Tonight I watched a disturbing Panorama programme called "Poor America". You can watch it on BBC iPlayer soon. The coverage of hungry school kids and tent cities of the homeless poor was a pretty appalling thing to watch take place in the most wealthy country in the world.
But what was really, really horrifying was the mass charity medical clinics for hundreds of Americans with no health insurance.
Many of whom suffer appalling serious medical conditions that would be dealt with immediately by our NHS without question but in the USA they simply cannot afford to get treated. We also saw videos of one of the leading American Republican Presidential candidates appearing to call for child labour and that none of the rest condemn a scenario that someone in a coma with a treatable disease should be allowed to die if he didn't have the correct medical insurance.
"No Work, No Money, No Doctor" is what one of the Americans queueing up for treatment outside the clinic said. Is this our NHS future under Lansley reforms?
Following Richard Branson’s ignorant attacks on trades unions I have been trying to cancel my cable service with Virgin Media without much success. So far I have been told various complete and utter porkies, threatened with a £141 charge, been shouted at and then my Virgin landline goes mysteriously dead.
The story so far is on Tuesday after various doomed attempts to cancel online (you can’t), I rang Virgin Media to find out how to stop my account. After the normal 15 minute wait and going through various menus and being cut off twice. I was finally connected to an operator who asked why I wanted to leave. I told him that Richard Branson had made a very anti-trade union video for Virgin America and as lifelong trade unionist I want nothing to do with him or any company associated with him. I was told firstly that Branson had nothing anymore to do with Virgin Media (He does, he owns the Virgin "Brand", I think 9% of shares and is their biggest single private investor). It was then claimed that Branson owns shares in BBC so will I boycott them? I said that he doesn’t have shares in the BBC, it is public broadcaster and was told again yes he did. I was also told that I either had to give 6 months notice or pay £141 to leave. When I said that this was unfair it ended up with me being shouted at! Then the following morning I found that my Virgin landline is suddenly not working.
I have been a customer of Virgin Media (and the previous cable companies they bought) for 15 years. I pay £70 per month. At times this has been a pretty miserable experience but this is really the pits. I have also worked in front line customer services organisation for over 20 years and have never come across such an appalling service or attitude.
I have made an official complaint about Branson and his remarks; about their so called “contracts”; the lack of supervision and training given to staff; called for the Virgin Cable monopoly to be broken up and for greater regulation and also that my phone is fixed. Needless to say some 48 hours later nothing has been done. I’ll post on future developments.
Last week the BBC sent a camera crew to interview me at our UNISON branch office over pensions and to take some outdoor background pictures. Branch employees Nazan and Sarah are 3rd and 4th from left.
This TV report of course may well be bined and not used. The crew themselves were very friendly and extremely professional
Next week is the Trade Unions Congress 2011 and I will be attending for the first time as a delegate from the UNISON NEC.
Protecting members Pensions will be a key issue at Congress. I'll try and post on Congress as often as I can.
Everywhere in the world where there is oppression there is also thought control and censorship. That is why the BBC World Service has been an important life line for freedom and has given societies starved of information that which they crave the most. Witness the testimony of one of freedom’s most wonderful protagonist the Burmese Leader and Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, known in Burma simply as “The Lady.”
There were many poignant moments in Aung San Suu Kyi's Reith Lectures (Radio 4), but one of the most powerful things about it was that as she spoke eloquently about freedom, was the fact this is a clandestine lectures that had to be smuggled out of Burma. As this bravest of women and Nobel Laureate said with the authority and respect her long and lonely campaign for the freedom and dignity of the Burmese People has earned;
“To be speaking to you now, through the BBC, has a very special meaning for me. It means that, once again, I am officially a free person. When I was officially un-free - that is to say when I was under house arrest - it was the BBC that spoke to me. I listened. But that listening also gave me a kind of freedom: the freedom of reaching out to other minds.
Of course it was not the same as a personal exchange, but it was a form of human contact. The freedom to make contact with other human beings with whom you may wish to share your thoughts, your hopes, your laughter, and at times even your anger and indignation is a right that should never be violated.
Even though I cannot be with you in person today, I am so grateful for this opportunity to exercise my right to human contact by sharing with you my thoughts on what freedom means to me and to others across the world who are still in the sad state of what I would call un-freedom.”
