The song remains the same

I'd heard from some folks that the new centralised distribution system at my former work had been, frankly, a bit of a dog's breakfast, with a tendency to be unreliable on both general stock and special customer orders (none of which surprised me, I recall a centralised system when the company was part of WH Smith's years back and it too was a bloody mess of a thing), which has, understandably, exasperated staff (and worried publishers), who spoke about it in the Bookseller journal, which is the main trade periodical of the British book trade. So Waterstone's apparently moved to ensure staff couldn't access the Bookseller online, which has had the unfortunate outcome of meaning the story now becomes about a large bookseller gagging staff again when they have anything critical to say.

Sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? In fact the Guardian article name-checks me and my disturbing experience almost five years ago in the coverage of this new story. Again the same large bookseller appears to be condoning censorship, which, regardless of what you think of the rights or wrongs of the original story in the Bookseller, shows some very poor judgement on behalf of senior management, who should have anticipated that the act of gagging staff and blocking access to the main book trade journal in response to negative criticism would then create a second story which reflects badly on them. Some folks never learn...

Talking King

Via Boing Boing comes a link to an MP3 of an inspiring speech by the great Martin Luther King, long one of my heroes for his wisdom, the fact he knew he was an imperfect human being like the rest of us but kept trying and for still believing in non violent protest in a violent time (which would eventually claim his as a victim). I'm with Avi who pointed it out to BB, this quote from 32 minutes into the MP3 speech is a particular standout piece which hits me:

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice."

Amen, brother; in times when goverments keep cutting at civil liberties generations fought for and people often let them because they have been terrified into doing so or worse because they are too apathetic to stand up and say no it becomes even more important. Bad things may happen because of bad people but they are allowed to continue happening because good people keep quiet.

Easter pic



Saint John's church at the corner of Princes Street in Edinburgh, below the Castle, has appeared on here a number of times over the years because of the always interesting painting which the minister and some artists often put up on a board by the side of the church; often they comment on current events and morality and I always find it heartening to see them so prominently displayed so everyone travelling along Princes Street sees them. I was in town with Mel this afternoon when I noticed this one they had created for Easter; given the news today about the ceremony for the lighting of the Olympic torch it became doubly appropriate.

In case you missed it, as the head of the Beijing Olympic committee rose to make his speech at the traditional lighting of the Olympic torch before it is carried through various nations before going to China some pro-Tibet protestors got through the security. Sadly the television cameras rapidly panned away from the scene until they had been removed, which I consider to be utterly shameful, craven and cowardly. If China doesn't like it, cobblers to them, but don't censor such a broadcast to the rest of the world you spineless cretins. Further protests took part along the route as the first runner carried the torch, with local Greeks apparently being somewhat surprised and bemused by cries of Free Tibet, which strikes me as rather odd - considering Greece was under the dictatorial rule of the Ottoman Turks for centuries, fighting for its freedom you'd think the Greeks would have been applauding the pro-Tibetan supporters.

Personally I hope the progress of the torch around the globe continues to attract these kinds of protests - I'm tired of people making excuses about keeping politics out of this and how it detracts from the Games and from the symbol of the international spirit of co-operation and peace the torch symbolises. Let's be honest, the minute it was decided it was okay to host the Games in a country with an appalling human rights record, a country which keeps down another culture by force, which restricts its own citizens, stifles freedom of speech (often with the help of major web companies, to their shame) and even harvests the organs of executed criminals (and in a state like China do you want to bet all those executed were vicious criminals or just people they wanted rid of?). A country who, when their leader visited London complained to the Prime Minister that people were 'allowed' to protest his country's policies in public on his route in. Bollocks to them. Humiliate and embarrass the totalitarian sods at every single public venue while the world's media eye is focussed on them. They wanted the Games for international recognition, they have to take the flipside of that which is increased visibility of the shortcomings of their country's vicious policies too.

And if any Olympians are still whining about it all detracting from the games then to hell with them - human rights are more important than some numpty in shorts running round a track and rather than attacking demonstrators they should perhaps be questioning their own morality in taking part in games held in such a land.

