DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL

As you are probably aware, the above Bill was passed in Parliament on Tuesday, 6th April. Despite protestations from all sides of the House the Bill was rushed through with only a few hours of debate.

Personally, I was not happy with the way the voting went, so I refused to join the ‘Aye’ (yes) lobby/vote, and abstained to register my disgust at the way this ill-thought through and flawed Bill was rushed through Parliament without correct and proper scrutiny.

Locally, I have been supported by those of differing political views because I am prepared to put common sense before party politics. I hope that my refusal to join the ‘Yes’ lobby on Tuesday has once again underlined my independence of mind on behalf of those issues that really affect the lives and liberties of my constituents.

In my view, the Bill will do immense damage and is fundamentally flawed.

Yours sincerely,
Mark Pritchard MP

In Mark’s view, the bill will do immense damage and is fundamentally flawed, but to show his ‘disgust’ in the way the bill was rushed through Mark abstained from voting?

He hopes that this shows his independence of mind, seriously? He thinks a bill is flawed and will cause damage but he wont vote against it? He choses to abstain. He might as well have voted yes.

Over 500 years ago Gutenberg invented the printing press which revolutionised the world, there are now billions of books throughout the world and are reasonably cheap to buy. I’m not a person who thinks that revolutions can’t happen again, but sometimes things just don’t need revolutionising, the book is one of those.

Let’s look at some of the reasons we’re presented with in order to get us to buy an e-book reader;

Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. – Books are pretty simple to use are they not? you start at the front and work your way to the back (in the west), unless of course it’s one of those ‘Choose your own adventure’ books.

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. – looks like real paper huh? Imagine that.

Low energy use for a long battery life – I’ve never ever had to charge up a book, ever.

Get a huge choice of eBooks – A book shop has a huge choice of books, Amazon and (my favourite) The Book Depository has a massive choice of books. Even better my local library has thousands of books, and they’ll lend them to me. For Free.

The idea of being able to store hundreds of books on a device isn’t quite the same as storing thousands of music tracks on your portable music player, music is mostly instant gratification and most of us enjoy the ability to skip through thousands of tracks finding something that reflects our ever changing tastes or moods. I don’t know why anyone would want to do the same with a book.

It just doesn’t make sense, If you’re going on holiday throw 2 books in your bag. You don’t have to worry about losing an expensive gadget or getting it wet when someone throws themselves in the pool. I can read a book anywhere, on the bus standing up, on the train without looking like a twat, on the toilet, in the bath. I can lend it to my mate. I can leave it on the bus.

This isn’t to say that electronic books aren’t useful, we have tons of technical manuals at work in PDF format, they are good for looking things up, but they are useless for studying – the simple fact is people don’t like reading from a screen for any length of time.

In a world where it seems we’re sometimes doing things with Tech simply ‘because we can’ this was always bound to happen but I really don’t see the point in reinventing the wheel. If you have an e-book reader I’d be interested to know what drove you to buy it, or if you’re using it much now. Have you burned all your books in a bonfire? Leave a comment.

p.s. local book buyers will no doubt recognise the picture above as The Market Bookshop in Wellington.

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/31/mp-calls-for-expenses-reform/

The above URL links to an online article titled: MP calls for expenses reform, reporting that Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard has called for
expenses reform.

The quotes here are EXACTLY the same words used by Mark on the Jim Hawkins show on Radio Shropshire leading me to two possible scenarios;

1) Mark pre rehearsed the lines, and sent a written copy to the Star upon request.

2) Some lazy hack in Ketley was listening to the radio this morning and wrote his piece based upon it.

If number two is the correct answer then why not cite the source of your quotes here and give Jim and his team the respect they are due?

If number one is the correct answer then forgive my tone, but given the recent ‘borrowing’ of the Wrekin/Gem stone story from the Birmingham Post finance editor (Source), I’m starting to wonder if the Shropshire Star is being run by 6th form media students.

I would appreciate if it someone would look into this issue and explain the stance. Can I also ask that if, like many times before, my concerns are ignored I shall take this to mean that the Shropshire Star does not mind any form of plagiarism and I am okay to reproduce the entire day’s paper verbatim and sell it at a 5p lower than the Star?

