TV Times

What are we going to do about the telly?

Has nobody noticed that they've crept into our lives so completelythat there's hardly a house in the country which hasn't got one?Many homes have two or three, and we're told that the average adultwatches an alledged four hours per day. I say alledged, because Isuspect that people under-report when questioned in the way smokers always subtract a third of their real consumption due to embarrassment.

I have just had the mortal shit scared out of me by a book called "Remoteley Controlled" by Aric Sigman. I dont know much about him,beyond the fact that he's a psychologist who specialises in hypnotism and that he has studied first hand the arrival of TV in remote areas of the world.
His sources other than personal observation are professional journals,research papers and speeches to top-flight professional conferences.

What is really scary is the way he extrapolates from his sources, and arrives at definite figures for the number of women who die through being unhappy with the shape of their bodies after being exposed to the"ideal" western body shape. It somehow makes it more tangible when you appreciate just exactly how much harm has been done in a particular year in a particular country. And we need to do something about it. We really need to do something about it.

Because the implications are immeasurable and awesome, and they are going to have a profound effect on all of human life in generations to come. For example, let's look at the notion (which has been drip-fed since roughly the arrival on the scene of that Thatcher woman) that "politics is boring". No one has really come ut and said it in so may words, but a shrug here, a joke there, a strategic sigh, and over the years the opinion formers have theirway. And because they are well off, and their families are secure in their private schools and private hospitals, the opinion formers can afford to take their time in feeding in the ideas they wish to propagate.

By robbing our children of their creativity, their imagination and play, and the exhilaration which comes from taking risks and ,yes, occasionally scraping the skin off a knee as a result (big deal!), TV is leeching away the youthful rebelliousness which fuels demonstrations, strikes and boycotts, and leads themout into the hills to get intoxicated and dance all night, and to suggest thatpolitics is boring is to say that life is not worth the bother when you can sit at home and watch the dancing electrons. As Bob Dylan advised : "Dont let other people get your kicks for you". By the way - look how much of pop music consists of cover versions...

Because we all know, at our age, that politics are personal, and affect al lour relationships, every minute of every day, not the latest sound-bite fromTory High Command or the latest Supremo of Spin. We all know that we are not living in Summer Bay, and that there isn't always a happy ending. So it mustbe true that viewing rapidly lowers brain activity in the area which determines quality.

So please, TURN OFF, TUNE IN, GET OUT!

(And check out Tv-Be-Gone.com for some stealthy direct action.)

Archaeology in South-west Scotland

Hey folks. I was back at my local dig on Wednesday. Its an Early Bronze Age site around a wee loch, complete with a crannog and 34 burials which have been confirmed.

This is my first dig, so I am removing the peat deposit from what has been the lake-botton, in order to expose the stonework which it covers. I'm still aching from the 25-30 barrowfuls of peat I shifted, but we-hey! I noticed some clay in the spoil I was removing, and it turns out that I was working on the site of a pit lined with clay, perhaps used for tanning leather, or maybe for storage. As the pits seem to be in a step-like formation, the tanning idea is more likely. It is all the more interesting in that I grew up nearby, and learned to walk on the wee lane beside the loch, and the nearset clay deposit I knew of was about 12 kilometers away.

We know the site was used subsequently by Cistercian monks for raising sheep, and that they re-used some of the stone from the site for their own purposes, but a period of 18 years persistent rain due to an erupting volcano in 1150-ish AD changed the level of the loch and part of the site would have been submerged.

One of the ladies on site found a beautiful brass fishing reel, probably from early last century at the margin of the loch. Absolutely beautifully made, and very delicate, but still robust after being lost for so long. The line has disintegrated, but all the brass parts, and rusted remains of iron features still there. Amazing find, and the last thing anyone expected!

Other workers have just exposed the start of the original causeway to the crannog in the last week, and its crazy when you think how long it has been since anyone saw it last!
This whole area was ideal for early settlers, with land never too far away when you travelled by sea, and lots of rivers providing access to the interior. There are literally hundreds of bronze and Iron Age earthworks if you study the landscape, and this is particularly visible from the sea, as I found by walking from Southerness point to Sandyhills bay en route to the dig two saturdays ago.
Im Buzzing with it!!!
Check out the site at http://www.sat.org.uk/

Dark Doings Down South

Yo! Fellow synapse-shufflers!

