Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary at risk of closure due to lack of funding

The Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary in Watlington Road, Stadhampton, Oxfordshire, may have to close due to lack of funds, which may mean animals being put down.

The Oxford Mail reports that the centre was in its worst financial position since opening in 1967 due to spiralling costs and falling donations, according to manager Ron Heath.

If you would like to adopt an animal, information is linked here, but please remember that an animal is a big responsibility.

Animals have feelings and need to be fed and exercised on a regular basis.

Donations to the Sanctuary can be sent to The Village Green, Watlington Road, Stadhampton, Oxfordshire OX44 7UB, and there is a Gift Aid form on the site.

The Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary also has shops in Didcot, Witney and Oxford.

The Didcot shop is 114 Broadway,Didcot,Oxfordshire,OX11 8AB, the Witney shop is 29 Corn Street,Witney,Oxfordshire,OX8 7DB and the Oxford shop is 36 South Parade,Oxford,Oxfordshire,OX2 7JN.

Facebook breastfeeding row continues

A Facebook group set up to protest the social networking site's policy on breastfeeding pictures now has almost 100,000 members.

Facebook's policy of banning any images of breastfeeding that show nipples, has caused the creation of a group by protestors - or"lactivists" - called "Hey Facebook, breast feeding is not obscene".

On Saturday 23 December, members of the group, which is been going for a year, had a "virtual nurse in", where members were asked to change their profile picture for one day to an image of a nursing mother or animal, according to tampabay.com.

They were also asked to change their statues for a day to "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!"

While some people cite that Facebook as a social networking site can enforce whatever rules it wants, others make the point that breastfeeding is natural. Today, Lini posted "How does the amount of photos with breastfeeding mothers compare with the amount of sh*tfaced students?"

According to American news channel Fox News: "Facebook has said that it has no problem with breastfeeding but photos that showed nipples or areolas were indecent and had to be removed."

My personal view is that Facebook is being over-zealous.

The site could always ask anyone with photographs of breastfeeding showing nipples to set their profiles to private, which is a good idea in any case if you post personal information on your Facebook page.

If a photo of a nipple also has a baby in it, it's obviously not pornography, and if people find them offensive, maybe they should find something else to worry about.

They could always donate some money to a charity to take their mind off it.

Database of everyone's correspondence to be set up

Are you happy that the Government propose to ask a private company to run a database with details of everybody's telephone calls, emails and internet use?

I'm not. It seems like "terrorism" is being used as an excuse to increase surveillance.

No content will be collected according to the Home Office, but they'll still know who you rung/emailed/messaged and when.

European Union condemns UK database plans:

The Independent reports that Europe's human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg has condemned the plans, as has Liberal Democrat spokesman on home affairs Chris Huhne.

No doubt some people will say "If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to hide." Well, given that this government has been responsible for data losses, I don't trust them with my data.

Thoughts on the Gaza air strikes

In response to rockets being fired by Hamas into Israel, killing Israeli civilians, Israel launched air strikes this weekend in order to punish Hamas, killing Palestinian civilians.

Numbers of the latter killed are disputed. One side, Hamas, claims 312 civilians were killed.

The other side, the Israeli government, claims that only two civilians died.

The United Nations uses a figure of 57.

So what happens next? Will we see more suicide bombings in Israel followed by more air strikes against Palestine, and even a ground invasion.

I'm not an authority on the Middle East, like so many people are in the debate. One thing has struck me though, that most people taking part in the debate support one side or the other.

At first this might seem like an obvious thing to say, but there seem to be very few people supporting a group of people on both sides of the conflict with few weapons and who always suffer most: civilians.

People on the pro-Israeli side, such as Melanie Phillips, claim Israel is not targeting civilians, and some accuse Palestinians of being responsible for their fate by voting for Hamas.

What about those Palestinians who voted for Fatah, another party or did not vote?

Was it their fault for not campaigning loudly and long enough for an alternative to Hamas?

On the pro-Palestinian side, people such as George Galloway tend to gloss over the deaths of Israelis by Hamas rockets and suicide bombers and focus on the Israeli action.

They usually regard Hamas as having been demonised, despite its founding charter, which says: ""The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)" and blames "Zionists" for the French revolution, the Russian revolution and both world wars. Nothing anti-semitic about that then (!)

Call me naive, but people are people everywhere.

I'd like to see less debate about which side is right and which side is wrong, and more about how we can find a solution that keeps innocent people on both sides safe and alive.

One way could be for the international community to work with Fatah, which has been helping the Israelis destroy Hamas.

A moderate Fatah government would take a diplomatic approach towards Israel.

No doubt people on both sides of the debate will be offended by this post, but all I am saying is that ignoring one people's suffering while castigating another's is not going to help.

It's part of the reason why I felt so disappointed about the Stop The War Coalition, given their decision to take one side rather than protesting deaths on both.

I admire Tony Benn and have all his Diaries, but I don't accept that "The Israeli Government...now represents the greatest threat to security in the Middle East".

The threat to security in the Middle East is all those who want one side to win as opposed to stopping the bloodshed, as well as those who feel killing the other side is the only way to secure a future, blinded to the reality.

Ratemydoctor.com? New government health plans

The BBC reports that patients will be able to comment on the performance of their doctor on the NHS Choices website.

The Department of Health stress that the comments will be monitored for defamation and the identification or rating of individual doctors.

But if individual doctors cannot be identified, the system is surely flawed.

For many surgeries have a mixture of good and bad doctors.

Someone could have a bad experience with one doctor and give a bad rating to a whole surgery.

However, I'm not sure I'd like individual doctors to be identified either.

The website RateMyTeachers.com allows students to submit comments on their teachers anonymously, which has upset many teachers.

At the moment, NHS patients are able to comment on their hospital treatment, which seems fair enough to me.

This is because there is far less risk of a bad reputation being attached to a small group of people in a hospital than a doctor's surgery.

Only four or five doctors work in a surgery. Hundreds of medical staff work in a hospital.

You can see some typical comments here, on Yorkshire's Rotherham District General Hospital.

Like RateMyTeacher.com, these comments are often anonymous.

One person calls himself "Anon Treated in the endoscopy suit today".

Unless he changed his name for a joke, I think it's safe to say he didn't want to give his real name. Some people do, though.

Many of the comments have been replied to by the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.

So who is going to monitor this site to make sure there are no defamative comments?

Will the Government hire a lawyer, or will they just stick a copy of McNae's in front of a PPS and ask him to take a look every few minutes?

Will GP's monitor the site and take feedback on board? Will a surgery spokesperson be allowed to reply like NHS Foundation Trusts seem to?

I think this is a bad idea, as do the British Medical Association.

Police blogger PC Bloggs also remembers this idea being announced before.

Russian Federal Space Agency plans 39 space launches in 2009: a world record

Russian Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov has told the media that 39 space launches have been scheduled for 2009, a record.

Not sure if space launches are the most important use of government money, giving the world financial crisis.

I realise that it is important to explore space, but Russia should be helping its own citizens get through the downturn.

This seems like competition with America and Europe.

Russia's Glonass satellite program will also continue unchanged.

Anatoly Perminov says that the Russian Federal Space Agency: "will conduct two launches with three satellites each to increase the Glonass orbital grouping by six satellites."

More at RIA Novosti

Free course for American journalists and bloggers on Medicine In The Media

Cyberjournalist reports that America's National Institutes of Health (NIH) offers a free three day course on Medicine in the Media for journalists that welcomes citizen journalists and bloggers.

The course runs from June 24- June 27, 2009 and is located in Bethesda, Maryland. Applications for close on January 30 2009.

Medicine in the Media website here.

2008 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures episode 1 on Channel Five

Last night's Royal Institution Christmas Lecture was on the subject of microprocessors.

Professor Chris Bishop, chief research scientist with Microsoft Research and Professor of Computer Science at Edinburgh University, explained how computers had involved from Space Invaders consoles due to increased processing power.

Computers have been doubling in speed every two years for the last fifty years, which is exponential growth.

A microprocessor is very fast.

Professor Chris Bishop projected a very complex sum and said the microprocessor could do that sum in a nanosecond.

He then asked firearms expert Hamish McCloud to fire a .22 air rifle through two circuit boards thirty centimetres apart.

The shot took 2 million nanoseconds to pierce both circuit boards, and the microprocessor could have done 2 million calculations in that time.

Microprocessors may have reached the limits of speed. Each one is made up of semiconductors, switches either on or off.

The first semiconductor was invented by Michael Faraday, who used silver sulphide.

Transistors switch the current on and off, as demonstrated by Professor Chris Bishop.

He used a model of a transistor to show how it worked, first removing the silicon layer and copper electrodes.

This insulation layer is only four atoms thick.

The integrated circuit meant that four transistors could be placed on the same piece of silicon, and under Moore's Law the number of transistors on a chip ahas doubled every two years.

Making a microprocessor:

The bottom layer is layer of silicon. We have already created the insulation layer.