Kind Regards

Merk

Update: I have an email back from the Internet Editor who writes: It could be, of course, that Mr Pritchard gave his comments to Radio Shropshire and the Shropshire Star. Have you considered that possibility?

To which I reply yes I have, thats why I have asked the question.

Update II: This isn’t some sort of personal vendetta against my local newspaper but another possible example of the dwindling standards of journalism and I think that is a shame.

It’s my take that while the calls were inappropriate, it certainly isn’t something which should result in the sacking of two of TV and Radio’s biggest names, apologies have been made – Ofcom will investigate and that make a judgement and that should be that.  No one died.

For me there are some issues relating to all this brouhaha (yes, I did just say brouhaha);

I find it amazing that only 2 people made complaints after the show went out and now over 10,000 people have complained since reading about it in their favourite right wing shit rag.  That means that all but 2 people listening to the show were not offended by the broadcast, if that is the case then the matter is entirely between Andrew Sachs and BBC radio 2.

Sach’s granddaughter is a Burlesque dancer who appears in the a dance troupe, she (according to her myspace) calls herself a ‘swinger’ and a ‘groupie’ and has appeared with very little clothing in more than one newspaper – yet she is somehow embarrassed enough about the revelation that she shagged one of the most sexually active ‘celebs’ in the country to quit the ‘Satanic Sluts’ European tour?

BBC News channel are showing their impartiality by covering this story to death, apparently there is nothing else going on in the world. Honest.

Shit newspapers who love a good bit of BBC bashing are baying for blood in this and will use this as any excuse to whip up a frenzy of anti-licence fee idiots to do their best ‘Angry of Tunbridge Wells‘ impression even though I’m willing to take a punt that a great deal of those 10,000 complainants haven’t even heard the broadcast.

As someone with experience in radio (albeit not the heady heights of Radio 2) – it was a shit piece of radio, really really bad, but not sackable shit.  Christ, if only this baying mob had heard some of the shit my co-presenter and I used to come out with (Lockerbie the Musical anyone?) we’d have had our head on spikes before you could blurt out “He fucked your Granddaughter“.

As I write this I see on the BBC News channel have announced that Brand and Ross have been suspended pending investigation, perhaps this is the correct thing to do and should have happened (and those involved in the decision making process for it to go out) as soon as this looked as it was going to blow out of all proportion.

The best thing the Beeb can do now is let this settle and wait for the Springfield Mob to move onto the next subject, then re-instate two of their most popular broadcasters (even Sachs has himself said he didn’t want to put any more pressure on Ross after a personal apology) on the understanding that when the OFCOM ruling comes in, Ross and Brand pay the fine (which is likely to be a big one now).

This is the answer to the threat of Terrorism

This is the answer to Identity Theft

This is the answer to Benefit Fraud

This is the answer to Illigal Immigation

This is the answer to Labour losing the next election.

Just one of the reasons why New Labour have thrown away the chance of running the country come the next general election, the reason we’ll have some smug, PR-savy, posh twat at the helm. 

Nice one.  :(

Wikipedia; CelebAir is an upcoming reality TV series, which will see 11 celebrities doing the jobs of cabin crew and check-in attendants. The series is to be presented by Angellica Bell and will air from 2 September 2008 on ITV2.

PRWeb: Award winning leisure airline Monarch will be sharing its 40 years of aviation experience with a host of famous faces from Monday 14 July, as its sets about training a group of celebrities, who must measure up to Monarch’s standards and take on roles across the airline including cabin crew, check-in and ticket desk.

PRWeb: [Also] commenting on CelebAir, Zai Bennett, Controller of ITV2 said: “CelebAir promises to be a huge reality event this autumn on ITV2. It is an incredibly ambitious project on a scale not seen before in reality TV. This definitely isn’t a show for work-shy celebrities, we’re taking on a real plane, with real passengers with real holidays to go on – it promises to be an amazing trip.”

It starts tonight (Tuesday) on ITV2 at 9pm – you have till then to smash up every Television set you own – British TV is officially dead.

Update: For stavros;

Chico – ‘singer’ who reached the quarter-finals of the 2005 series of the talent show The X Factor. Got to No. 1 in the UK singles chart with the amazing ‘It’s Chico Time’.

Amy Lamé – is an American born, British radio and television presenter, comedian, model, club promoter, and writer. Is on the radio with Danny Baker and has appeared on Loose Women and Richard and Judy.

