An awkward moment

Will there be red faces?

Way back in 1980 when I was elected to South Tyneside Council in the Beacon and Bents ward I remember having to go to South Shields Town Hall with my “sponsoring” member to meet the Council solicitor and Returning Officer to make an Oath of Allegiance to the Queen and sign a big official register before being able to take my seat. I wonder if this procedure still happens?

The late Maurice Piggott was my sponsor and the late Leonard Rumney was the Council Solicitor at the time and I recall scribbling my usual illegible signature in the book, Mr. Rumney had a puzzled look on his face and said:

“Well now that you’ve proved that my pen works, could you write your name next to that please?”

The new Independent councillor for Beacon and Bents, Ahmed Khan, will possibly have to go through this same procedure with Mr. Brian T. Scott, the Returning Officer for South Tyneside. Readers will recall that Mr. Scott and Mr. Khan have both had to endure court cases over the result of last year’s election in the Beacon and Bents ward, that Mr. Scott found himself making an apology over losing 18 ballot boxes, and Mr. Khan publicly called for Mr. Scott’s resignation.

Oh to be a fly on the wall. I wonder if there will be any red faces?

With both gentlemen now having to build some sort of working relationship I hope one of them can conjure up a light hearted ice breaker when they meet, otherwise there may be an awkward moment!

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March review

A record month for readers! (But take a pinch of salt)

March saw the greatest number of unique visitors to this blog ever!, it also saw one particular post shoot to the top of the charts for the greatest number of page loads ever! (An astonishing 21,058 page loads.) The 38,930 unique visitors represented a 90% increase in readership but should be taken with a large pinch of salt as 9,495 came from one source to mainly read one post. Click the thumbnail to see the chart.

This one link from Boing Boing proved the power of the internet in disseminating a story, which went on to be featured by the BBC on it’s website, Breakfast News, and Amateur Photographer magazine, and it is currently being debated on many forums around the world. It has certainly helped raise the profile of the rights of UK photographers and the EDM tabled by Austin Mitchell MP. The traffic from Boing Boing was overwhelming and the ‘event’ lasted five days before things settled down and returned to normal!

Just remembered, here’s a video clip of the BBC Breakfast programme that they wanted me to appear on.

Top Ten Corner Shop Posts for March (ranked by pageload)

• Sex pictures shock!
• The biggest political turncoat in Britain?
• Max Mosley should quit
• “Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal”
• Banksy CCTV
• 10p beer mat
• Miliband on photography
• Chinese troops in Zimbabwe
• Comedy duo
• Racist?

Top ten referrers during March

• Boing Boing
• Iain Dale’s Diary
• Labour in South Shields
• Rossinisbird
• Bob Piper
• Global Voices
• Recess Monkey
• Guido Fawkes
• Ball Reviews
• Nick Robinson’s Newslog

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Defragged!

Apologies for the lack of posts today

Every now and then you need to give your pc a good clean out, get rid of old files, find duplicated files, back up your documents and settings, back up ‘my computer’, save all of your music, pictures, documernts, and essential software to disc, and then delete them from the hard drives to save or create space.

The registry requires cleaning, ram needs to be reorganised and optimised, tcp settings need to be optimised, and then your volumes or partitions to be defragmented otherwise the whole machine starts to slow down. It’s a bit like spring cleaning your house!

So that’s what I’ve been up to most of today and while these volumes were being defragmented I took a good long leisurely walk through Marsden’s old quarry and the Crags in South Shields, taking my brother’s advice to carry the long lens and keep an eye open for kestrels. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny with just a little breeze, there were people on South Shields golf course enjoying a round, and dog walkers in plentiful supply. With the sky being almost blue with just a few high clouds the views to the north and west were superb and even St. James’ Park in Newcastle was able to be seen (as Prince Charles might have said “like a huge carbuncle on the face of humanity”.) However, I didn’t spot the kestrels.

I managed to come back with some useful material for South Shields Daily Photo which will be featured over the coming days, and I also managed to escape the cacophony of noise generated by some the political wannabes driving around town with megaphones mounted on their chariots blaring out “the line” on who we should vote for on Thursday. Despite the pilot tests in recent years on new voting methods to encourage greater electoral participation (vote by text, by email, via internet, by post etc.) it seems that the old tried and tested ways still have their advantages in South Shields, besides, the “pilots” singularly failed to increase turnout. Thursday will probably prove the point that political engagement is still lacklustre throughout the country, don’t expect any massive turnouts breaching the 40% barrier anywhere other than London.