A pattern of light, corresponding to the pattern of copper we need, causes a chemical change.

A layer of copper is laid across the insulation layer, and an image of the copper wire is projected onto the top.

The microprocessor is then washed in acid to dissolve the copper.

Workers must wear special suits to avoid getting dust on the microprocessor.

A smaller transistor is a faster transistor, as it can fill up with charge quicker!

The clock speed is the rate a transistor can switch on and off. The faster the transistor, the faster the transistor, and therefore the faster the clock speed.

However, making transistors smaller also means they produce more heat per unit area. Therefore, heat limits microprocessor speed. Manufacturers are now trying two cores on the same chip.

A carbon nanotube could be used to build transistors, and would switch a thousand times faster than a transistor made of silicon. Professor Chris Bishop also suggests DNA.

The next episode is today on Channel Five at 7:15pm.

Watch again on Demand Five, Channel Five's watch again service using embedded Windows Media Player.

French economy holds up, unlike the British economy

Gordon Brown may want to take some lessons from Nicolas Sarkozy.

Despite fears that the French economy would enter recession in third quarter, it in fact grew 0.1%, according to the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE).

However, INSEE has predicted that the French economy will shrink by 0.8% in this quarter and will contract again by 0.4%in the first quarter of 2009.

The French government maintains its forecast of a expansion in 2009 of 0.2 to 0.5%.

I think that is unlikely.

Probable reasons for France avoiding a recession so far include the lack of personal debt and the fact that less people own their own home in France, meaning that fewer people have defaulted on their mortgage.

If we do see a "new capitalism", as Robert Peston predicts, I hope that new capitalism follows the current French system as opposed to the current American or British capitalist systems.

Ann Leslie: Killing My Own Snakes: A Memoir

Having met Dame Ann Leslie at the Woodstock Literary Festival, I can attest that she is a living legend, and one who is always happy to talk to people.

Her memoir, Killing My Own Snakes, is essential reading. Ann Leslie has had an exciting, varied and eye-opening life.

Starting out as a trainee reporter in the Daily Express' Manchester office after university, under the resentful Tom Campbell, Ann was plucked from writing on Lancashire teenagers (including the then unknown Beatles) to write a column at Fleet Street.

Leslie also wrote showbiz features, and interviewed several famous people a week including Peter Hall, Rex Harrison and Roman Polanski. She moved to Queen magazine, run by Jocelyn Stevens.

Her move to the Daily Mail allowed her to write many fascinating features from around the world, and the gutsy Leslie details her interviews with the powerful, including Imelda Marcos, " the Red Duke" Vojislav Seselj of Serbia, George W Bush (where she secured an interview through well timed gossip on Air Force Two) and former KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov.

She has also reported on events such as the Manson murder, the OJ Simpson trial and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.

Ann Leslie pays tribute to the many fixers who have helped her, guides who have assisted her in getting stories in some dangerous places, including Communist East Germany and Russia.

She feels that the worse crime a journalist can commit is to betray their fixer.

Killing My Own Stakes also details Ann's childhood and adventures in Mexico and Spain, where Salvador Dali was rather obscene, as well as her time on Stop The Week, which allowed her to gain the trust of a source used to arrest the leaders of the Cultural Revolution, who always listened to the radio programme.

If you are looking for a memoir full of fascinating detail on world events, gossip on figures from Bill Clinton to Germaine Greer (who Leslie does not have a good opinion of) and riveting revelations about journalism in the sixties, then this book is a must-read.

Killing My Own Snakes is out now in hardback at £20 and published by Macmillan.

Costs of Sally Murrer investigation revealed

Press Gazette, the UK media's trade publication, reports that the costs of an investigation by Thames Valley Police into Milton Keynes Citizen Sally Murrer,cleared at Kingston Crown Court last month of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office, has been revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Before legal fees at Crown Court were taken into consideration, the cost to the taxpayer was £205,000.

Nick Cohen has written a good column on the case, which I agree is an attack on press freedom.

As a resident of the Thames Valley area, I can attest that there is plenty of actual crime to solve without picking on a well respected reporter.

I wish Sally Murrer, who I met briefly while on work experience at the National Union of Journalists in January, all the best.

Crime maps for American and Canadian university areas: UCrime.com

Resourceshelf reports on UCrime.com, which publishes crime maps for areas around universities in America and Canada.

For example, if I click on the list of the University of Alaska's Anchorage campus, I can see a trespassing report on the grounds, including street and date reported.

Two clicks take me to the webpage of the university's Police Department, which seems to enjoy using pdf's to display information.

It is difficult to find the information, but this is due to the University of Alaska, not Ucrime.com.

Crimes are broken down by type, with the option to just see one type of crime. In Jacksonville University's Kinne University Centre, as an example, there was an alleged aggravated assault on November 7th.

The site also allows university students to report crime, and for anyone to give feedback. A blog gives updates on crime maps and university crime events.

European Union information service seeks entries for online calendar competition

The Europe and European Union information service, based at Aberdeen's Central Library, wants people to submit an image of their favourite landmark or building in any European Union member state for an online calendar.

A selection of entries will be added to the "Europe Direct Aberdeen - Serving the North East's 2009 online calendar", with prizes awarded to the best three entries. The calendar will be available to download for free from here.

The Europe and European Unioninformation service provides information on every aspect of Europe.There are now over 470 Europe Direct centres throughout Europe, making up the Official Network of European Commission Information Relays.

The closing date for entries is Monday, 05 January 2009.

Entries should be sent with name, address, phone number and email address plus age and parental consent if under 16 to:

Calendar Competition, Europe Direct, Information Centre, Central Library, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen AB25 1GW.

Remember to include details of your image.

Images need to be no larger than A5 and can be an original colour photograph, painting or drawing.

Prizes
1st Prize - £20 Voucher
2nd Prize - £10 Voucher
3rd Prize - £5 Voucher


Rules:
The competition is open to everyone and entrants can submit more than one image.

Copyright of the image remains with the individual, but winning entrants agree that their image can be published in the calendar.

Any photograph which contains individuals or groups of people must have the permission of those individuals prior to the photograph being entered.

Member countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

Europe Direct Aberdeen
Information Centre
Central Library
Rosemount Viaduct
Aberdeen
AB25 1GW
01224 649483

E-mail europedirect@aberdeencity.gov.uk

Book Reviews: Tim The Tiny Horse and Tim The Tiny Horse At Large by Harry Hill

Harry Hill's books on the stoic horse Tim are marketed for children, but can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Each book contains a series of well written adventures that Tim and a cast of supporting animals embark on, including "Tim The Tiny Horse Falls In Love", where Tim lies on a bed of rose petals in a parody of American Beauty, and "Tim Does Some Cooking", where the tiny horse tries to make a fudge bar.

Hill's drawings are also lovely, with two to four sentences to a page broken up by doodles of Tim, his friend Fly, and the adventures they embark upon.

At the end of Tim The Tiny Horse at Large, one of Tim's pets dies, prompting a moving evaluation of the death of someone that you treasure.

The books are uplifting, with Tim and Fly staying positive no matter what happens. Sometimes sad, always funny, these books are further proof of Harry Hill's talent.

The word slated: American and British use

The word "slated" seems to have a different meaning in America then Britain.

I have Microsoft PressPass in my Google Reader, and the top link says: "Microsoft Announces Quarterly Earnings Release Date and Upcoming Event for the Financial Community. Events with Microsoft leadership slated for January."

Oh dear. Then I typed this word into Google and compared American and British uses.

British newspapers, such as the Mirror, use the word negatively. "Sauce Police Slated" when reporting on airport security preventing airport workers from taking yogurt on board aeroplanes, or "Walsall Council slated over dismissal payout" regarding a £650,000 payout for whistleblower Peter Francis.

In America, the word slated is used to refer to scheduling an event, hence the Microsoft press release strapline. Headlines such as "New council slated to elect Mayor tonight" or "Rahm Emanuel, the man slated to be Mr. Obama’s chief of staff" from The Bulletin, a Pennsylvanian newspaper.

Other countries seem to prefer using "slated" in a negative sense, with the Irish News offering me "Council slated over stadium" as their headline to a snippet of free news, and Radio New Zealand International reporting "Papua New Guinea police slated in report from American watchdog group".

Curious little word.

If you're interested in learning more about the Microsoft slated event, it's a Financial Analyst Briefing at the 2009 International CES Conference on Thursday, January 8, 200, 3:00 p.m. PST.

The event is hosted by Robbie Bach, president, Entertainment and Devices Division. Webcast will be on the Microsoft Investor Relations webpage.

Financial education for the whole country

One of the very, very few positive aspects of this biting recession is how many people are becoming educated about financial matters.

Taking the bus from Kidlington to Oxford yesterday, I sat behind four teenage girls, who were loudly talking about the latest gadgets they hoped to get cheaper in the sales.

No surprise there: but they then had a detailed discussion about what shops were in administration, being able to name all of them including Whittards (which has now been bought by Epic) and The Officers Club.