Let us not have any false optimism about Burma now that Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been “released” from house arrest. Suu Kyi will only be free when Burma and its long suffering people are free. The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years. It is not yet clear if any conditions have been placed on her release.
Let us also not forget when we see her quiet dignity that she is the only democratically elected leader of Burma since independence. In May 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD convincingly won the polls, despite the fact that she herself was under house arrest and disqualified from standing. But the junta refused to hand over control, and has remained in power ever since. Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of the country's independence hero, General Aung San. He was assassinated during the transition period in July 1947, just six months before independence. Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old at the time.
So it was a Reith Lecture without a lecturer present in front of an audience. This didn't matter to those of us listening on the radio and in fact echoed the role radio played for San Suu Kyi in her years of incarceration. "When I was officially un-free," she said at the beginning of her lecture, "it was the BBC that spoke to me."
Let us say it loud, let us say it clear; Aung San Suu Kyi will only be free when Burma and its long suffering people are free of the Goon Squad Junta. The struggle continues.
Thousands of angry public sector workers protested on Thursday June 30th across Britain. Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers went on strike across the UK over planned pension changes. Teachers from three unions have walked out and more than 40% of state schools in England and Wales have been closed or partially shut. The Public and Commercial Services union, which includes police support and border staff, are also on strike. The ConDem Coalition has already carried out a sustained ideologically driven assault on working people in the Public Sector in its first year in office.
Salaries have been frozen for two years; pension contributions have increased by 3% and now there is proposed a substantial dilution of benefits with career average pensions and longer working lives. That this is ideologically driven can be seen in the fact that no assessment of the costs and benefits of the Con Dem Coalitions proposals which like much else in their programme were never in a manifesto or voted for. Indeed they have been forced to concede that Public Sector pension funding is actually projected to go down as a percentage of GDP. What you have is a media spin campaign against “Gold Plated Public Sector Pensions.” However the average Public Sector Pension is £6,000 a year which wouldn’t buy much gold plate.
The government says the plans are "fair to taxpayers" and other unions are continuing with negotiations. It has condemned the strike as has the opposition, although Labour leader Ed Miliband has accused ministers of mishandling negotiations with the unions. The action by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and the University and College Union (UCU) affects England and Wales. The unions say the proposals would mean more work and contributions for a reduced pension.
Information from about 75% of England's 21,500 state schools showed a third would close, a third would remain open, and a third would be partially closed. In Wales, according to local authority figures, more than 1,000 out of 1,800 schools are either closed or partially closed.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said his members were left with no choice but to take action as the government was not prepared to "compromise on any of the central issues of the strike. While they are talking, they are not negotiating." Mr Serwotka said the cost of public sector pensions would fall over the next 40 years and accused the government of, having initially claimed they were unaffordable, now trying to "move the goalposts and say they are untenable". When the minister said there had been widespread pension reform across the private sector - Mr Serwotka accused him of revealing the "real agenda" of a "race to the bottom". He said Mr Maude was "floundering" over the details because he had "tried to mislead people. The costs are falling, you want people to work up to eight years longer, pay lots more money in, get less out," the union chief said.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said contingency plans meant supervisory staff and police officers were manning phones, but it had created a "much more challenging" situation than usual.
Sir Paul also told a Metropolitan Police Authority meeting that 75% of civilian staff at the Palace of Westminster had failed to turn up for duty. He said it meant police officers from borough-based teams were filling in for striking staff and the "service to Londoners was necessarily degraded".
The fact of the matter is Pension provision in Britain is poor with over a third of the workforce having no pension provision. Private Sector Pension provision has been a disgrace with the cost over a contribution term in Britain from providers being twice the equivalent in Germany and Holland. The State Pension in Britain is one of the lowest in Europe and Britain is a land of congenital meanness to the elderly charging them full Council Tax, TV Licence fees, etc; In Germany a teacher retires on 80% salary – the big issue is the shameful overall pension provision in the UK which is why workers should continue to reject the Coalition of Millionaires’ diktat to create a artificial race to the bottom between Private and Public Sector.
I can’t believe James Naughtie and Andrew Marr called Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt something useful. They should be held to account. It was of course not intended. It was just a slip of the tongue; any cunning linguist could have done it.
It was a slip that would make even the Reverend Spooner blush. Yet two of the BBC's most experienced broadcasters somehow managed to change Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt's surname into the most shocking word in the English language on live radio.