You have nothing to lose but your brains.
Just havin a laugh with you. This kind of illustrates what I'm trying to do with my blog.

I borrowed the title from a wee book by the Crass Collective, by the same name. It details the origins of the Stonehenge Festival (of beloved memory, long may it be remembered!!!), and the personal story of Wally Hope, who was the prime mover of the festival, and the guiding conciousness behind the ethos of the free festival movement. I have not done my homework to find out how to get hold of the book in these benighted times, as I have no internet access at home and library time is rationed. Any help on this gratefully received.

As you will discover if you stick with me on this journey, I'm a bugger for cliches and 'sayings', sometimes borrowed, sometimes my own, sometimes credited, often not. I think they have a value although they're second hand. After all, what musician can quote all the influences on their work? We all pick up information from what surounds us, filtered by our personality, our preferences and our environment, and I feel that those that I quote will mostly be glad to have their ideas shared more widely. If they don't, then that's tough!

While I'm in confessional mode, I may as well add that this started as a tutorial for myself in using style sheets in HTML! I began using computers in 1987 as part of my job, but with next to no training. In 1999 I completed 2 short courses in web and database design with InForm (Scotland), which turned me on to the modern 'magic' of the internet, but I have never had a connection at home to play with, so I'm now self-teaching on an old laptop running Win95, and using the library to view the results of my HTML!

So if anyone knows where to come by very cheap or free hardware I'd love to hear about it. I'd be prepared to do some design or data input etc, in exchange for a connection and something special in the hardware department. It would have to be a 3G connection due to my location.

It's so good to find some like minded individuals to interact with again! I used to be part of the squatting movement in Camden & Islington back in the time, and I got off on the co-operative effort, the political aspects, and the opportunity to fight back against the Power. The nearest I have come to it recently was facing down the Army as they tried to enforce the needless slaughter of all the animals at the Mossburn Animal Sanctuary during the foot and mouth disaster. Back to the up-all-night adrenalin, the extreme reality that we faced a serious kicking (by Gurkhas rather than landlords!) any minute, and the 'backs to the wall' comradeship of the thing.

There was also the satisfaction of getting a privileged view of 'reality' in the field of media manipulation, as I witnessed the Sky News team try to persuade the activists to make and burn an effigy of Tony Blair. I'm glad to say that one was seen through in 2 seconds and dismissed, (despite the fact that it would have helped to shove the story higher up the news agenda). This reminded me of several incidents connected with the festival scene, most notably the night before the 'Battle of the Beanfield', when the deputy to the Chief Bailiff of Wiltshire arrived at a bender on site where he had located some leading players among the travellers, and offered them a handgun, with ammunition, 'to protect themselves'.

We later found out from someone present at the briefing given to the forces deployed against the travellers beforehand, some of whom were troops from local barracks in police overalls(unmarked), that they were told that the travellers were infested with AIDS, were child molesters and junkies, and that they should open fire if fired upon. Some of the forcs present carried SLRs, and the behaviour of those without firearms showed the intensity of feeling which the briefing stirred up.

How fortunate that the visitor of the previous night was slapped round the head with his pistol and shown the door.

As it turned out, it took the wankers over an hour to come up with a dubious-looking half-dozen 'petrol bombs', so called evidence of how evil and well prepared the travellers were!!! They spent a furious hour or so chasing a rigged bus round the field, battered some men and women (at least one of whom was heavily pregnant), and wrecked some homes before kidnapping quite a few people's kids. The kids were put in a marquee, from where they escaped, and made their way to rejoin their families, who had been given refuge in Savernake Forest by an outraged member of the aristocracy who had watched the carry-on. The clever and curious could find the news report carried on Radio 4, including the comments of the aristo.

I witnessed this reaction by police again in North London, when a local incident resulted in the arrival, in a quiet residential street, of two vanloads of tooled-up cops. Most of them looked scared/bored/pissed off (this was not long after Broadwater Farm, and they must have been told that the incident was 'racial'), but there was one who stood out from the rest. His face was bright red, he couldn't stand still and I swear there was a heat haze coming off the top of his riot helmet. A little later I saw him bash a lone young black woman to the ground before arresting her.

Because she asked where her boyfriend was.