British Olympic Association climbs down on censorship claim

There had been worries recently that the contract British athletes being included in the national team for the Bejing Olympics had been reworded to censor what those athletes may say publicly about the dire state of human rights or politics in the host nation China. The BOA has now apparently clarified this position saying that while it is normal Olympic practise to inform competing athletes that they cannot use the Games as a political platform neither is the BOA in the business of trying to censor what its athletes speak about - they can talk to journalists, answer questions and so on, just not decide to use their position at the Games to stage a protest or demonstration, something which comes from the International Olympic rules. The British Athletes Commission seems to accept this adding that it is the sport which is paramount and that they are going to compete, not to demonstrate.

Which is fair enough, as far as it goes, since that is indeed what they are supposed to do. But I can't help but wonder if the Games weren't being held in a nation with an appalling record in human rights abuses, lack of civil liberties, environmental pillaging and few freedoms then this wouldn't be an issue to begin with. Part of the argument for having the Games there though is that somehow it will magically make the Chinese government more accountable, allowing more freedoms and liberties - the same argument is used by giant corporations like Google and Microsoft for working with the Chinese government, then self-censoring to suit that totalitarian regime and even, allegedly, giving access to web records to track down and silence those bloggers who post opinions considered 'dissident'. Yay for the spread of freedom by example!!!

Its an old refrain of capitalism that it promotes freedom because those are the circumstances it flourishes best in and where political argument fails to persuade those in power money and successful business might. But that's an experiment we're still waiting to see a definitive result on - there may be some more freedoms in China today but equally there are a lot of repressive measures, so the jury is well out on how successfully the market and giving them the Games has worked - it may have helped a bit, but it certainly hasn't transformed the country to a land of freedom. On the Olympians front though, if an athlete does feel very strongly that an international coming together of nations shouldn't be staged in a country where the regime denies basic freedoms, liberties and human rights then perhaps they should consider if they should take part in the Games being held there?

Because I doubt the Games will magically make things better - we're talking about a regime, after all, who when visiting London criticised their UK government hosts for 'allowing' people to protest their visit, that's the attitude they have - they think democratic countries should muzzle free speech critical of them. So I am left wondering if athletics organisations saying that the staging of the Games in China will somehow help improve that country's lamentable record is less wishful thinking than a fig leaf to their own conscience to justify going there - honest I am not just going because I want to take part in the Olympics regardless, I really believe being there will help the people of China. Honest. Okay, perhaps that is pretty cynical, but I find it is hard not to be cynical about the whole thing. (source: the BBC)

The sentence for reading is death

Well, it is in bloody Afghanistan at any rate. Journalism student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has been sentenced to death for reading. His crime? He downloaded a text which - gasp of horror - said that Muslim fundamentalists (those whacky, zany guys, what will they think of next!) who beat people around the head with their own fucked up interpretation of the holy Koran and use it to legitimate their severe repression and control of women were completely wrong and were acting contrary to the teachings of the Prophet. Gee, I can see where they might get a little annoyed at a document saying they might be wrong - after all these are the same shagwits who respond to a simple cartoon by killing people and demanding some beheadings. They aren't just misrepresenting the teachings of their own religion, they are just fucking stupid, violent fools clearly terrified of women and carrying AK47s as a substitute for their very small willies.Take their guns off them and lock them in a room for a week With Anne Widdecombe, that'll teach the buggers.

Oh but it gets better - this death sentence was pronounced by a religious court in Afghanistan (and surely that is contrary to the central Islamic tenant of learning for them to stop people reading??). Now it is bad enough that any country is stupid enough to still consider it civilised to allow religious leaders to hold people to trial (no, don't give me excuses about respecting other cultures, this is just bloody wrong and utterly fucking stupid, its something moronic from the medieval period and they need to learn this. I respect other cultures as long as they aren't bloody stupid). But then the case was referred to the Afghan secular government. The nice ones we put in power and are holding in power with the blood of our troops (the same troops their president recently said were failing, the same troops that are all that is keeping his arse from being filled full of Taliban bullets because his own troops are incompetent twats) - and they upheld the sentence. Yes, that's right, the person we put in power to replace those muderous fundamentalist fuckwits, the Taliban, said yes, kill this student for daring to read something we don't like.