Lisa Maffia – British model, presenter, writer, songwriter, singer-songwriter, and musician who originally came to the public’s attention as the main female member of So Solid Crew.

Michelle Marsh – an English glamour model noted for her large, natural breasts.

Dan O’Connor – is some guy from Australian Idol and is no on Neighbours.

Johnny Shentall – his wikipedia article is the best – one line;  was a member of the British pop group Hear’say in 2002 having replaced Kym Ryder. He is also the husband of pop singer Lisa Scott-Lee.

The COUNTDOWN to the 2012 Olympics has begun – I dont think I can take any more Olympic band wagoning.

The latest being the best yet;

1. Take flashy packaging (?) away from Cigarettes and stop selling packs of ten in order to stop young people buying them.

2. Prosecute parents of kids who are regularly found with alcohol.

Now the idea that any kid buys fags because of their ‘snazzy’ packaging is laughable. ‘Ohhh shiny packet of Benson & Hedges I must buy some’ isn’t something that goes through the mind of a young would be smoker. So restricting the sale of smaller packets of ciggies isn’t going to stop little Johnny buying fags, he’ll just club together with little Billy and buy a pack of 20?

The alcohol thing is daft too; criminalising parents because their brat has been sold some bottles of WKD by a dodgy off licence just doesn’t seem right. If you must, ban alcohol in some public places (like a lot of towns and cities do already), monitor and hit hard shops who are caught selling booze to under 18′s. Some organisations want to go further, by raising the price of booze in order to curb the availability of teenagers; something that really gets my goat.

In my mind the price of alcohol has shot almost beyond belief in the last couple of years anyway. I regularly pay £2.70-£2.90 for a pint of lager in my local boozers and £3.50 in the local nightclub! I don’t drink much at home as it is but should I decide to start then why shouldn’t I be able to buy a slab of beer from Tesco for as little as possible just of the off chance that some little shit might puke up in a bus stop?

Michael Richard was executed in Texas, USA, on 25 September after a state courthouse refused to stay open an extra 15 minutes to allow the filing of an appeal based on the constitutionality of lethal injections.

Richard’s attorneys had been unable to file the appeal on time because of computer problems; problems they had already brought to the court’s attention. The US Supreme Court then refused to stop the execution. Earlier in the day, however, it had agreed in a Kentucky case to review the lethal injection issue, a decision that led to a de facto moratorium on all other lethal injection executions around the country. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected later this year.

…and we know how that turned out.

15 minutes!

From that list, the fact that the USA is the only ‘Western’ country – that they are still partaking in state authorised murder beggars belief.

Link from: Chicken Yoghurt

What I don’t care about is the Olympics, I enjoy watching sport – I don’t enjoy watching people chuck things or running round a track. That said, I can live with it. What I can’t live with is the constant bollocks spouted from people involved in the games oraganisation that it’s great for a country to host the Olympics, that it’s somehow going to change my life because London has it in 2012. Which brings me to todays torch carrying pantomime today in our capital. The Torch was run from Wembley Stadium to the O2 Arena (the dome) by famous athletes ( Steve Redgrave, Tim Henman, Kelly Holmes) and of course the plethora of ‘celebrities’ including ex Big Breakfast weather girl Denise Van Outen and Blue Peter’s Konnie Huq!

Seriously who fucking cares? I was actually cheering the protesters who tried to have their voices heard and the bloke who tried to extinguish the flame deserves a medal, podium and the the National Anthem.

Of course it was a bit of an embarrassment to the Met who put their finest cyclist forces in charge of ‘guarding’ the flame but once the protesters got a bit more eager they pulled out their over the top policing trump card by way of what I like to call the Police-ring; A shit load of coppers forming a circle around the Torch and then another load of non cyclist plod formed a ring around them, while the Athlete/Celebrity swapped the torch with another Athlete/Celebrity. All in all I counted about 40 police officers protecting what is essentially a candle through the streets of London. Brilliant.

I look forward to watching the Paris leg tomorrow.

Update: Ha, I didn’t realise until I’d read Justin‘s post that ‘The idea of carrying a lit torch from the Temple of Hera in Greece was invented by Hitler.’   Nice.