The ultimate verbal faux pas was committed first on Radio 4's Today programme by anchorman James Naughtie, while informing listeners the Culture Secretary was due on air for an interview. He said: “First up after the news we are going to be talking to Jeremy C*** — er Hunt! — the Culture Secretary about ...” At this point Mr Naughtie began struggling not to laugh, and gasped.
He had a reprieve during the hourly pips, but had to read the 8am news headlines while struggling not to burst out laughing. With his delivery ruined by gasps, pauses, squeaks and giggles, he blamed a “coughing fit”.
A Culture Secretary called Hunt
Mr Naughtie apologised later in the programme. “Some of you, we know from emails, thought it funny. Some of you were extremely offended. I am very sorry to anyone who thought it was not what they wanted to hear over their breakfast. Neither did I, needless to say.” Fortunately Mr Hunt, who heard the performance on headphones in the BBC's studio at Westminster, saw the funny side. “I nearly fell off my chair — I was laughing as much as Jim Naughtie”.
“It certainly woke me up in time for the interview. I haven't heard that since I was at school — and never before in front of two million people.” That was not the end of the episode, however. An hour later Andrew Marr referred to the incident on Start The Week on Radio 4, during a discussion on Freudian slips, and blurted out “Jeremy C***” before gasping with laughter.
Reverend William Archibald Spooner
Dr Mike Page, a reader in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, said it was a classic Spoonerism — the verbal blunder named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), renowned for such slips while warden of New College, Oxford. (Un) fortunately, Spooner's scholarly work has not passed the test of time. Rather, he is remembered for a peculiar speech error he was wont to make: the transposition of the initial letters (sounds) of adjoining words, often with humorous results. It is to this type of speech error (slip of the tongue) that Dr. Spooner lent his name: the spoonerism. Here is a selection of those attributed to Dr. Spooner himself.
•Once Dr. Spooner raised a toast to Her Royal Highness, Queen Victoria, and proclaimed: "Three cheers for our queer old dean!"
•During World War I he reassured his students, "When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out."
•On another occasion, he lionized Britain's farmers as "ye noble tons of soil."
•We learn of these speech errors from the notes of his students, which they generously shared by publishing them. They probably made most if not all of them up themselves. This one was probably a compilation of several others. Dr. Spooner is supposed to have chastised one of his students thus: "You have hissed all the mystery lectures, I saw you fight that liar behind the gymnasium, and, in short, you have tasted the whole worm."
•He is reported to have made a double screw-up upon once dropping his hat then asking: "Will nobody pat my hiccup?"
•He reportedly ended a wedding he was performing with: "It is now kisstomary to cuss the bride."
New College Oxford
Dr. Page went on to explain in his best academic manner; “In this case it is the U' in both Hunt and Culture that is to blame. Naughtie would probably have gone on the say Hulture Secretary' but he stopped in horror.” Dr Page did not think the slips revealed that BBC presenters hold the Culture Secretary, who has ordered the corporation to cut spending, in low esteem.
“Freud's theory of para-praxes is that an unconscious or concealed view may emerge inadvertently in a verbal error, but Naughtie was almost certainly a spoonerism. Marr fell victim to the white bear effect': the more he tried not to think of the word, the more he primed his brain to say it.”
In fact the real culprit, he said, was David Cameron: “If you appoint a man called Hunt to a department called Culture, it is an accident waiting to happen.” This morning's editions of the Today programme and Start The Week had still not been added to the BBC iPlayer this afternoon. The BBC said they were late to allow for editing so viewers were not offended, but they were due to be added later.
The pre-Euro Irish 10 Punt note featuring James Joyce
Maybe, given the coincidence that this spoonerism is au courant and the economic travails of Ireland it may be opportune to revive the hoary Irish Banker joke about whorey Irish Bankers based on its pre euro currency, The Punt;
Q; “Why is the Irish Pound called the Punt?” A; “ Because it rhymes with Bank Manager.”
Police have arrested two women after they tried to take the body of a dead relative onto a plane at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Staff at the airport became suspicious when the women tried to check the man in for a flight to Berlin on Saturday. The 91-year-old man from Germany is thought to have died the previous day, and had been put into a wheelchair.
The women pushed the 91-year-old man in a wheelchair and covered his face with sunglasses in a bid to board him on their flight to Berlin, sources said. The pair, a 41-year-old and a 66-year-old, are said to have protested that the lifeless pensioner was merely asleep when probed by officials at Liverpool John Lennon Airport on Saturday.