Er, remind me again just why the hell we have our troops being put through the dusty meatgrinder in this godforsaken cesspit of a country? The Independent has an online petition up to give to the Foreign Office to demand they take some action - please consider signing it. (link via Yvonne)

"Look, I'd had a lovely supper and all I said to my wife was that bit of halibut was good enough for Jehovah... I don't think it ought to be blasphemy just saying 'Jehovah'." Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Creationist whackos get science teacher fired

Yup, once more the intellectually feeble throwbacks who constantly espouse 'intelligent design' (which is basically the utterly discredited Creationism dressed up in laughably bad science clothes) have made a move to decrease the IQ of the world a bit more: they used a flimsy excuse to get a science education officer in Texas fired. Christine Castillo Comer's crime? She forwarded an email as an FYI which she had received from one science educational professional to some interested groups about a talk by an author in the area, an author who has looked into the fake 'science' these Intelligent Design wankers keep trying to sneak into school curriculums while also trying to have evolutionary teaching curtailed (no, they haven't realised the 19th century is over).

Her boss's boss dropped her in it claiming simply forwarding this message was tantamount to the education board endorsing it, which is ridiculous since she didn't express an opinion, simply passed on details of a scientific talk to science professionals. Besides which anyone who works for a government department or large corporation knows full well their emails are usually issued under a 'the ideas expressed in this email do not necessarily promote the ideals of the blankety blank department'. Interestingly enough this boss is a political appointee - a Bush-loving one. And the head of the board openly endorses Creationist nonsense and talks yet hangs out one of his science professionals for simply passing on details of a talk involving scientific matters to other scientific professionals.

Sadly this sort of attack on actually using our brains to logically interpret massive amounts of careful scientific date amassed over many decades by many people from paleontologists to genetic researchers is not confined to a few religious crackpots in Jesusland (as Richard Morgan terms the Texas area in his recent novel Black Man) since there have been attempts to push this nonsense in schools in the UK too. This really does infuriate me - NPR has a radio interview with Christine on their site and the whole thing stinks of a political-religious set-up for these right wing fundamentalist eejits to shove someone out the way so they can then install a new person who will agree with their retarded ideology. And if you are a Creationist don't bother explaining to me why your view point is valid, because it just isn't. You're entitled to hold your view but please feck off and don't inflict it on others much less try to infect schoolkids with your idiocy. If you believe this crap you are an anti-intellectual moron brain-washed by fundamentalists who like using their religion as a way to gain more control over people and what they can say or think - and that's the nub of it, these idiots don't just believe this fairy tale nonsense themselves, they demand it be taught to the rest of us. Thankfully the few attempts here have been laughed at in much the same way as trying to each that the Earth is flat would be, but these idiots keep trying... (link via Boing Boing)

Canadian comics banned in middle of Fringe performance

The Evening News tells of The Underground Comedy Invasion, comics from Canada, who have been performing at the Three Tuns pub, who were stopped in the middle of a show by a senior member of staff and ejected, their Fringe run there canceled. Apparently they had told jokes about child abuse, which is certainly in bad taste, but part of humour, especially underground humour, is to broach subjects which we might often find uncomfortable and distasteful - one of my comedy heroes, the great George Carlin has always stood up for that principle, where he says bollocks to anyone telling him there is any subject he can't make jokes about because the jokes are a way of talking about something, they don't imply support for something or condoning it - in other words a joke about something doesn't mean you are saying yeah, let's do it for real, nor should a joke be confused with reality since telling a joke is not the same thing as doing something. And really, you agreed to host some underground comics for the Fringe then you act outraged when they tell jokes you don't approve of??? Er, what a shock, distasteful humour in a Fringe stand-up show... Besides which, the altercation - seen on the video below - seems to have come about not when the comedians repeated the joke but when they tried to talk about how the management had told them not to repeat the joke - so telling the joke is a no-no and telling the audience that you aren't allowed to tell a particular joke is also apparently a no-no, which regardless of the content of the original joke seems a bit damned stupid to me.