Once the business news was seen as the preserve of City boys in red races driving flash cars around.

It has been only recently that people have made connections between problems in the City of London and job losses in their company.

This is because of the lack of financial education in most schools. How many people, a year ago, would know what the FTSE was, let alone follow it?

Now Robert Peston is the most well known face on the BBC ten o clock news, and financial headlines are on the front pages four days out of five.

People know that their fate is linked to the decisions of Alistair Darling, the Bank of England and banks.

A good Government would ignore Sir Jim Roses' daft primary education reforms and have half an hour a week of financial education, explaining how events in the City affect us and how we can avoid financial problems.

This would counteract the propaganda from banks and doorstep loan merchants preying on the poorest.

BBC News: Website age ratings 'an option'

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham is considering the introduction of film-style age ratings for websites.

The problem is, though, that there is no-one to enforce them. There is no online shop assistant asking to check ID.

This system is also open to abuse - we don't know who is in charge of rating sites and how much influence the government would have over them.

Video sharing sites:

Much of the content ministers are worried about is on video sharing sites such as Youtube. You can't give Youtube a 15 rating because 15 videos out of millions are unpleasent.

I assume this blog would get a Parental Guidance rating, or possibly higher.

Medianetwork: BBC Persian Service “conducting illegal activities” - Iranian minister Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi

Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi has accused the BBC Persian service in Tehran of "conducting illegal activities", the same week his president's speech was broadcast by Channel Four.

In related news, a New York City man has pleaded guilty to broadcasting Hezbollah TV, seen as providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Twitter brings back Name Search, but limits it

The popular microblogging service Twitter, which I use to tweet my posts, has finally brought back Name Search, as discussed on the Twitter Blog.

However, what the Twitter Blog doesn't mention is that the number of searches is limited to around twenty, as reported by Rodney Rumford.

NORAD and tracking Santa

Some interesting comments from Brian McClendon of Google on helping North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) track Santa (Link plays music when opened).

Merry Christmas and a happy 2009

Merry Christmas

No posts on Boxing Day but probably some at weekend

President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give Alternate Christmas Message on Channel Four

I won't be watching the Queen's Speech or the Alternate Queen's Speech this year, as neither interest me.

Sadly I won't be able to hear this message from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Questions of "where do you draw the line" are raised. If we broadcast a non-newsworthy speech by a homophobic Holocaust denier, where do we stop?

Should Nick Griffin's odious comments be broadcast?

Transcript from Ch$ linked via Harry's Place.

Zavvi enters adminstration

First Woolworths, then MFI, then Whittards, then The Officers Club and now Zavvi.

The chain of music and video shops has gone into administration, with 3,500 jobs at risk.

Woolworths, whose unit Entertainment UK was a major supplier of Zavvi, has been cited as a probably cause.

According to the BBC, the chain was formed after a management buy out of the Virgin Megastore division of the Virgin Group in September 2007.

RIP Harold Pinter (10th October 1930 - 24th December 2008)

Yesterday playwright and political activist Harold Pinter died at the age of 78.

Pinter wrote plays including the Caretaker and Betrayal, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature and the French Légion d'honneur.

He was also opposed to many recent conflicts including the 2003 Iraq invasion, has been active in International PEN and an active delegate of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, as well as joining the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM),which appealed for a fair trial for the Serbian dictator.

On a side note, this is probably the only blog to mention Slobodan Milošević on 25 December.

Guns and Roses album banned in China

Article 19 reports that rock band Guns ’N‘ Roses' new album Chinese Democracy has been banned from importation into China.

State-owned China National Publications Import and Export Group has warned local shops not to import the album, which includes lyrics such as "sitting in a Chinese stew" and "If your great wall rocks, blame yourself".

The album has also been censored from Chinese search engines and the album’s official website, www.chinesedemocracy.com has been blocked within China.

The organisation also reports on oppressed artists around the world, including Burmese musician Win Maw, who received a six year sentence in a closed court for "sending false news abroad", and Ibrahim El Batout, whose documentary Ein Shams (Eye of the Sun) has been banned from screening in Egypt for the crime of not being "Egyptian".

His film follows a taxi driver in Iraq before moving to the Ein Shams suburb of Cairo.

In Turkey, singer Bulent Ersoy has been acquitted of charges of criticising the Turkish military, after reportedly saying on television that she would not want her own children to join an army battling Kurdish rebels.

Turkey partially amended a law in 2008 banning criticism of "Turkishness", to join the European Union.

ArtVenture prize:

The ArtVenture prize, launched in 2008 by philanthropist organisation ArtVenture in partnership with ARTICLE 19, have been won by Zimbabwean playwright Mhlanga for his repeated challenge of the Mugabe regime through political satire, and Burmease comedian and director Zarganar, sentenced in November 2008 to 45 years imprisonment for "creating disaffection towards state and government" by collecting donations for the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

The youth art prize went to City of Rhyme, a hip-hop group from northern Brazil, whose lyrics condemn violence.

Planning approval recieved for Isle of Dogs Crossrail station

Work on the Isle of Dogs' Crossrail station will begin in early 2009 after Canary Wharf Group plc (CWG) agreed today to contribute £150 million towards costs, as well as designing and building the new station.

They will be paid a fixed price of £500 million for the work.

The Isle of Dogs station is expected to be completed by summer 2012, and the first trains are due to run in 2017 when Crossrail opens.

Planning consent was granted for the station's retail areas and rooftop park scheme by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on 4 December 2008 and ratified by Boris Johnson,the Mayor of London on 17 December 2008.

Transport Minister Andrew Adonis said: "This deal with the Canary Wharf Group once again demonstrates the commitment of business to this vital project.

"It will provide a boost of at least £20bn to the UK economy, as well as creating around 30,000 much-needed new jobs in this difficult time.

"This vital new link will directly connect the heart of London's financial districts and Canary Wharf to Heathrow Airport, significantly improving existing public transport links and giving people a real choice about how they make their journeys into and across London."


It would be nice if further improvements were made to South London public transport once Crossrail is finished.

How about extending the Bakerloo line or the Tramlink?

Bus diversions during Crossrail works in the Tottenham Court Road area:

In related news, the Charing Cross Road bus lane between Denmark Street and New Oxford Street will be closed from early January 2009 to allow building work on Tottenham Court Road Underground station and the new Crossrail station.

Route 176 will start and finish at Tottenham Court Road, instead of Oxford Circus, from 3 January 2009, while southbound routes 14, 19, 24, 29, 38, N5, N19, N20, N29, N38, N41 and N279 will also be affected by the building work from 10 January 2009.

Tfl reports that Routes 24, 29, N29 and N279 will be rerouted via Bloomsbury Street, Princes Circus to St Giles High Street, Denmark Street and left in to Charing Cross Road.

Routes 14, N5 and N20 will be routed via Bloomsbury Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and at Princes Circus will carry straight down to Shaftesbury Avenue to Cambridge Circus

Routes 19, 38, N19, N38 and N41 will continue along High Holborn, and then down Shaftesbury Avenue.

New bus stops will be created in St Giles High Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, and new and relocated stands will accommodate terminating buses in St Giles High Street and Earnshaw Street.

Passengers should allow for delays on these routes.

Look who it is! :Alan Carr My Story

I took this book out of Kidlington library for my sister, but decided to have a read of it for myself, and was surprised how well written and detailed it was.

I've never been a big fan of Alan Carr, I have to confess. I'm sorry if that sounds pleasant, his comedy just doesn't interest me.

However, the person examined in Look who it is! is far more likeable and deep than the person I catch a glimpse of on the Friday Night Project when someone else is watching it.

Alan's story is one of real hard work. The son of football manager Graham Carr, he was useless at games and was bullied for being camp.

He grew up in Weymouth, Dartford and Northampton, moving around whenever his father got a new job at a football club.

Look who it is! has blackly funny tales of his cat Big Puss, holidays with his grandmother and his teachers.

In 1990, Graham Carr got a job at Blackpool City Football Club and Alan moved to the Vegas of the North.

Alan Carr lost his virginity when he was 17, but had to run home the next morning as his parents were having their carpets laid.

He went to Middlesex University in North London to study Theatre Studies, getting a job in Tesco Brent Cross to raise money.

In his final year, he chose the Stand-up Comedy module and performed comedy routines at "Downstairs at the King's Head" in Crouch End.

A successful performance might have given some hint of his future career, but Alan Carr tried to apply for acting roles before getting a factory job.

In 1999, Alan and his friend Catherine took a round the world trip, including a jounrey through Mexican shanty towns, where Alan was accused of breaking a toilet, San Francisco and its "full on" gay areas, and Sydney.

When Alan Carr got back, he was offered a room in Manchester, and after a series of low paid jobs decided to perform at an Open Spot night at the Briton's Protection.

The lack of non-performers present led to a poor reception, but he did much better at his next gig in Fallowfield, leading to him entering the Citylife Comedian of the year award.