Staff became suspicious when they tried to check in 91-year-old Curt Willi Jarant, who was wearing sunglasses, for a flight to Berlin on Saturday. The women - his widow and step-daughter - said they thought he was asleep. They were arrested on suspicion of failing to give notification of a death, police said. The pair, who are German nationals but live in Oldham, Greater Manchester, have been released on bail until 1 June. It is understood they took Mr Jarant to the airport in a taxi from Oldham, a spokesman said.
Test your Awareness with Do The Test's Whodunnit. Who Killed Lord Smithe? TFL cycling safety advert! How observant are you? How did you do?
www.dothetest.co.uk
You may wonder why I feature this amusing ditty (other than it is allegedly a TfL cycling safety video)? Well it features one of the more interesting actresses in the UK and a good buddy of the Sage, Ms. Sadie McMahon. Among her many theatrical credits she has filmed 2 Episodes of Holby City playing security guard Lindsey Jones in a tragic & moving storyline where unfortunately she is attacked and stabbed by a patient.
I'm deeply ashamed that the BBC’s Question Time has given a platform to the BNP's Nick Griffin, a fascist thug with serious form, a holocaust denier and a convicted racist masquerading as a democratic politician. Is that why we pay, under pain of imprisonment, a TV tax out of money which is already taxed? Tonight the BBC lost any moral justification for a licence fee.
I have no problem with debating with the BNP and don't underestimate the common sense of the British people. Indeed history shows they have an adversion to extremism. However I am deeply uncomfortable with that debate being on a publicly funded broadcaster in a context where the BNP are treated as being equivalent to mainstream political parties.
London MPs today led a furious backlash against the BBC for inviting the BNP onto Question Time. Diane Abbott accused the Corporation of "accepting that violent fascism is somehow part of the political mainstream". The Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said it was a "chilling idea" for black, Asian and Jewish communities that the far-Right party could be treated in such a manner. Five other London MPs have launched a Commons campaign condemning the BBC. Pop stars, writers and union members also joined the public outcry.
Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials, attacked the BBC as naive. His words were echoed by the former children's laureate Michael Rosen who said people had a right not to hear the BNP. They were speaking at an emergency public rally held by Unite Against Fascism in central London. Mr Dammers said: "The BNP are hiding their true identity as Nazis and fascists and the BBC are allowing themselves to be used for that purpose."
Kawsar Zaman, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "It's a really sad day for the BBC; it's a sad day in my opinion for this country." They spoke out as BBC director general Mark Thompson defended the decision to have BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time. He said that the Corporation had a "central principle of impartiality" which it would only override if the Government demanded a broadcasting ban as Margaret Thatcher did in the Eighties for Sinn Fein. "The case against inviting the BNP to appear on Question Time is a case for censorship," he said. He denied that the decision was based in any way on a wish to appear controversial.
Concerns are only likely to be fuelled by the delight of the BNP at the platform it is being given. "Thank you Auntie," said Mr Griffin in an interview with The Times.
“In a scene renowned for aggressive lyrics and negative press, KOF is a diamond in the dirt. Fusing new school flair and old school flavour, KOF describes his conscious lyrics and big beats as 'mesh' music. His talents lay not only in his lyrical realism, but also in his soulful voice and melodic flow. He champions an open approach to music, with no boundaries, so you can understand why 1Xtra's Ace & Vis consider him "the future of UK music". KOF has already achieved consistent air play on BBC 1Xtra, Galaxy and Radio 1 and is currently working on his debut album, set for release in October 2009.”BBC Glastonbury website
Just a quick email to say I have a new track on the myspace called FAMOUS. This will be the first release from my debut album. FAMOUS comes out on 28th Sept...
Benson, the Great Carp who died in a gravel pit in Cambridge has been described on Newsnight as "The People’s Fish" probably because, like Diana, she had been hooked by many! More surprising than this according to the BBC Benson was a girl (how do they tell, did she have better scales?) So here goes my euphonium "She was the People's fish and truly the people loved her ........" - Better stop now before there is a carping ofishal complaint!!