Obviously this short clip is taken out of context, but the staff member comes across rather badly in it, just steaming in to shut the comic up as he tries to explain he can't tell a joke because he's been ordered not to, while the staff member also seems to confuse the joke with reality, shouting at audience members (his customers!) do you want your kids fingered??? Er, no-one is doing anything to kids there, man, you were talking about a fucking joke - this is like the cobblers in the media when Chris Morris did his Brass Eye special on child abuse, where he was showing how attitudes in the public and media go crazy over anything to do with it, precluding discussion in favour of extreme reaction. I doubt any of the comics are really trying to promote child abuse, this is a comedy act using bad taste and uncomfortable subject matter, but then so do a lot of comics, its a legitimate area for comics to explore. And asking them not to cover a subject in your venue is the right of the manager, of course, but then trying to shut them up when they tell folk about being gagged is just being OTT. Jeez, if we banned every comedian who told a joke that might be offensive to someone we'd never tell a bloody joke again anywhere (another point Carlin makes well). You know, instead of being grossly offended, if I find a comic's material to be offensive and/or unfunny I don't demand their head, I just don't laugh - let them stand there in silence on stage. Not gag them. Then tell them not to mention the gag and equate that with actual abuse.

Protesting is terrorism

Well, well, well, what a bloody surprise - the police, government authorities and the multi-million pound business that is BAA are using every dirty trick in the book (many of those tricks were added in recent years by Blair's junta 'to protect us') to gag the climate protest camp at Heathrow Airport. Anyone who has been following the pre-amble to this will not be surprised - sites like Boing Boing have been following the attempts by BAA ahead of the camp to try and pre-emptively gag them and keep them away so no-one sees their protest about the impact of ever-increasing air travel on the environment (not just the pollution in the air, Heathrow is still physically expanding and devouring more land, creating more noise for local residents and if a new runway goes ahead more than likely there will be compulsory purchases of people's homes as they are forced out to make way for it).

"With the current terrorism threat, keeping Heathrow safe and secure is a very serious business. Any action taken by the protesters that distracts us or the police from this task is irresponsible and unlawfu." Mark Bullock from BAA Heathrow. Methinks Mr Bullock is talking bollocks.

So in effect we have a big player in a business which is causing massive amounts of continuing and growing damage to the environment using very dodgy laws to try and stop people protesting the impact that industry is having, at the connivance of the police who are happy to employ very shady anti-terror laws to try and intimidate protesters from turning up and to harass them if they do. I'd guess this also means the usual method of police intelligence (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) units filming people protesting so they can identify them and build a file - can't have people thinking they have the right to freedom of expression and protest in a democracy, can we? This is exactly the sort of heavy-handed action folks like comedian Mark Thomas have been protesting (Mark did a great Radio 4 show which exposed and ridiculed the laws Blair brought in to make legitimate protest in and around Westminster and the seat of government, laws supposedly to protect us but rather obviously there to protect twisted politicians).

Yeah, I know, some of you might be thinking, so what, bunch of eco-hippes, get a job. And maybe for some of them you might be right. But even if you don't agree with their views on the environment (and there are a lot of people who still insist humans have no influence on global warming, it's all nature - these folks remind me of the shagwits who all through the 70s said "there's no scientific evidence smoking harms you") then think about the continuing implications of the actions of the police, BAA and the government. Think about the fact that very dodgy laws rushed through without proper consultation or analysis in the House to cope with 'emergencies' sparked by the War On Terror (WOT?) are again being used to stop British citizens exercising their fundamental right to freedom of speech and to protest. Those are absolutely critical to any democratic society; people fought and died to preserve those rights and here we have a corrupt government that has abused serious global events to push through laws which can be employed in any bloody way they want to try and minimise dissent (and oh the irony of this being a government which says it is leading the world in tackling climate change). Regardless of your views on what the protesters are saying that should worry us all.

