Today was spent going back in time as New Hall Mill had an open day. A view of how flour was made in the not too distant past was an educational and tranquil experience. It was made even better by the excellent tea and cake I consumed.

I took various pictures of the mill and for once I felt like I knew what I was doing with the camera.

I was going to write about my trip to Liverpool to see Billy Bragg in concert on this blog but since I used Twitter throughout that day I thought that it wasn’t necessary.

However, I did decide to record a vocal ramble on Utterz due to the fact that I’ve signed up to it but only used it the once. I thought Billy Bragg would be a good topic as any to talk about.

BBC Radio 4 did a feature on Quota Quickies which included a film about Birmingham that was narrated by Telly Savalas. Here is Birmingham as told by Kojak.

This is an excerpt taken from Medialens.  A site where people are scrutinising news items and identifying the agendas of mass media.  This particular article questions the whole notion of a “liberal”  journalism working within corporate news conglomerates.

In a BBC interview in 1996, Andrew Marr, then of the Independent, described the “spectrum” of media available to the British public:

“We have a press which has, it seems to me, a relatively wide range of views - there is a pretty small ’c’ conservative majority, but there are left-wing papers, and there is a pretty large offering of views running from the far right to the far left, for those who want them.” (http://www.zmag.org/Chomsky/interviews/9602-big-idea.html)

The “left-wing papers” Marr had in mind were the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent and the Independent on Sunday.

It is interesting to consider Marr‘s comments in light of the April 10 announcement that Roger Alton, formerly editor of the Observer, will become editor of the Independent in June. Alton resigned from the Observer last year after rumours of a “civil war” with the Guardian. There were also allegations that, in 2002, the Observer had suppressed important testimony on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (see below) even as it was publishing false stories from intelligence sources. It was claimed that Alton’s political editor, Kamal Ahmed, had helped Blair’s aides with one of their infamous “dodgy dossiers” on Iraq’s WMD - Ahmed also resigned. Alton and Ahmed have both denied the claim. Geoffrey Levy wrote in the Daily Mail:

“Alton’s real mistake, it seems, was in supporting the Iraq war. This attitude never went down very well at Guardian House, and led to a more localised conflict, which has turned the two newspapers into what one senior journalist described as ‘hotbeds of fear and loathing’.” (Levy, ‘Fear and loathing in Farringdon Road,’ Daily Mail, October 25, 2007)

It is a bitter irony that Alton will soon be editing the Independent, which opposed the Iraq war.

In January 2006, Stephen Glover, the Independent’s media commentator, wrote of the Observer: “one looks in vain to its heart for that old voice of principle and conviction, as well as intellectual distinction. I am not sure that Mr Alton, charming and gifted man though he unquestionably is, believes in very much”. (Glover, ‘Colourful - and that’s not just the Observer editor’s language,’ The Independent, January 16, 2006)

So was the Observer under Alton really to the left of the media spectrum? In responding to the question of whether he would take the Independent further left, Alton commented recently:

Full text can be read here.

Taken from my friend Tony’s Livejournal:

I didn’t realise how much fun you can have talking to the spammers just using lines from TV commercials!

Today I used the dialogue between Brennan Brown and Snoop Dogg on the “Orange Wednesday” advert…

Linda Mark: hi how are you

Anthony Morel: I’m wiggidy wiggidy wack yo!

Linda Mark: I represent a textiles company near London and where looking for people like you to join us, are you interested?

Anthony Morel: That ain’t ma stizzle dizzle.

Linda Mark: sorry?

Anthony Morel: You trippin’ fool.

Linda Mark: You can work from home so it want interrupt your normal job

Anthony Morel: You can razzle dazzle my fantazmagazzle

Linda Mark: your not making sense. does that mean you are interested?

Anthony Morel: It does if you dizzle.

Linda Mark: fuck you

There was a feature on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme where two poets gave two very different perspectives on St. George’s Day.

I think the “English” at present are going through what a lot of the Eastern European countries went through post-USSR. England is still trying to find a common identity after devolution and who knows where that may lead. I’m hoping it’s going to be one of inclusion and acceptance and not triumphalism and jingoism. We shall see.

The True Dragon by Brian Patten

St George was out walking
He met a dragon on a hill,
It was wise and wonderful
Too glorious to kill

It slept amongst the wild thyme
Where the oxlips and violets grow
Its skin was a luminous fire
That made the English landscape glow

Its tears were England’s crystal rivers
Its breath the mist on England’s moors
Its larder was England’s orchards,
Its house was without doors

St George was in awe of it
It was a thing apart
He hid the sleeping dragon
Inside every English heart

So on this day let’s celebrate
England’s valleys full of light,
The green fire of the landscape
Lakes shivering with delight

Let’s celebrate St George’s Day,
The dragon in repose;
The brilliant lark ascending,
The yew, the oak, the rose

 

By George! by Elvis Mcgonagall

Once more unto the breach, dear Morris Dancers
    once more
Jingle your bells, thwack sticks, raise flagons
Cry “God for Harry and Saint George!”
Gallant knight and slayer of dragons
Patron saint of merry England –
And Georgia, and Catalonia, and Portugal, Beirut, Moscow
Istanbul, Germany, Greece
Archers, farmers, boy scouts, butchers and sufferers of
   syphilis
Multicultural icon with sword and codpiece
On, on you bullet-headed saxon sons
Fly flags from white van and cab
But remember stout yeomen, your champion was Turkish
So – get drunk and have a kebab

Amnesty International have made a short film called Stuff of Life. Its purpose is to raise awareness of water-boarding, an “enhanced interrogation” technique where a person is stretched on his back, a cloth placed in his mouth and then water poured over his face.

The US government states that it’s not torture. Watch the film and make up your own minds.