This led to him getting an agent, and Alan's stand up blossomed. He performed at the Edinburgh Festival and did a corporate gig for Abbey National Building Society in Birmingham, where he had to present the raffle after calling abusive audience members "w**kers" when they threw Mini Eggs at his face.

He changed agents to Off The Kerb and was asked to do the warm up for Jonathan Ross' Friday show. More live work was offered, as well as "I Love 1976", Flipside and "Law of The Playground", where he met Justin Lee Collins.

At the end, Alan Carr has a "thank you list", including his family, friends, Justin Lee Collins and Manchester.

Unlike some stars who gloss over their earlier life while devoting five chapters to their best work, Carr's honest discussion of his life is funny, sometimes sad, sometimes disturbing and mostly heart warming.

I recommend this book - and you can't miss it in the bookshops with a picture of Alan Carr's face on one of those seaside cut-outs. It's £18.99.

Panorama: The Year Britain's Bubble Burst (with lots of Robert Peston)

After the usual introduction by Jeremy Vine outside the BBC, a Panorama examining the recent banking crisis.

Slightly daft introduction of Robert Peston followed by a showing of his audition tape.

Peston's breaking of Northern Rock's problems led to a run, leading to accusations that he'd helped to cause problems.

He told Panorama that he did not expect queues around the bank as a result of his story and that savers should know what goes on, while Sir Simon Jenkins said that financial journalists should consider how their reporting would affect the markets.

Then footage of Robert Peston receiving an award at the Royal Television Society as a result of the Northern Rock coverage, before an exploration of 2008.

Peston interviews Hector Sants, who feels that no-one could have prevented Northern Rock's collapse.

Sir John Gieve, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, tells Peston "We did see something coming...we didn't think it was going to be as severe as it did turn out to be...lowering interest rates would have held down production in other parts of the economy."

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman, felt that he was dismissed when he first tried to raise the problem.

More Peston:

Then some more background on Robert Peston's life, including footage from Highgate Wood School where he studied.

After university, Peston took a job in the City and then moved to financial journalism.

Lehman collapse:

The collapse of Lehman Brothers in September was a huge shock to the financial system. Alistair Darling told Panorama that "never again must we allow part of the baking system to collapse".

Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) was in talks with Lloyds TSB for merger. Peston's reports caused HBOS shares to soar, casuing further questions about his power in the business world.

Peston's blog is read by 650,000 people a day, and it was hear he correctly predicted Bradford and Bingley would need to be rescued by the government

A bank can collapse in two days. It can lend to people who can't repay them or borrow from people who want their money back at a moment's notice.

On 7 October, Robert Peston found out that Halifax Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank of Scotland were talking to the Government about support and blogged it. The banks' shares dived and questions were raised in the House.

The next day, a £400 billion plan was launched to save the UK banking system. On October 10th, London stock markets fell 20% and it was felt that RBS might not survive. Sir John Gieve said "If you just delt with one, you'd leave the others in an exposed position."

The Bank of England was ringing up the RBS's creditors to make sure they knew it wasn't going to collapse.

He is shown round the room where a deal was created by Chancellor Alistair Darling.

If banks did not take Government money and give the Treasury a shareholding, they would need to raise capital themselves.

Barclays refused to be part-nationalised, but £37 billion of taxpayers' money was invested in RBS, Lloyds and HBOS in return for stakes.

Hector Sants now feels that the period of the market losing confidence is behind us, and that the actions of global authorities have reassured investors.

Interest rates have been slashed, hurting borrowers, which Peston says is "unfair".

Unsurprisingly, Alistair Darling blames those in the boardrooms of major banks.

Some interesting shots of the inside of the BBC, but I feel the background on Robert peston's life was a bit superfluous.

He's an interesting person and a good reporter, but I would have preferred a half hour program presented by Peston entirely on the banking crisis. I admit that the coverage of his reporting was relevant though.

Peston's blog on 2009.

Two days until Christmas Day

It is the 23 December, two days until Christmas, and the old cliche is being heard whenever I walk to the shops or meet people "I don't feel very Christmassy."

With a devastating recession increasing the jobless numbers daily, it's hardly surprising that many people are not wanting to celebrate.

Takings are down in shops despite drastic reductions. I was on the Oxford Espress (sp) on Saturday and Sunday (which is why I blogged so little, which Google seems to have penalised me for).

It took longer than usual to get out of the centre due to buses and taxis dropping off shoppers to buy designer clothes and expensive food that tastes similar to other food but is presented in a much nicer way.

Despite "70% reductions" stuck to high street shop windows across Britain, there is still concern over profits in retail.

Information services firm Experian calculated that last weekend saw High Street "footfalls" down by 8.7% on 2007. Their website brings up pop up adverts, so careful if you visit it.

Hugh Pym, economics editor for the BBC, wrote one of many stories highlighting the misery many people face this year.

"There was no ray of starlight to illuminate the blanket of gloom in the labour market...The fall in financial and business services jobs, down 1.1% in the quarter, was almost as big as the decline for manufacturing where the number of posts fell by 1.4%."

In Aberdeen, Christmas spirit was ruined by vandals who attacked the Christmas tree in Castlegate market on Sunday December 14, removing its star.

Dawn Schultz,Aberdeen City Council's marketing and events manager, said: "The tree is given into the care of the citizens of Aberdeen in recognition of the strong relationship the two cities have established over the years so it is very sad to see it treated in this manner when it is there for the enjoyment of all."

Of course, Christmas is meant to be a special time where everyone gathers together. It would be nice if there was another Christmas miracle and the economy magically improved in 2009, with Robert Peston writing a happy post on his excellent blog.

Still, at least most people in Britain are not starving to death or dying of cholera, like in Zimbabwe.

Despite the job losses, incompetent government and soaring fuel bills, I saw people out and about today happily greeting each other and stocking up for a Christmas feast.

Maybe it's a return of the Blitz spirit.

Wouldn't it be nice if 2009 marked a new kind of capitalism, where people only borrowed in emergencies, where doorstep lending was finally outlawed, where greedy bankers repented and where public services were not sold off like the utilities were under the Tories.

Merry Christmas.

No congestion charge in London from 24 December to 2 January

UPDATED FOR 2011 AS EVERYONE KEEPS LANDING ON THIS PAGE

There will be no Congestion Charge in London from Saturday 24 December to Monday 2 January inclusive, according to TFL.

Tube lines not running:

The Circle Line will not run until Friday 30 December.

No service on the District Line between High Street Kensington and Edgware Road until Friday 30 December.

No service between Hammersmith and Kings Cross St Pancras on the Hammersmith and City line until Friday 30 December.

No service between Baker Street and Aldgate on the Metropolitan Line until Friday 30 December.

No service between Camden Town and High Barnet / Mill Hill East until Friday 30 December.

Replacement buses operate.

The Docklands Light Railway is closed between Bank/Tower Gateway and Poplar/West India Quay until January 2nd.

Cannon Street station is closed until January 7th.

Saturday services will operate on many National Rail lines in London until 30 December.

The Ascent of Money: Episode Six

Sadly this week's episode of the Ascent of Money was the last one.

Professor Niall Ferguson focused on a concept touched on by Rory Bremner in Silly Money, a series covered elsewhere in this blog, Chimerica.

In 2006, the world stock markets were worth $119,000,000,000,000. Financial globalisation has taken place.

Globalisation is vulnerable to financial and political tremors. Ten years ago, there was an emerging markets crisis.

Now, American borrowers have been relying on Chinese savers.

Many of today's emerging markets are really re-emerging markets. Overseas investment is risky as it is difficult to see what foreign investors or governments are doing.

Before 1914, the solution used to be to send the Navy in, or gunboat diplomacy.

William Jardine and James Matheson set up a trading company in 1832, shipping government-controlled opium to China.

The opium was confiscated by Chinese officials, and in 1840 British gunships landed in Hong Kong Island. South West China was under British control and opium became endemic.

By 1900, Jardine Matheson Holdings diversified into insurance and railways, and is listed on the Singapore Exchange.

The First World War caused liquidity to reduce, halting globalisation.

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank were set up in 1944 by the Allies. Money would go from government to government under regulation.

Western bankers were desperate to invest oil money from the East, and controls were relaxed.

Latin America borrowed millions of dollars, and when Mexico declared that it could not repay its debt the continent was almost bankrupt.

The IMF and World Bank were in charge of getting the money back, and there was concern that these institutions were propping up dictators and causing economic problems via economic programs, leading to the anti-globalisation movement.

However, Professor Niall Ferguson does not believe that the IMF is a force for ill.

The coming of hedge funds led to a new breed of hit men. Globalisation was speeded up as hedge funds only put money in for weeks.

George Soros' theory of reflexivity says that financial markets cannot be perfect or rational, going through boom and bust cycles.

His quantum fund made millions through short selling, where currencies are bought and sold on the calculation they will lower in value.

On September 16th 1992, Black Wednesday, the British pound was linked to the German mark.