Anyone interested? Anyone got anyhing to share? ......Is there anybody out there? Or are you all just Comfortably Numb? In the immortal words of Weevil, at the traveller's Greenham Common Festival, (reporting banned under a 'D' notice, as the fence round the airbase was breached bigstyle following USAF decision to bulldoze hundreds of trees spoiling their view of us)

"Are we having a drugs orgy here, or is this a protest?"

We did, and can still, manage both!!!

I will try to find URLs for the more tasty references in here - bear with me..

Friday 13th again . Good luck everyone!

I have just been watching the ITN news about the car bomb at Glasgow Airport.
More particularly the interview with the young baggage handler who tackled one of the bombers to the ground leading to his arrest.
This guy had a lucky break, in that he ran toward the vehicle,
which was in flames and packed with gas bottles and nails,
intended to do the maximum harm to anyone within range. Scottish schools have just gone on holiday, so there would have been many casualties among children.
He described it as his

civic duty

to play a part in defence of the public and his place of work.
You dont hear much nowadays, about

"civic duty."

That Thatcher woman made the Civil servant,
and Society in general into a dirty word with the help of her cronies at
Lowe Bell Consulting, Dewe Rogerson et al, but it seems it is still alive and well, at least as a concept!

It would be nice to see some of the fat swine who lead the privatised industries and services showing some of the same spirit, rather than cutting essential parts of their industries to the bone in pursuit of fatter bonuses and profits for shareholders, (who could also show some civic duty). Remind me - how many have died on the railways since privatisation?

Watching Big Brother (against my better judgement) the same day, it occurred to me that if that sample of the U.K. population were representative of society as a whole, and we were to experience an event of the magnitude of WW2, we would lose, and lose quickly!!!Thankfully, they are, to a large degree, a self-selecting group, and not really representative of the U.K. today.

So thanks Mr Baggage Handler, for restoring my faith in Weegie human nature.In his own words, to paraphrase, they may come here and try to disrupt us, but this is Glasgow, and we wont have that here. And we will set about them!!!


zog49@hotmail.co.uk

And so....

Southwest Scotland is out on the perimiter in many ways, and as such it has some quirky wee features. I recently started volunteering at an archaeological dig nearby (see www.sat.org.uk/), where we are finding stuff from 3,200 years ago, (early bronze age) overlaid with stuff up to meieval period. many tribes have passed this way as it is a route to and from ireland, if you got strong arms for rowing. There is also the isle of man, which can be seen from here on a clear day, and the English Lake district just across the water, also very visible on a clear day - you can see the blades on the wind turbines turning etc.

I grew up here until age 13, when I was hyperspaced to St Bees in Cumbria, just across the water, but 140 clicks away by road. Then in1975 I went to France in pursuit of a love interest and stayed in Bordeaux for 18 months, busking and doing any old thing for a few bucks to live on. More later about Bx, I'm just trying to introduce myself at this point.

I have no Web access at home so I come 30 clicks to local library to do my mooching about online. I think mooching is less Californicated than surfing eh?! Then hitchhike 30 clicks home again. Crashed my car a year ago and found the insurance didnt cover me to-and-from work!!! Rat bastards these insurance companies when it looks like payout time. Anyhow, that lost me my job, and my house was repo'ed a few months after that. Still willing though, and looking for something to do online to earn money on the move.
hast la vista

A collection of shock slogans and mindless token tantrums

Hi folks. My first foray into the blogsphere. My title is borrowed from an excellent book telling the story of the Stonehenge free festival which was brutally suppressed by the forces of darkness in England in 1984/5. No surprises there, eh?!

The book tells of Wally Hope and Sid Rawles' perhaps naive( but true to the spirit of freedom which used to exist in UK) attempt to create a forum for peaceful celebration of one of the fundamental divisions of the year, i.e. the summer solstice. Luckily the authorities havent been able to stop that happening!!!

So thanks to the Crass collective for my title, and for publishing the book, as the story really needsto be more widely known. I had an inside seat at the festivals, and the destruction of a very positive force in the life of the alt. movement in U.K. in the 1980s, and I expect I will keep returning to the theme of freedom as it is one of the few things which still make me want to weep when I think about it too much!!

That and third world debt, overpriced drugs in poor countries, the usual stuff that piss thoughtful people off. hopefully by adding my 2 pence worth of experience to the pot I can maybe point someone to a resource or idea they wouldn't have found otherwise.

So HELLO multiverse! I'm over here in Scotland. Where are you lot?