The latest announcement is that the Conservative party are going to spend Half a Million pounds targeting ‘online friends’; In an echo of Radiohead’s recent album launch, there will be no fixed charge for becoming a Conservative supporter on Facebook, MySpace, iVillage or Bebo.

WHAT? The party wants people to pay to effectively become a ‘fan’ (in Facebook terms) of the Tory Party? That’s right, George Osborne says; “People can pay as little or as much as they want to”, which is nice of him but prey tell what do I get for my generous donation?

…regular updates on party activity and invitations to take part in social action projects in their area..

and that, says Mr Osborne is ground breaking in UK Politics. I’m inclined to agree, asking people to cough up (as much or as little as you want) to get a couple of emails a week is a joke, no one is going to take them up on this especially given that these online ‘friends’ will not be able to vote in leadership elections or any of the other activities open to a full party member.

According to the report Labour and the Lib Dems already do an online supporters network and do not even consider asking for a donation until you want to become a member. Social networking sites are just that however they are fast becoming a mass marketing tool for anyone who has enough money to line the pockets of News Corp or Facebook inc.

The reason Myspace lost millions of regular visitors to Facebook was because of Facebook’s ease of use and minimal intrusion from people trying to sell you stuff, this puts punters off. We don’t expect services for free so can live with ads but users do not want to be bombarded with targeted marketing every time they log in to see what their friends are up to. Of course facebook is going the way of myspace by becoming more and more difficult to use because of it’s applications platform.

Which brings me back to the Tories spending £500,000 on this form of marketing; I’m not aware of how much money the Conservative party has to piss up the wall trying to get new supporters but I’m willing to bet the uptake vie Myspace, Facebook and the like isn’t going to make a great return on their investment. I don’t know who’s idea this was, but they certainly haven’t spoken to anyone who uses these sites on a regular basis.

I’m all for political parties to engage supporters and prospective supporters via the web, but stop trying to be my Cool Dad. Please.

Whilst info is sketchy at the moment but it appears that it all relates to some posts and linkage about Russian Billionaire Alisher Usmanov. My understanding is that the comments his law team objected to were removed when requested days ago. This is a disgrace.

For those who blog this is fast becoming a risky business if those with unlimited cash can effectively bully those without into the submission of their supposed free speech – even after the comments are removed as requested!

Please feel free to comment but do bear in mind that I’ll be liable in court and I really need to keep hold of the 16pence credit in my bank and my 7 year old Vauxhall Astra!

Heads up to Iain Dale , Tom Watson , Chicken Yoghurt , Obsolete

I don’t think that ID Cards will threaten personal privacy. Rather the reverse; they will likely reduce the number of times you have to reveal personal information and increase the security of your personal data. Maybe we should start arguing the case that ID Cards will reduce the threat of the Surveillance Society and help safeguard civil liberties.

James Hall – Head of ID Card Scheme (link)

and this;

Will it be compulsory to carry a card?

No. You will not have to carry a card, although you may find it simple and convenient to do so. The police have no new powers associated with the scheme and they will not be able to stop you and demand to see your card.

Home Office website (link)

To this;

Stop and quiz powers considered

The government is considering giving all police officers across the UK “stop and question” powers, the Home Office has confirmed.

The proposal, allowing police to ask people about their identity and movement, is among measures being considered for a new anti-terror bill.

The measure is so far used only in Northern Ireland.

Police elsewhere have to have “reasonable suspicion” a crime has been committed before they can stop people.

BBC News Report (link)

Can you see where this is going?

I went out last night, perhaps overdid it a bit, I certainly spent too much money but so be it. We went to the Crown for some goodness and then ended up in Pussycats (again) trying to avoid eye contact with the latest ‘celebrity’ guest Anthony from Big Brother – that’s his name now, all ex-Big Brother contestants change their name by deed poll when they leave the house, apart from Nick, Nasty and Goody, thick fucker. I don’t really get these celeb nights – a club pays 1500 quid for a z list to turn up and hang around, take part in a usually sexual innuendo filled stage game and get asked a few questions. It’s quite pathetic, yet people flock to see them, fair play to the club it was rammed and they’ll have more than made their 1500 quid back. I just don’t get it.