Iran outraged shocker!

In a move which surprised many those laid-back lovers of multiple viewpoints and open debate that are the wacky guys in the Iranian government/religious police (hard to tell them apart) have been deeply offended by something. This time not newspaper cartoons from neighbouring Saudi, not the film and comic of 300 (and before that Alexander) or the film and comic of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis or... okay you get the point, they are a bunch of whining twonks who declare everything they dislike is deeply offensive to their nation and obviously the Prophet, blessings be upon his name and all of Islam (which naturally they feel entitled to talk on behalf of all). What are the daft smeggers upset about now?

Well Salman Rushdie was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's birthday honours list (sadly there was no such honour for me), which the Iranians claim is a deliberate attempt to insult them and Islam because Rushdie wrote the Satanic Verses several years ago. You may remember good ol'e Krazy Khomeini, that laugh-a-minute mullah with a twinkle in his eye and a song in his heart declaring a fatwah against it and offering a huge reward to any of the Faithful who murdered one of the most respected novelists in the world for insulting Islam in a work of fiction which he hadn't actually read.

Oddly they don't mention how insulting it is to all civilised people to burn books and threaten the life of writers you haven't even bothered to read; as a devout follower of the church of freedom of speech and a disciple of the Tower of Books I find their attitude highly insulting to my beliefs and I declare literary jihad on their infidel arses. Of course, our form of literary fundementalism is more civilised - we don't place death sentences on their heads, we want to capture them, tie them to a chair and force them to read books. That will teach the bastards.

Happy fourth birthday, Woolamaloo!

Yes, friends, today marks the fourth anniversary of the Woolamaloo Gazette, the blog they couldn't hang, a blog with a mouth too big to shut (a mouth so big it still spews out words even when having its own foot in said mouth, which happens on occassion). Well, the fourth anniversary of this incarnation, for although the 7th of April 2003 saw the commencement of the Woolamaloo blog, the Gazette goes back to the early 90s, the name a homage to the University of Woolamaloo from Monty Python (also a track by Jean Michel Jarre and a real place in Australia). I've always been outspoken and an opinionated bugger (commenting on my firing a couple of years back Neil Gaiman commented he thought I was opinionated, but in the good way, which I took as a huge compliment and a real morale boost when I really needed it), right back to school where I spent years on the Academy's debating team (nope, didn't win them all, but I won a lot more than I lost) and when I was introduced to email in the 90s at college the opinionated bugger met Communications Technology and saw that It Was Good.

In '91 only a few faculties had email and the web didn't exist - it was the internet, mostly text, lots of discussion forums which I signed up for, mostly chatting to folks in other universities round the globe, debating, discussing, chatting, swapping jokes. Very soon I was sending out emails of spoof newspaper articles to friends, lampooning public figures, trends and satirising the hell out of stories in the news that were bugging me. To my surprise people liked them; in fact some folks who weren't receiving them asked to be added to the list, others already on the list were forwarding it to their friends - my first taste of the interconnected nature of the net came when a friend told me she had forwarded it to her friend, who forwarded it to her husband in the US Air Force (there is nowhere the subversive Woolamaloo cannot go!) who forwarded it to a bunch of friends on more bases round the world.

By the 2000s I was still doing the Woolamaloo emails, but my good mate Ariel, then a fellow bookseller (I think we first got in touch when he was editing the Guide to SF for a certain book supermarket who we don't mention here these days, but this was back when it was still a real bookstore and professional booksellers like us were encouraged to work on literature guides like this). Ariel kept saying I should do them in blog form, especially since the blog would allow me to do other things too as the fancy struck me. Some other friends were blogging by then, so with Ariel's help (thanks, mate) we set up the new blog and a new era in cheeky and opinionated nonsense began in April 2003 with me having a go at the war in Iraq and pastiching the SARs outbreak that was the End Of The World plague in vogue at that time (later I would post that for a laugh I would stand next to Asian tourists in the shop and pretend to sneeze while SARs was going about, just to watch their startled reaction. At my firing they even brought that up and asked, do you think that is funny, what would a customer reading that think? Yes, I did think it was mildly amusing, it was what we advanced beings with A Sense Of Humour call A Joke. They didn't, but since they ended up being publically humiliated for what they did I'd say I came out on top there).

