extremely courteous and easy to deal with, but it has left a bad taste in the mouth I can tell you. Any idea how many people I saw taking pictures in the fairground with their nice shiny digital cameras today? Any idea how many Motorola V8 type camera phones I’ve seen pointed at smiling faces in the fairground today?

Yes - many!

Thing is, if you are wearing a shell suit, baseball cap, and rockies, you don’t look the least suspicious in this day and age, but if you have a digital SLR with a large zoom lens you really have it for a nasty purpose in mind! Yes, we are becoming a nation of suspects, we are also becoming a nation of ninnies and nincompoops wrapped in the cotton wool of the nanny state, too bothered with our own little suspicions and personal foibles to be able to talk to the bloke with the camera, why worry they’ll see him on the CCTV cameras surely?

I write now, with the person who dialled 999 in mind. (If he/she ever gets round to reading this.)
Do you know, if you had came up to me and asked “what the hell I was doing?” You might have found out that, on the whole I’m a pretty straight kinda guy (as some former Prime Minister professed) , you might have discovered that I am actually personable (when I’m not ranting), you might have found out about some interesting websites that portray South Shields to the world, you might have found out that I’m a family guy too with a wife and two lovely children, you might have had a rewarding experience.

You know, it’s what we used to call “being neighbourly.”

Instead you have demonstrated a typical and ignorant knee jerk reaction, taken not a blind bit of notice of all the other cameras being used around you, without realising that under British law there is virtually no such thing as privacy in a public place, and wasted a considerable amount of police time and mine into the bargain. Have a nice day!

Right that’s got that off of my chest!

If you would like to see more of the pictures that I took this afternoon check back with this blog tomorrow, or South Shields Daily Photo any time after midnight.

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Sex pictures, South Shields, Britney Spears, Northern Herald, paedophiles

Driving smokers underground

Labour’s ideas full of centralism and control

Just been to my local paper shop here in South Shields where I have to do the normal chore of buying Mrs. Curly’s cigarettes (I do wish she would give it up) and asked the proprietor how this crazy idea might affect her business.

For a start she would have to find, or borrow, more cash to refit behind and under the counter if Dawn Primarolo, the Minister for Public Health, gets her way, secondly she believes that the problem of children buying cigarettes will end up just like children buying booze (they will get an older person to do it for them, just like now), but more importantly she thought that some of her adult customers would be made to feel like absolute lepers or pariahs simply for exercising their right of choice.

Yes we all know that there are serious health risks associated with smoking (and I think that I appreciate this more than most) and we all understand the minister’s words:

“Children who smoke are putting their lives at risk and are more likely to die of cancer than people who start smoking later.”

that’s without thinking of the heart disease and other lung diseases which may be caused by smoking.

However, what sticks in the craw, more than other people’s cigarette smoke, is the controlling interest of the “nanny state”, the creeping influence of the health commissars who always know what is best for us, and allowing us to make our own informed choices in life is clearly not good! You should know that your actions, thoughts, deeds, and consequences need to be controlled more rigidly. The health commissars seem to have an agenda to make us all live for ever, well if not for ever then at least to a hundred, this is despite the fact that the UK demographic shows that we already have an ageing population with a looming pensions crisis that looks all the more difficult to solve every year. I often think that we would all be better off, as a society, if we popped our clogs of whatever cause at the age it might normally happen without the influence of the longevity brigades, in the longer term this would be a far cheaper option for the NHS than seeking to keep us all alive for a decade or more longer.

The final word belongs to Rita,

“shoving cigarettes under the counter only helps to make them more illicit, and kids like nothing better than doing things they shouldn’t”.

Dizzy is calling it an anti-smoking fascism, perhaps he smokes, he is angry about the whole thing.

Barred (part two)

Mrs. Miliband refused entry?

I am alerted to a small piece in The New Statesman by Kevin Maguire, the Geordie Associate Editor (Politics) on the Daily Mirror;

To Tyneside, where belated word reaches my ears of a collision between new and old Labour. The South Shields MP, David Miliband, who moonlights as the Foreign boy, visited a working men’s club where equality means buying a round when it’s your turn. As his concert violinist wife, Louise Shackelton, tailed Miliboy into a bar, a steward uttered the non-Primrose Hill command: “Hold fast, bonnie lass, ya canna gan in there.” An incident was averted, my snout recorded, by the adoption of standard Foreign Office advice: when in Geordieland, do as the Geordies do.

Surely not, I feel Mr. Maguire must have been misinformed. Do working mens’ clubs still bar entrance to ladies in some cases? Maguire relates in his headline that Old Labour values still live on in our working mens’ clubs, I find it hard to disagree on the general sentiment but I thought the age of “men only” rules was long since gone. Perhaps I’m wrong, it’s been a long time since I was last in the Unionist Club in South Shields, I think we ought to be told which club Miliband drinks in!

Port and lemon for the lady please.

Quote of the day

“It is time for a re-think by the Government on what constitutes real success for pupils before the push for better results, increased monitoring and more measurements means young people can only function in a society which has been so spoon-fed that it cannot think for itself and cannot challenge and grow in the future.”

Julia Neal - President, Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Please read this, and discuss.