If you get a chance, say tomorrow, to have some exercise in a more rural environment, take a close look at how many plastic bags are snagged on hawthorns, brambles, and gorse bushes, see how many empty bottles and cans are buried in the undergrowth, and then you can decide how well your local council deals with waste and how well our education system is working with the youth of our generation.

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Late posts

Posts will be later than usual today (in general), there is a lot of hard core maintenance to be done on this pc today, and lots of backing up to do.

Back later.

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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Carrot and coriander

A battle against the weight

I seem to be struggling with my weight again, too much sedentary work and too little exercise again. Time to get out and put some miles in on the streets of South Shields. However, I doubt that I’ll ever see that 28 inch waist again that I had as a teenager!

Lunches tend to light these days, mainly soups, and sometimes I just do without, but I’ve developed a liking for carrot and corriander soups (don’t really mind which brand at all) and have perhaps had four or five tins over the last few days.

I worry though, that too many might result in an orange hue to the facial features, and too much exercise in the sun might exacerbate this.

I don’t want to end up looking like the next Peter Hain!

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Family bereavement

We have to be at the funeral today of a close relative who passed away suddenly in Durham last week, therefore posts will be very late, if at all.

Miliband on photography

Home Office replies.

I have just received an unexpected letter from South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband (pictured) in response to the furore surrounding recent events when photographers, such as myself, have been subjected to police actions after taking pictures in public places.

He tells me that he has received the following reply from Home Office Minister Tony McNulty MP which re-asserts the current legal situation;

“There is no legal restriction on photography in public places, and there is no presumption of privacy for individuals in a public place.

It is for the Chief Constable to ensure that Officers and Police Community Support Officers are acting appropriately with regards to photography in public places, and any queries regarding this should be addressed to the Chief Constable.

However decisions may be made locally to restrict photography, for example to protect children. Any questions on such local decisions should also be addressed to the force concerned.”

It is helpful that this advice is made public and to serve as a reminder to both police and the public about current legislation and the rights of individual photographers. There are no legal restrictions on photography in the South Shields sea front area to protect children, but it is perfectly understandable that there are such local restrictions at our Temple Park Centre, for example.

May I take this opportunity to thank David Miliband for the interest and support that he has shown and remind you that you are able to sign this e-petition on the No. 10 website, and you can also lobby your local MP to support Austin Mitchell’s Early Day motion.

Related posts

• Sex pictures shock
• Snappy troubles
• Austin Mitchell MP supports photographers
• Mitchell to lobby Home Office

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Happy Birthday

“Junior” is celebrating his birthday today, and has almost “demanded” that this pc be turned over to him for some quality game time.

So I need to take some time out to remove some games and install some new material for him to blast away at.

Will be back this evening (perhaps)

Mitchell to lobby Home Office

Great Grimsby MP to take photographers with him to Whitehall

I’m pleased to see that Austin Mitchell, the Great Grimsby MP is to lead a lobby of the Home Office, and to include professional and amateur photographers, in his efforts to prevent the police and others from stopping photographers from taking pictures in public places. After my recent problems when taking pictures in South Shields over the Easter weekend, I’d happily support his campaign and hope that the Press Gazette gets fully behind him. Photography is an enriching hobby and and an interesting profession, without the ability to legally take photographs in public places your newspapers would be bland and featureless, as would many websites.

Mr. Mitchell said:

“People have complained about photographers being stopped from taking pictures by police, PCSOs, wardens and by various officious people. People have a right to take photographs and to start interfering with that is crazy. It seems crazy when the streets are festooned with closed-circuit television cameras that the public should be stopped from using cameras.

The proliferation of digital cameras and mobile phones with cameras means that everybody carries a camera these days.”

With a bit of luck a pro-forma type of letter may be produced that we can all use to send to our respective MPs reminding them of Mitchell’s Early Day Motion and urging them to support it.

Related Posts

• Sex pictures shock
• Austin Mitchell supports photographers

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