I found I loved the blog form - I did indeed still post pastiches of news stories (or sometimes just a rant I needed to get out), but other things leaked in - unsurprisingly discussing books and authors and movies (at this point I was submitting a ton of reviews to the Alien Online, edited by Ariel), but I was adding in poetry, photographs, life in Edinburgh and, well, just everything really - life, love, cats, chocolate and whisky; the fun stuff and the stuff that hurt like hell. And work. Work got mentioned a few times (relatively few compared to the amount of other stuff and far outweighed by the amount pushing books and authors and reading events) and the worse the job became as the company turned into a Professional Retailer rather than a Bookseller (and struggled with sales and profits and higher staff turnover at the same time - connected?) and they seemed unwilling to listen to the opinions of experienced staff the blog became a place to let off a little steam. Several years later they suddenly pretended to be grossly offended at this and fired me (it would later turn out that senior management had known about it long before this and weren't bothered - in fact they asked me to help set up a brand new branch from scratch. Later they would suddenly 'discover' it - well, I suspect a certain vindictive person did - and it was used against me.)

Of course, by firing me they removed any obligation I had to be relatively quiet on the subject; Cory Doctorow and the Boing Boing guys picked up on it and splattered it all over the web, as did the online journals while Ariel and my fellow reviewers on the Alien Online organised support - the mainstream media picked it up from there and within a couple of days the Guardian and Scotsman had me posing for photographs for an article (right outside the old bookstore, much to the amusement of some of the staff who hadn't been told much of what had happened) and a rapid snowball effect took place that utterly surprised me - four radio spots in one day at one point, asked to do interviews for radio shows in Ireland and New York, enquiries from journalists in France, Norway, Italy, Germany, clippings of the story being sent by folks from as far afield as Chile and Australia, it was simply amazing. I think the fact that a bookstore, which has always professed to stand for freedom of speech (without which there is no booktrade) would try to gag a staff member this way really infuriated a lot of folks. I still get approached by media types from time to time even now.

The amount of emails I had from people all over was a huge morale boost when I was seriously down and a reminder, again, of how connected web users are on a global scale (and again, thanks to everyone who took time to write to me offering support and also emailing their disgust to the Bookstore Which Shall Not Be Named, I really can't tell you just how much the support of so many folks, mostly total stranger, meant to me when I really needed it). That was something my former employers didn't realise, they thought they were the Big Company and they could do what they wanted to One Little Guy; boy did that blow up in their faces (and deservedly so). Amazingly some companies continue to repeat this mistake, still not cottoned on to the interconnected nature of the web.

Another front was opened up when some of the many writers I had worked with over the years also came to my defence, publically damning the former employers for their actions and pointing out just how much work I had done to promote books over the years. Highly embarrassing to be the biggest bookstore in the nation and find some of the bestselling authors in the country decrying you in public (Richard Morgan's incredibly eloquent open letter, Ken MacLeod and Iain Banks and others writing letters to the press, Charlie Stross standing up for me on his blog and more). I've spent years promoting good writers and books and I can't tell you how good it felt to realise that a lot of those authors remembered that support and were willing to step forward to help me when I needed it; so much support from friends and strangers had the oddest effect, it made you feel ten feet tall and at the same time so damned humble that people would do this for you.