2. My Car Arrives soon.

I’m kinda fed up of waiting now, my Dad phoned me up on thursday to say that it has been bought back onto the mainland (it’s been in Guernsey) and it now waiting a service, MOT and someone to drive it up to Telford – I cant wait, since I’ve passed my test I’ve only driven three times and I really want to get out a bit more and practice before I even consider embarking on a long journey, say to Ironbridge.

3. Bad Week at work.

I’ve had a shit week at work this last week, I’m getting fed up of doing the same thing over and over again, it’s like working in a factory. I’m not being tested or learning anything new, I’ve been told this is going to change soon but my impatience came to a head on Friday when I kinda lost it at work, I was very angry and I’m really sure why, I think it was just a case of loads of little things building up to the point where something explodes. I’ve spoken to a few people and talked about it and hopefully stuff will get better but I’m at that point where I’m thinking I’m 25 now, the radio stuff looks like it’s fallen through and I need to think about my career, and I know that my career isn’t in a call centre – our office is fast becoming like a call centre, that’s not for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy where I work, the people I work with and the environment in general and I’m going to stick it out but I have seen a few positions which look intresting so I might just apply for them just to see if I get an interview, if I do I’ll make my decision then.

4. London

I’ve been to London loads but never really done the tourist thing so next weekend, Stavros, Fulla, Fella and I are heading down to the smoke to have a few light ales and check out some old shit – we’re staying near some church called Westminster Abbey, apparently it’s pretty big. Should be good. Hopefully take some photos.

5. Five things…

I would take on a desert Island with me (excluding loved ones and communication equipment)

1. MP3 player – a man without music is a man without soul.
2. A Bill Bryson book – these seem to be the only books I can read without getting bored.
3. Coca-Cola – I know that Coke are a bunch of evil, twisted bastards but gee I love the brown sugar water.
4. My camera – hopefully it’ll be a nice desert island
5. Good Toilet Paper – I’ve never underestimated the importance of good bog roll.

Your turn.

I’m afraid I can’t talk about it here but I’m pretty certain it would have massive implications for Mr and Mrs Blair, showing what a scheming, self loving, manipulative, presidential wife wanna be little cow that she really is. The truth will out Cherie , so in the meantime I’d keep your pointy little nose out of your husbands affairs.

Update: Cherie denies Brown ‘liar’ attack

(via)

Eat shit Technology, I’m off to read a book, one made of out paper.

p.s: PDF – Portable Document Format – how fucking up it’s own arse is that? Portable Document Format – ohhh get you, I bet you got bullied in the payground didn’t you PDF – you twat. How portable a document format is one you need a pc or a pda or phone with some software built in or installed, to install it you need a PC, to transfer stuff to it you need a pc, or a bluetooth or whatever. Really, how portable does all that shit sound to you? NOT VERY. Eat shit Portable Document Format. Here’s a portable document format – A FUCKING BOOK………made out of paper.

p.p.s: “Set your Sky+ via your mobile phone so you never miss your favourite programme again” – my arse, I can’t even register for it without it fucking up. Murdoch, you’re a prick.

I’ll start with;

Cristiano Ronaldo is a fucking prick.

The floor is yours…

“You could argue that Britain has not seen lines like this since World War II,” said Mark Pritchard, a member of Parliament who represents part of Shropshire, where the situation is just as grim. “Churchill once said that the British are great queuers, but I don’t think he meant that in connection to dental care.”

This quote is from a New York Times article which talks about the lack of public dentists in England.

Mark seems to think that there is a massive shortage of NHS dentists in his area, I’m afraid I have to disagree I waited no time at all to get to a NHS dentist last month – I phoned up and I booked an appointment for the next day.

Both Dawley Family Dental and Whitecross Dental at Stafford park have NHS places begging, sure – neither of them are in his consituency but they’re in the same town. Add to that that plans have been submitted to T&WC for a new surgery in Muxton which will handle 2000 patients. Wellington, Shrewsbury and Telford both have new centres opened in the last six months. A new centre has 450 places in Bridgenorth.

Shrosphire Health bosses recon that 90,000 NHS places would have been created by the end of March. Even if you cant find a permanent place NHS Direct will find you somewhere within driving distance.

I only feel strongly about this beacuse of the recent dental treatment I’ve had to had (and becuase Pritchard is pompus fool).

Rant over

p.s. Shane McGowan is not from Shropshire