Soros calculated that the chancellor Norman Lamont would have to withdraw from the Exchange Rate Mechanism, betting $10,000,000.

Lamont announced the withdrawal of Britain from the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Soros made $1 billion.

In 1993, Fischer Black and Myron Scholes came up with option contracts.

A stock worth $100 today and that may be worth $200 in 2011 could give an option to buy in three years.

They came up with a formula for pricing options (seen at www.jsoftware.com):

C = SN(d1) - Xe - rTN(d2)
P = Xe - rtN(- d2) - SN(- d1)
d1 = (ln(S/K) + (r+v2/2)T) /v√T
d2 = d1 - (v√T)

Key:
C = Theoretical Call Premium S = Current Stock Price
P = Theoretical Put Premium X = Option Strike Price
r = Risk-Free Interest Rate v = volatility, or Standard Deviation of Asset Price
T = Time in years until strike date
N = Cumulative Standard Normal Distribution
ln = Natural Logarithm

Long Term Capital Management, their company made money by selling options that buyers had guessed wrong.

Additional leverage allowed them to increase assets to over $100 billion.

Long Term increased options and sold them cheaply, estimated the risk of going bust at 1/10 to the power of twenty four.

In October 1997, the pair were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Summer 1998 saw the collapse of the Russian stock market, and the government defaulted on its debts.

The company lost 15% of its entire capital and failed to find someone to help them. Soros felt it was too dangerous.

The New York Federal Reserve brokered a bank bailout.

Long Term Capital Management failed to factor in the 1987 stock market crash or the last Russian financial shock in 1917.

China:
Chongqing, western China, is the fastest growing city on Earth, where bridges and railways are constantly being constructed. The aim is to turn Chongqing into the financial capital of the world.

China has avoided crisis by financing much of its own investment, and now the Chinese are lending money to Americans, creating "Chimerica".

In the South Western Stock Exchange, Chongqing residents come to invest their savings.

Chinese savings are so plentiful that capital is flowing from East to West.

Last year, America needed to borrow $8 billion. China had a surpuls of over $2 billion, much of it lent to the USA.

China's exports to America needed a weak currency, so the country bought millions of dollars via currency markets. This was thought to be mutually beneficial.

Outsourcing to China has been seen as a way of increasing profits by multinationals such as IBM and Wal Mart.

Chimerica was thrown into doubt by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis.

However, China has been relatively unscathed. No Chinese banks have gone bust like in America (Lehman Brothers) or had a run (Northern Rock in 2007).

By 2027, China's GDP is predicted to be bigger than America's.

However, Germany and Britain were seen as having a similar relationship a hundred years ago, but fought two world wars after the breakdown in political relationships.

A conflict between China and America, whether financial or military, could reshape dramatically the current financial landscape.

The big crisis come seldom enough to be forgotten by those in charge of companies.

All six programmes are on 40D: (4 on demand).

A wonderful series. You can also read the book: The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Professor Niall Ferguson.

Thoughts on the police state: A response to James Hawes' article

I don't know if you read yesterday's Times, but there was an interesting column by James Hawes, senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes.

Hawes discussed his experiences of anti-social behaviour and the alleged failure of police to deal with it. These experiences were used to argue against the existence of a police state, which he described as a theory of the "Idiot Left".

Aside from the irritating branding of a section of the political sphere as idiots (so are they stupid for their thoughts on a police state or more generally?), I feel James Hawes' argument is flawed.

When people talk about a police state in Britain, they are not talking about anti-social behaviour.

The phrase is used in two ways. Firstly, to highlight repression of political demonstrations or activists by the state using the police.

Secondly, as a whinge by people when the police catch them breaking the law "You ticketed my car for parking on a yellow line! It's like living in a police state."

The second speaks for itself, but the first I feel has some validity.

James Hawes does not debate the use of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to prevent people demonstrating outside Parliament Square, the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 by councils, as investigated by the Daily Telegraph, and the detention of Walter Wolfgang when he tried to re-enter the Labour Party Conference after being removed for shouting "nonsense" once at Jack Straw.

Mr Hawes may not feel these instances are very serious, indeed he may dismiss anti-globalisation protesters and Walter Wolfgang as the "Idiot Left".

However, many of the issues that people demonstrate on are important, such as climate change.

Though some may think they are only going to bother "middle class hippies", they will affect all of us. Secondly, even if one does not agree with the views of protesters, one should defend their right to protest.

If the Government succeeds in making protest as difficult as possible and then passes laws that directly affect James Hawes, how will be show his disapproval except by direct action?

I, like many people, am concerned about anti-social behaviour as described in his article.

I support increased use of Anti Social Behaviour Orders (but only for criminals, not to use against protesters as they have been), police discretion, increased police pay and funding, more closed circuit television in town centres and more prisons, as long as the right people are inside them.

But I also oppose the use of anti-terrorism as a means of curtailing protest that embarrasses the Government, and strongly support any changes in these laws so they only target those who want to kill us, not those who want to protest.

Police states in literature:

My argument that the police state does not affect those who do not embarrass the government is backed up by literature.

Aside from a few telescreens in places that might become hiding places for wavering party members, the proles in Nineteen Eighty Four are not under surveillance. They can murder and burgle each other without the Thought Police worrying.

The same is true in Stephen King's The Running Man, where residents of the slum areas of Co-op city are ignored by the police until they travel uptown to register for a gameshow and risk their health.

World Wide Web Consortium announces new accessibity standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced new standards to make sites more accessible to older and disabled people.

As Geoff Adams-Spink reports, these guidelines apply to text, images, audio and video.

The standards recommend providing text alternatives for non text based media, which will ensure it can be changed into large print, braile or simple language.

Captions and sign language should be provided for all pre-recorded media, while there should be audio-only options.

It is also recommended that it should be easy for users to separate foreground from background on images, and that users should be able to surf the site via a keyboard as opposed to a mouse or ball.

Adhering to these guidelines will be important for me during my new job, although most of them I would have considered essential anyway. I'm not sure how I can apply them to this blog, although most browsers allow you to resize text or hear parts of a site.

Greek riots this Saturday

A flash mob was used to demonstrate at the Sintagma square in Athens, with reports from Indymedia that 150 people "froze" for about 10 minutes, before the government-funded Christmas tree was covered in rubbish.

Riot police tried to protect the tree from vandalism. You can see photos here and here.

At 9pm, thousands of people gathered in Exarchia, where Alexis Grigoropoulos was shot, for a rally.

There was also a demonstration at the occupied Polytechnic University, where riot police fought with protesters around the University and the Exarchia square.

The protesters made barricades and set them on fire while police fired chemicals and tear gas, making arrests. The protest lasted until well after midnight.

In Thessaloniki the city's mayor was attacked by protesters occupying public land, who threw a box of pastries and plastic bottles of water at him while shouting slogans.

More on the riots in Greece here.

Flash mobs and protesting:
I wonder if flash mobs will be used more often in protests. I think they'd be effective.

There have been many articles of flash mobs doing "wacky" stunts for a laugh causing chaos in rail stations or shopping centres.

Imagine a flash mob outside BAE Systems.

Kalish visual editing workshop for American journalists in June 09

The Kalish visual editing workshop will be taking place from June 12 - June 16 2009 at Ball State University,Muncie, Indiana, as reported by Cyberjournalist.

According to the course's website, the workshop is intended to "design a bridge" between online news organizations and newspaper organizations.

It includes hands-on exercises and discussions, the creation of a page one newspaper page with accompanying inside pages for a picture story.

Participants will be expected to take a set of pictures, marry them with sound and produce an effective web-based slide show, as well as being able develop a story board which will lead to a video production.

Topics for discussion include managing resources across platforms, demonstrating leadership qualities at staff level, mid-management and senior management levels, as well as a panel to answer questions.

Applying for the course:

The deadline for applications is February 28 2009, and accommodation must be applied for by May 20.

Each applicant must submit a brief statement of background and reason for applying. Participants will be selected for a good "mix" of people, and there is a registration fee of $500 and a deposit of $100.

The balance is due on May 1 2009, after which no refunds will be given.

More information.

Purple squirrel seen near Meoncross School in Hampshire

The Telegraph reports that children and teachers at Meoncross School in Hampshire saw a purple squirrel through the window.

Friendface: social networking parody on the IT Crowd episode five

Last night's episode of the IT Crowd parodied social networking, with fake site Friendface mocking the control social networking sites have over users' data, as well as the contemptuous reaction that people not using such sites have, played well by Richard Ayode as Moss (a number of people in the media seem to have this reaction!)

Interesting examination of online advertising and effects (the cola game) as well as social networking addiction (although I don't think Moss, Jen and Roy are representative of most site users.)

Jen's decision to use Friendface to meet old school friends backfired when she found that her friends are more successful than her, so she asks Moss and Roy to help...and everything becomes crazy.

It's best not to be lured into a false sense of reassurance by social networking, even though you don't have to confront people face to face.