It had a happy ending though - the appeal hearing, ironically held in the new branch I had helped to create (as I gleefully pointed out), turned out in my favour. They still didn't like me mentioning work on the blog but agreed they had rather over-reacted. By this time FPI had read about all of this and I'd been approached by them because they wanted someone to work on their online business who would also be into the books and graphic novels they were selling, rather than just treating it as a job. And in the supreme irony I pitched the idea of a blog for the company to compliment the major webstore and they liked it; now the FPI blog has grown far bigger, gets hits from round the world and I still get to promote good books, graphic novels and authors (thanks, Kenny!) from interviewing big names to helping push the new small press guys (who in turn mention us and so that interconnected thing all still goes round and we all win from it). And I'm still blogging on the Woolamaloo as well; blogging for personal reasons and blogging at work too (god, but that still makes me giggle after all that happened, that part of my job is running a blog) and no intention of stopping (I should probably say thanks to Former Employers because their short-sighted attack turned a little-heard of site into one read by far, far more folks, so well done! I award you the Shot Yourself In The Foot Award!). Another nice spin off is my union, the RBA, a smaller union, got some good publicity (well deserved) from this and picked up a raft of new members on the back of it (actually they told me they go someone in touch the very night I posted links to them on the blog).

I intend to go on being a cheeky and irreverent bugger and the Woolamaloo is an intrinsic part of that; a friend who is heavily into Second Life was asking why I didn't join him there. I pointed out that the blog (and Flog and Flickr) were already a second life for me and I can't imagine not doing it. So yes, I fully intend to go on lampooning hypocritical public figures, pastiching events, talking about good books, quoting poetry when I feel like it and, well, basically talking about whatever the hell I want to, when I want to, because it is my (and every other person's) right to damned well do just that and winning that case makes me feel like doing it all the more. So happy anniversary to my sometimes troubled child, the Woolamaloo Gazette, the blog they couldn't hang.

The man doth protest too much

No, really, he has an official Guinness Book of World Records entry for most political protests in one day! Who am I talking about? One of my comedy heroes, Mark Thomas; Radio 4 has his show available to listen to on the BBC site detailing how he decided to play with the dreadful law that freedom-curbing git Blair passed to try and make it harder for citizens to stage lawful protests in and around Parliament and Whitehall. As Mark points out a friend of his was arrested while enjoying a picnic because some heavy handed plod decided she was making a protest and hadn't gotten police approval beforehand. No, I am having a picnic, she replies, pointing to the food, blanket on the grass etc. Ah yes, but your cake has 'peace' written on icing on it, that makes it a form of protest. Yes, in the French revolution Marie Antoinette was famously (if mistakenly) said to 'let them eat cake', while in Blair's police state you can get nicked for eating cake near the House of Shame.

That said some of the coppers in this come across as equally pissed off at having to enforce a clearly bonkers law as Mark increasingly makes a fool of it - one senior officer who has to pass the requests for demos in the area comes in to see him when his constable passes to him Mark's latest demo - calling for said senior officer to be sacked because of his role in enforcing this law. In he comes, looks at Mark, laughs and says "that's bloody brilliant." I do like Mark Thomas, he does that great thing of mixing comedy and politics effectively, exposing ludicrous laws and corrupt politicians and dodgy dealings with humour. Caught him at the Edinburgh Festival before and he is even better live. One of the few things better than seeing someone 'sticking it to the man' is someone using humour to humiliate the man while he does it. God bless satire, our last and best hope for freedom and a good, sharp pole for sticking it to the man.

Npower and the freedom of the press

Following up from me on my high horse blogging last week about energy company Npower bulldozing its way through both the environment, local opinion and the freedoms of speech and the press, here's a proper link to the Channel 4 item I mentioned, with a link to the report and a blog entry by Alex Thomson on Npower's (ab)use of the law and their sinister, masked security goons to overturn basic democratic freedoms at Radley Lakes.

McJob

McDonald's, probably one of the firm's most often satirised (and with good reason I think) has stuck its corporate foot in its greasy mouth once again, demanding that the term 'McJob' is removed from dictionaries such as the world-famous Oxford English Dictionary because it is derogatory and inaccurate. Obviously it isn't enough for McD's to use its corporate muscle on business practises, on farmers round the world, on protestors and others, it now wants to exert a measure of control over language. The OED and other dictionaries incorporate some modern phrases and colloquialisms when they become common in everyday speech for a decent period of time, hence why phrases like 'McJob' are included or 'switch' also gets included not only as a description of a debit card but also a verb, since the name of the car has become the verb to describe the action, "I'll switch that, please."