Have a mental picture of them sitting at a computer reading your post.

Watch the IT Crowd episdoe five on 40D.

Help puffin chicks on St Kilda

The BBC reports that people good at sewing are being sought by the National Trust for Scotland to make small cotton sacks for puffin chicks, or pufflings.

Pufflings become confused by lights from buildings on the island of St Kilda and head towards them instead of the sea.

Rangers, who live on St Kilda during the summer, rescue pufflings by placing them in cotton sacks before releasing them on the coast.

Anyone interested in helping produce the sacks should contact Susan Bain of the National Trust for Scotland on (01463) 232034.

Labour give the poorest in society a kicking

The Labour Party have decided to allow credit unions to run some of the emergency state loans given to the very poor, meaning they will be charged interest from 12.68% to 26.8%.

If these were banks we were talking about, they'd get a government bailout.

Lord Kinnock, who was Labour leader between 1983 and 1992, has attacked the idea.

When Kinnock gave that excellent speech two days before polling day in 1983, saying: "I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can't pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford...

"I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.", I doubt he realised how apt his words would be for Gordon Brown's leadership.

University of Exeter in Private Eye

There is a disturbing story in the latest Private Eye (1226) about Paul Jones, a postgraduate student suing the University of Exeter after allegedly being left in charge of teaching an entire undergraduate module.

He was paid £5184 a year for being a graduate teaching assistant, but did not realise that he would have to teach a module on consumer research by himself after his supervisor Professor Jonathan Schroeder left for Australia on sabbatical, along with fellow lecturer Dr Janet Borgerson.

The University of Exeter has offered a goodwill payment of £3,500 in tuition fees, but Paul Jones wants full funding to transfer to another university, claiming the extra work and the lack of face to face support left him unable to finish his PhD.

More in this week's Private Eye on page 29.

According to Flisolo, Jones has complained that he has suffered "a bitter and spiteful campaign by the University administration", and that his complaint was treated "with contempt, hostility, and unfairly."

He has now launched a website campaigning for justice and needs £20,000 to take his case to court.

Please donate.

Austrian broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk launchs "catch up" service

Austrian public broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) will launch catch up service ORF-Mediathek in February 2009, as reported at Medianetwork.

ORF’s online director Thomas Prantner says that the new service will be "a very important step in the development of ORF.at into a multimedia platform"

All five terrestrial stations and Sky have them in Britain, as do German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

Which other broadcasters worldwide have a service similar to the iplayer?

Los Angeles Times creates homicide map

On this blog I've reported on police crime maps created by London and Wales forces, but the L.A. Times has created a homicide map to accompany its chronicle of murders in Los Angeles, the Homicide Report.

A list of murder victims is given under the Google Map, and you can click on a victim's name in the list to see details.

Clicking on "More" on the bubble takes you to the homicide report for the murder.

You can filter results by cause of death, day of week, age, race, gender, and there is also a photo area of victims.

In 2008, there were 592 murders in L.A.

Independent.co.uk: Secret nuclear sell-off storm

Britain no longer has any stake in the production of its nuclear warheads, after the Government secretly sold off its shares in the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston in Berkshire.

So much for claims our nuclear deterrent was independent, unlike France's force de frappe.

The fee paid by American company Jacobs Engineering, which bought the warheads, has not been disclosed.

Investigative journalists giving talk at Oxford Film and Video Makers next month

Investigative journalists Gem de Silva and Zoe Broughton will be speaking at Oxford Film and Video Makers, 54 Catherine Street, OX4 3AH on Wednesday 28 January 2009 at 7:30pm.

Gem de Silva's company "Tracks Investigations" offers a worldwide investigation, campaign and media production service for environmental and animal protection organisations.

He won this year's RSPCA's Special Investigative Award for his investigation of the international primate trade.

Gem de Silba has worked in the charity sector for the last 12 years, where his roles have included Special Projects Manager for Compassion in World Farming and Director of Investigations for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.

He has also been an independent film and video director, producing programmes on environmental and social justice issues.

Zoe Broughton is a human rights & environmental campaigns video journalist who has worked for Undercurrents - the organisation that brings you ‘news you don't see on the news’ - and recently has been working on a project about disadvantaged teenagers in Oxford.

Zoe films direct action videos for Greenpeace and has been asked to make a film for the Quakers about keeping protest non-violent.

Entry to the event is free, and doors open at 7:00pm.

The talk is part of "Reel One", where local filmmakers, screenwriters, digital artists and crews meet up.

Debate on libel laws at TheyWorkForYou.com

Denis McShane says it better than I ever could

"The practice of libel tourism as it is known—the willingness of British courts to allow wealthy foreigners who do not live here to attack publications that have no connection with Britain—is now an international scandal.

"It shames Britain and makes a mockery of the idea that Britain is a protector of core democratic freedoms.

"Libel tourism sounds innocuous, but underneath the banal phrase is a major assault on freedom of information, which in today's complex world is more necessary than ever if evil, such as the jihad ideology that led to the Mumbai massacres, is not to flourish, and if those who traffic arms, blood diamonds, drugs and money to support Islamist extremist organisations that hide behind charitable status are not to be exposed."

Welcome support from Norman Lamb and Michael Gove, and a comment from Edward Garnier, which I cannot repeat here due to the libel laws!

Via Martin Stabe.

Streaming media companies form alliance

A new industry forum, the Internet Media Device Alliance (IMDA), has been formed by streaming media companies.

The Internet Media Device Alliance says that one of their key activities will be to define a series of end-to-end technical standards, functions and profiles to encourage the development of a wide range of Internet media devices.

Other objectives include the promotion of Internet-connected device technology to consumers and retailers both within and outside the IMDA.

Membership is open to consumer electronics OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), retailers, radio broadcasters, content aggregators, online music service providers, device manufacturers and technology providers.

The decision to form the Internet Media Device Alliance was taken at the 2008 Internet Radio Summit, hosted in London by the BBC.

The inaugural General Assembly Meeting of the Internet Media Device Alliance will be held on 9 January 2009 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show. Interested parties will be able to join the IMDA there.

Via Andy Sennit's Medianetwork

Bailout likely for Jaguar: where next?

Robert Peston is convinced that the government will give Jaguar Land Rover state aid, saving 15,000 jobs.

However, does this mean that other car companies will receive future bailouts? Any why didn't Woolworths receive state aid?

The company employs twice as many people in Britain and some would argue its products are less damaging to the environment.

There is going to be a fierce debate over the next year about which companies should get state aid and which ones should not.

I have no doubt we will see many requests for bailouts across the British economy.

Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail complains that the firm is foreign-owned and was bought during a time of high oil prices.

He also holds Tata Consulting Services, part of Jaguar-Land Rover's owners Tata, responsible for "British jobs [being] lost to Bangalore."

While I would not choose a car company as a priority for bailing out, I am very concerned at rising unemployment. The Government have gone quiet on plans to create jobs.

It should be noted that Jaguar Land Rover deny the aid they are asking for is a bailout, calling it "short term support".

Sorry for the lack of financial news posts recently.

Be wary of bogus recruitment emails

Unemployment is rocketing to two million, and some fraudsters are trying to take advantage of this by offering bogus jobs.

Today I received an email from someone pretending to be from BHP Billiton, a company involved in natural resources including oil and steel.

The From address was info_bhpbilliton101@yahoo.com.hk, with a different reply-to address, billitonplcuk@hotmail.com.

Clearly, a real company would not need free email accounts! (And why would a company not located in Hong Kong have a .hk email?)

The email was also not addressed to me and asked for my full name, another sign that it was fake. No doubt this con artist has thousands of emails he tries.

Also check the presentation of the email. BHP Billiton would not have spelling mistakes or wrongly capitalised words.

If a job advert asks you to send them money, it's a scam.

If a job advert asks you to email your bank details before meeting, it's a scam.

Be wary. Stick to recognised job boards and don't give out your bank details or date of birth to people you have not met before.

Obama campaign logo development

Interesting post over at Logo Design Love showing some logos that were considered by Sol Sender,principal of design agency Sender LLC, hired to develop a logo for Barack Obama's campaign.

Interviews with Sol Sender here, including the social media aspect of the campaign.

I like the Barack O-Lantern (video 2).

The Money Programme: Last Orders: Calling Time on Pubs? (also notes on Oxford pubs needing your support)

Last week Max Flint examined the pub industry.

By 2012, one in eight British pubs will have failed and more than 4000 pubs will go out of business by 2010.

To the tune of the Specials' wonderful "Ghost Town", an apt national anthem for recession-hit Britain, he visited Tony Blyth of the Duke’s Arms in the village of Woodford, whose taking have almost halved since 2007.

They also had to spend money on a shelter outside for smokers due to the ban.

The White Horse, owned by Admiral Taverns, is run by Giuseppe Gatto, who lost £25,000 doing repairs when he took over.

He accuses the company of failing to help him fix the pub, although they deny the pub represents the quality of their estate.

Giuseppe plans to leave as soon as possible.

The Prince of Wales, owned by Punch Taverns, has been run by Alan Peel for six years.

He is struggling to keep the pub going. Takings have stayed the same while costs have gone up.

Rent is £400 a week rent and pays £145 for a barrel of Guiness, while Tony Blyth can pay £115 for a barrel.

Chief executive of CAMBRA Mike Benner says the British pub is "part of our culture" and that for many pubs "food is now a bigger part of their business then drink sales."

Lucy Townsend runs a successful pub, the Anchor Inn. It is a food led pub, and has been aided by the smoking ban.

In the village of Woodford, Tony Blyth told Max Flint that many customers were switching to cheap supermarket alcohol and drinking at home.

161 million fewer pints were sold in summer 2008 than summer 2007.

Max spent a day behind the bar learning how to become a publican, and was surprised by the lack of customers on a Wednesday night.

He describes relating to customers a "six hours of forced laughter."

Managed or chain pubs, including Wetherspoons or All Bar Ones, number 700 and have cheaper food or alcohol than other pubs.

In 1989, breweries were criticised by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and pubs were sold off by the beer industry.

Leased pubs have to buy beer from the pub companies, which is more expensive

Hamish Champ, City and Business editor of The Publican, said beer companies were seen as "ripping the heart out of pubs", and said that the beer tythe was causing problems.

In Kent, The Ivy House landlord Colm Powell went on hunger strike after Enterprise Inn fined him for breaking his tythe.

Powell said he would not have survived otherwise.

Andrew Bracken, divisional manager of Enterprise Inns, says he feels thee company has done all that it could do.

Mark Hastings, of the British Beer and Pub Association, denied pub companies were responsible and costs were balanced out.

Thriving pubs:

The Old Crown at Hesket Newmarket is a co-operative pub owned by locals. Each paid fifteen hundred pounds for a share in the pub.

Since 2006 the Old Crown has increased trade by over forty percent. Malcom Hawksworth said the secret was "to give our public what they want."

In Ravenstonedale, the Black Swan has opened a shop within the pub, selling essentials. It was helped by the Pub is the Hub initiative, started by the Prince of Wales.

The Black Swan has seen its turnover treble from £200,000 to £600,000 a year.

A recent survey by financial experts recommended investors to avoid pub company stocks.

It said the beer tie "looks increasingly archaic" and that a sizeable proportion of pubs are paying too much rent and may not be able to survive long term.

Cheap supermarket beer, bad weather, high rents, big taxes and the smoking ban are crippling the pub trade.

With the economy struggling for the foreseeable future, time could soon be called on part of British life.

On the iplayer until 7:20pm today.

Pubs in Oxford that need your support:

Tony Goulding, pubs officer from the Oxford branch of Camra (the Campaign for Real Ale)has named a number of pubs in Oxford that need support.

1.The Jolly Postboys, 22 Florence Park Road, Oxford OX4 3PH (near Cowley).

2.The Ampleforth Arms, 53 Collinwood Rd, Headington,Oxford OX3 8HH.

3.The Eagle Tavern,28 Magdalen Road,Oxford, OX4 1RB.

4. The Chester Arms, Chester Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX14 1SN (Abingdon).

The Economist: World Trade: Barriers to entry

Interesting article on world trade from The Economist.

Teenager wounded by bullet in Peristeri, Athens

Reports are coming in of a high school student being wounded by a bullet in Peristeri, Athens.

Police have said that no officers were in the area at the time of the shooting.

Deputy Education Minister Andreas Lykourentzos said "Unfortunately another unpleasant incident has been added to the recent sad events that torment the sector of education".

Lykourentzos claims that "the incident will be assessed and evaluated calmly without being blown out of proportion...[these are]hard times that demand responsibility and cooperation to ensure the preservation of democratic normalcy, social peace and the uninterrupted continuation of education's work."

The Labour Centre in Patras and a Cretan TV station have been occupied.

Wednesday in Greece:

Yesterday in Greece, ticket machines in Athens were vandalised while a police van stopped at traffic lights was torched.

There are also reports of demonstrations in Iraklio and Chania. In Patras a new pirate radio station run by the protesters started transmitting.

The riot police's headquarters were also torched

More info here.

Patch issued to fix Internet Explorer security flaw

The BBC reports that Microsoft has released a patch to fix a recent serious security flaw in Internet Explorer.

As mentioned by the Telegraph, McAffe blogger Rahul Mohandus has more information on Internet Explorer 7 attacks.

If you want to read an in-depth debate on Mozilla Firefox versus Internet Explorer, go here. An interesting point is made:

It's harder to avoid than you seem to think. If you use Windows help to view .chm files, you're using IE. Usually they stay local, but many help files do include
links to web pages, and then you're out in the real world.

McCanns issue new plea for help

Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeline went missing last May, have issued a new video appealing for him.

A voiceover tells viewers ""This will be our second Christmas without our daughter, Please help us make sure we don't have a third."

I don't really know how much more people can do to find Madeleine. It's been over eighteen months now, and there have been no developments this year.

Far better to concentrate on other missing people.

Police forces in Wales launch crime maps

Three Welsh police forces have launched crime maps for the local area.

South Wales Police, Gwent Police and North Wales Police's maps went live today, while a fourth force, Dyfed-Powys Police, will launch theirs on Friday when translation is completed.

(Wales, for those unaware, has its own language, Welsh, spoken alongside English. The police are called Heddlu in Welsh. South Wales Police is therefore Heddlu De Cymru)

The maps do not show an overall picture until a location is entered, but once this is done the information is detailed, including crime increases or decreases, relative crime and by type.

For example, South Wales Police's crime map tells me crime in Neath Port Talbort is below average compared to the rest of the area, crime has decreased by 11.8% compared to 2007.

You can also subscribe to an RSS feed, meaning that you can receive regular updates without visiting the map each time, and data can be downloaded as a .csv file. Most spreadsheets open .csv's.

The search function needs a little work but I am impressed with the Welsh crime maps (the Met might want to incorporate some of the features) and hope that other forces will add crime maps. Only North Wales', which also shows police stations, has a Youtube or Facebook link.

I can't find out how to access a Welsh version of the map, and Gwent Police's Getting Started link goes to the map. Hopefully these bugs should be solved.

Labour MP resigns government post over Royal Mail plans

Jim McGovern has resigned from his role as parliamentary private secretary to business minister Pat McFadden over plans by Lord Mandelson to part-privatise Royal Mail.

A man of integrity. 50,000 jobs could go if the Royal Mail is sold to TNT - the firm which was accused of losing child benefit disks as well as DWP data.

With unemployment rising to 1.86 million, I doubt those 50,000 workers would easily find new jobs. I

Indeed, it is hard to find new jobs during growth, and the recession will probably last until mid-2010 at the earliest.

Half of the Royal Mail's 71 sorting centres would be closed.

The unions will resist this sale, and rightly. CWU general secretary Billy Hayes echoes my concern about TNT:

"It is incredible that the British Government which has lead the world in overhauling banks need another European postal service to rescue the Royal Mail. Especially one which has already been disgraced by losing sensitive data disks in the mail.

"This was meant to be a report about competition but Mandelson has ignored the damage done through irresponsible liberalisation and advocates more involvement by private companies."

With so much opposition from backbenchers at unions, can Lord Mandelson succeed? He'd also have to break a manifesto promise.

Labour's 2005 manifesto said: "we have given the Royal Mail greater commercial freedom and have no plans to privatise it".

I want my postal service run by the public sector and providing as many jobs as possible, with increased funding and less pricey adverts.

Advertising is switching to the Net now. Television adverts are not as successful as they once were, and Royal Mail should develop new media branding. It would cost less also.

Underbelly: Episode Six

Spoilers:

Andrew “Benji” Veniamin, a suave thug, has been hired by Lewis Moran to kill Dino Dibra, who he believes killed Mark.

A friend of Dibra, Beji is reluctant to murder him until he believes he has proof, whereupon he shoots him multiple times in his own driveway.

However, Benji switches sides and decides to help Carl Williams, delivering a wounded Tony Mokbel to him and offering all his services. Carl is rattled after his house was shot at, although this had been done by Dino Dibra and his associate to convince Carl to be careful.

Meanwhile Steve Owen realises Carl is the killer and tries to prove that he could have driven to a nearby bar and appeared on CCTV, despite the disbelief of the other police. Eventually, after a trail run, he succeeds.

Sometimes you have to remember that Underbelly is based on true events. The idea of shooting out someone's windows to convince him to be careful is crazy.

I wasn't completely sure why Tony Mokbel insulted the biker (which led to his beating) but it might have been connected to the pill press that the Morans bought.

SNP applies for .scot domain

Finding Scottish websites could prove easier after the Scottish National Party government prepares to apply for a .scot domain.