Launching this attempt is amazingly ill-advised - for starters it now raises the profile of the phrase the a far higher level than before, which rather defeats the purpose right away (that's like firing someone because their blog allegedly brought the company into disrepute, thus launching the story into the world media and a far vaster audience - big companies seem utterly clueless about handling their image). The second is that by showing little understanding - or even a certain level of humour - over this McDonald's has confirmed that the popular satirical image of them held by many critics (including me) is that they are an awful, monolithic, homogenous corporate entity that strictly enforces their ideology on staff but attempts to do so on the public. I suspect most people will more than likely side with a respected and loved institution of knowledge like the OED over Mickey D's anyday of the week, although I also suspect most folks will be bemused at the whole thing and wondering why McD's decided to make a mountain out a molehill that most folks never thought twice about before (way to go McDonald's PR folks, you are really good at your jobs!).

Personally I haven't been into one of this god-awful company's dreadful eateries since the mid 80s. Long before I turned veggie and had nothing to eat there (I believe that's different now, but back then it wasn't) I stopped going to this lot because during Mayfest in Glasgow in the 80s there was a play by a small indy theatre group which satirised the fast food business. No company was named or identified, it was simply a play about life as a worker in a fast food joint, but McDonald's threatened this tiny troupe with legal action because, as the world's most successful fast food stuff-yer-gob emporiums they argued audiences would assume it was about them. I think had it gone to court they would have been laughed out since they had no grounds (they were never identified, no company was) and also because of a little thing called freedom of speech, but the small indy theatre group didn't have a crew of high priced lawyers like McD's and couldn't afford to contest it - the play was pulled before the festival. It was a shameless and despicable bit of big biz bullying and I've never eaten in their stores (I refuse to call them restaurants) since then and never will. What I've learned over the years since in newspaper reports and books like Fast Food Nation have confirmed to me that they are not a business I'd ever give my money to and this latest pathetic attempt to control image adds to that feeling. Unfortunately masses of people will happily stuff themselves and their kids with their food several times a week, so they probably aren't too bothered about me boycotting them for the last 20 years.

Who was that masked man?

Channel 4 News tonight carried the frankly scary story of masked private security guards garbed in black, black masks raised over their faces to create an anonymous and threatening-looking appearance, going up to British citizens on a public road in a public space along with a pinstripe suited lawyer and violating their freedom of speech, freedom of expression and clearly, to my mind, violating the freedom of the press. Locals in the area of Radley Lakes have objected to shameless energy company Npower chopping down trees and planning to use the nearby lake for a spot to dump waste ash from their power station in. Many locals have objected and been ignored, a study into the impact is under way but Npower are just carrying right on with their task while it goes on so the study will be academic. Worst of all these creep security guards who look like a cross between something from a totalitarian regime and a masked Old West bandits and the corporate lawyer have persuaded a judge to grant an injunction, based largely on some anonymous witness statements with no actual cross examination which has banned even accredited journalists from taking photographs in public spaces to cover issues which are clearly in the public interest based on little to no proper evidence.


Masked, black suited, menacing looking guards who spent most of the C4 report denying citizens and reporters their basic rights while happily filming everyone present themselves; the injunction the foolish judge gave the company on their flimsy 'evidence' (supposedly to protect staff, although so far no-one has proved there was any real threat) is so vague that apparently just watching the report means the viewer is also injuncted! How ridiculous is that? I'm glad C4 News reported on this because I hadn't heard of this until tonight and from what the usually highly dependable C4 team said other large corporations are using similar dirty tricks with corporate lawyers who would be at home working for Monty Burns and their own private rent-a-cops around the UK. I find myself getting irate quite often at some reports on the news, but this made me bloody furious, that some large company would not only ignore their local residents but then use a mixture of lawyer's tricks and sinister, masked security to violate one of our most precious freedoms. Npower, you are utterly despicable and shameless. Editorial Photographers UK has some more on this story.