Research carried out by the Office of the Chief Researcher found that 58 per cent of Scottish organisations and institutions would welcome a Scottish 'generic Top Level Domain', with 48 per cent in favour of .scot - a survey of international social and interest groups reported 82 per cent in favour.

'The time is ripe for the worldwide family of Scots to have their own domain, reflecting an online community defined by a shared commitment to Scottish identity, culture and economic promotion,' said First Minister Alex Salmond.

Via slewfootsnoop.

The Book People: best for cheap books in Britain

If you are looking to order books at a cheap price from a trustworthy seller and live in the United Kingdom, I recommend The Book People.

Although their stock is more limited than Amazon's, their prices are excellent. Recently, I ordered ten Penguin Classics, three novels by Graham Swift and three modern American novels for £20, with reasonable postage.

The books are delivered to your door and take around a week. You can also collect points redeemable for free books.

I have just enjoyed Jerome K Jerome's wonderful Three Men In A Boat, and look forward to reading Diary of a Nobody later this week.

Inquiry into British Libel Laws announced

Good news. Harry's Place reports that English PEN and Index on Censorship, two of the UK's free expression organisations, are launching a public inquiry into libel legislation.

The inquiry will invite submissions from publishers, writers, editors, journalists, lawyers and other interested parties.

It will hold discussions leading to a major conference next spring.

Leading human rights lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, said:"There is a difficult balance to be struck between freedom of expression and the protection of the innocent from damaging falsehoods and invasion of legitimate privacy.

"In Britain, the pendulum has swung too far towards censorship. This comprehensive review of the law by two highly respected organisations is therefore very welcome."

The Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport is launching its own investigation, and Denis MacShane MP has secured an adjournment debate on the operation of libel laws on Wednesday 17 December at 9:30am in Westminster Hall, with cross party support.

I hope this inquiry has some effect. British libel laws, which I studied as part of my masters in journalism, protect the rich and the powerful from the British public.

It is a shame that none of the major parties have a manifesto commitment to changing them.

The Ascent of Money: Episode Five

This week, property.

The game Monopoly was invented in 1903 to expose the unfairness of tenants, but the version most play was created in 1933 by Charles Darrow, promoting property ownership.

Property has been held to be a safe investment, but this is not always the case.

Richard, Second Duke of Buckingham, owned 60-70,000 acres in England and Ireland, including the grounds of what is now Stowe School. By 1945, grain prices fell and so did rural property prices. He ended up having to auction off his property.

However, only one third of housing stock was owned by its occupiers as late as 1918.

In Detroit, America, redundant Ford Workers demanded unemployment benefit from the factory. They were shot at and five died.

The New Deal was created to avoid further unrest. Some customers of Savings and Loans would have their deposits guaranteed by the government.

A wall was built through Detroit. On one side, with mainly white residents, credit was offered, while the other side, with mostly black residents, did not receive credit.

These created prime and subprime borrowers. Primes had credit, while subprimes did not.

The 1967 riots saw many properties burnt by those angry they could not own property.

In the UK, the selling off of council houses during the 1980's was meant to avoid this.

However, the fight against inflation increased interest rates.

The Savings and Loans industry was hit by higher inflation and higher interest rates.

Restrictions were removed in 1982 by the Republicans.

In Dallas, Texas, Empire Savings and Loans' chairman did a deal with Danny Faulkner, and invested money from Empire's deposit accounts in his property. While Empire's assets grew on paper, the demand soon outstripped supply and many were demolished.

In 1991, Faulkner and Bain were jailed for fraud. Across America, 500 Savings and Loans Associations collapsed, costing American taxpayers $153 billion.

Both Bill Clinton and George W Bush challenged lenders to help "subprimes", with bad credit histories, obtain loans.

These loans were securitized by the banks they were sold to, meaning they were sliced and the top tier rated Triple A. The loans were sold to investors all over the world, including rural towns in Norway.

Many homes across America have been foreclosed, leading to auctions and repossessions by banks. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalised.

Between 1989 and 1995 in the UK, house prices dropped by 18%.

In Japan, Professor Niall Ferguson was shown round a flat for 2 million yen (£1,000,000). Between 1985 and 1990 prices rose by a factor of 3. The bubble burst and it burst, with prices falling by almost 75%. The flat we saw cost 6 million yen in the eighties.

The housing market has booms and busts. However, property ownership does provide collateral.

In Argentina, Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto saw shanty towns as representing unrealised wealth. The people who live in them have no legal right to them and no collateral.

In parts of San Francisco Solano,squatters lobbied the government for legal rights to their homes, and improved them to ensure a good investment. However, this has not made it easier for them to borrow money.

Betty Flores runs a coffee shop in Boliva, and has borrowed money with no security via microfinance. She paid it all back to her lender.

Women are seen as a better creditor than men. Carmen Velasco set up Pro Mujer, which gives loans without security, and says women are proud when they repay their loan.

Professor Niall Ferguson says: "It's time to change the saying from as safe as houses to as safe as housewives."

Could microfinance be safer than property investment?

Final week: the globalisation of Western financial institutions

BBC News: Serious security flaw found in IE

A serious security flaw in Internet Explorer lets criminals to take control of people's computers.

Microsoft is preparing a patch, but in the meantime download an alternate browser such as Firefox, and make sure anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date.

If you want to stick with Internet Explorer (trust me, Firefox is better) than change Internet Explorer security settings to high and turn on Protected Mode if running Windows Vista.

Declaration issued on religious defamation and extremism

The four special mandates on freedom of expression today issued a Joint Declaration on "Defamation of Religions, Anti-Terrorism and Anti-Extremism Legislation", with help from Article 19.

These mandates are: the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Representative on Freedom of the Media, the Organization of American States Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights.

The declaration expresses concern about the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council on the subject of defamation of religions, calling on these and other international organisations to desist from adopting further statements on this issue.

The declaration also expresses concern about the , since the attacks of 11 September 2001, of anti-terrorism and anti-extremism laws.

It calls for the repeal of laws which restrict criticism of ideas and beliefs, including blasphemy laws, and wants hate speech laws to be limited to advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

The declaration also seeks to define terrorism as the perpetration of violent crimes with a view to inflicting terror on the general public so as to influence the actions of public authorities.

However, it also has respect for the media’s role in informing the public about terrorism and acting as watchdog of government, as well as their right to protect their confidential sources of information.

Website of The Year 2008 awards announced

The winners of the Website of the Year awards have been announced.

Everyclick, an online fundraising site, won Best Website of 2008,with the highest average score on content, navigation and design, while Wayn.com, a social networking site with a travel theme, won Most Popular Website of 2008,with the highest number of votes.

223 websites were nominated over 18 categories.

Other sites that won awards included BBC New, which won Most Popular News Site, and MTV.co.uk, which won Most Popular Entertainment Site.

Over 1,500,000 people voted in the contest.

A full list of winners is here.

The awards' partners include DutchCowboys, an interactive marketing blog, and Mashable, a Web 2.0 news site.

BBC News: Northern Ireland has slowest broadband

Thinkbroadband.com has released a table of broadband speeds across Britain.

London had the highest, and Northern Ireland has the lowest.

More

I have a job

In the time since graduating from my course on November 11 2008, I have been job hunting.

Today, I have accepted the role of Online Networking Coordinator at ISEAL Alliance. I start on January 12th and am based in Aldgate.

Athens radio station occupied as tensions in Greece continue

Although rioting in Greece has been reported as dying down, the radio station of Athens 9.84 was occupied today for half an hour.

Yesterday a demonstration took place in front of the Greek Parliament.

Clashes between teenagers and riot police took also place in front of the parliament in Syntagma Square. There have been calls for daily protests.

Across the world:

In Berlin, banks in the Friedrichshain district were attacked and slogans supported the Greek rioters were sprayed on the walls.

A police station in Spain was also attacked by protesters, while an anarchist protest took place today outside the Greek Consulate in Birmingham, with a banner saying "Never forget, Never forgive – this is for Alex – @ Solidarity".

Blog censorship threatned in Vietnam

The Media Network blog reports that Information and Communication Deputy Minister Do Quy Doan wants "Internet giants" such as Google and Yahoo! to help "regulate" Vietnamese blogs.

Officals in Vietnam want blogs to be "personal diaries", and are concerned about bloggers criticising the government.

In September, Nguyen Van Hai, who blogged under the name Dieu Cay, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for tax evasion. Before his arrest, Hai had called for demonstrations against China's Olympic torch relay when it passed through Ho Chi Minh City in April and had also criticized China for its crackdown in Tibet. Vietnam is wary of offending its mighty neighbour.

Radio Free Asia reports that blogs will be checked on a random basis, with or without the help of Google and Yahoo, and "violators" could face up to U.S. $12,000 in fines and up to 12 years of jail time.

To me this seems like a way of preventing critical comments about the Vietnamese government. Despite recent promises to improve human rights, there have been criticisms surronding the arrest of pro-democracy activists.

In 2007, the human rights group International Christian Concern listed Vietnam as one of the world’s top ten worst persecutors of Christians