Anglers are mourning the death of what is believed to be Britain's biggest common carp. Nicknamed Benson, the carp swam in the Bluebell Lakes at Oundle, near Peterborough, but was found floating on the surface poisoned by uncooked nuts. He was introduced into the lakes in 1995, and at the time of his death weighed 64lb (29kg), was aged between 20 and 25 and had been caught 63 times. Now, and it is a chilling thought, Benson is lying in a deep freeze waiting to be put on display.
Tony Bridgefoot, owner of Bluebell Lakes on the Cambridgeshire/Northamptonshire border, told BBC News that he thought the fact anglers did not have to join an expensive fishing syndicate but could fish on a day ticket meant the carp was accessible to everyone, making Benson "the people's fish".
"They sort of adopted it and took it to their hearts, and if you were lucky enough to catch the fish or even see the fish it was perfectly clear what a beautiful creature it was. Some people would catch it within two or three days of fishing here and I've had some people who've spent five, six, seven years just to try and catch that one fish." Mr Bridgefoot believes Benson was poisoned by uncooked nuts, which are toxic to fish. "Our suspicions arose when we found some uncooked nuts in the margins and we found some uncooked nuts in the skips that we use. Consequently we're very suspicious that some uncooked bait may have gone in the water. Benson may have picked them up and in that case they would swell up inside the fish. The outcome is catastrophic."
“In a scene renowned for aggressive lyrics and negative press, KOF is a diamond in the dirt. Fusing new school flair and old school flavour, KOF describes his conscious lyrics and big beats as 'mesh' music. His talents lay not only in his lyrical realism, but also in his soulful voice and melodic flow. He champions an open approach to music, with no boundaries, so you can understand why 1Xtra's Ace & Vis consider him "the future of UK music". KOF has already achieved consistent air play on BBC 1Xtra, Galaxy and Radio 1 and is currently working on his debut album, set for release in October 2009.”
One of the more interesting actresses in the UK and a good buddy of the Sage is appearing in the BBC 1 Medical drama Holby City tomorrow night. Sadie McMahon has filmed 2 Episodes of Holby City playing security guard Lindsey Jones in a tragic & moving storyline where unfortunately she is attacked and stabbed by a patient.
Sadie is a transformed person when she is on stage and many of us men folk have not quiet recovered from her smouldering portrayal of Amanda in Tight Fit Theatre Company’s production of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives.” As well as her theatre work Sadie is a well known face on TV having recently appeared in adverts for Vodaphone and Transport for London. "Very flat, Norfolk,'' sighs Amanda in Noël Coward's Private Lives (1931) but as a Norfolk girl herself Sadie somewhat belies that description!
Sadie graduated from the Academy of Live & Recorded Arts in July 2001 and has notched up impressive Stage & Screen credits since. Her theatre credits include The Trap at the White Bear, the lead role in Camille, Mavis in Stepping Out and Merteuil in Les Liasons Dangereuse. Broken Blossoms with Negativequity Physical Theatre Company and she was the evil Snow Queen in the Wheelhouse production of Snow White.
Sadie's episodes of Holby City can be seen on Tuesday 20th Jan and Tuesday 3rd Feb on BBC1.
"Joseph's concerned Jac might be pregnant after their night together. Is she leading him up the garden path? Linden, meanwhile, is becoming more attached to Faye, Ric gets tough with the patients and a member of staff is attacked at Holby."
The drama is set in Holby City, London twinned with Casualty (Casualty is the A & E department downstairs and Holby City is based upstairs at Holby General.
Sadie is one to watch not just in Holby City but as a face for the future and a very talented actress.
Jurors in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest on the 23rd September 2008 stood in silence at the spot where the 27-year-old Brazilian was shot dead by police marksmen. The six-woman, five-man panel was retracing Mr de Menezes's final steps and went to Stockwell Tube station where the shooting took place. And, Oh dear, here was the poster on the wall behind them!
Here is what the Advertising Standards Authority said, as reported by the BBC;
"A film poster sited at Stockwell Tube station during the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest could have caused serious offence, a regulator has ruled. The poster for Righteous Kill was displayed at the station where Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.
Its tagline read: "There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."
The Advertising Standards Authority said it breached guidelines on decency. "We understood the siting of the poster at the station was unintentional, but nevertheless considered that the text had the potential to cause serious offence in that location," the ASA said in its adjudication. It added that the poster, which also featured stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, breached rules on social responsibility."
Tonight I watched a disturbing Panorama programme called "Poor America". You can watch it on BBC iPlayer soon. The coverage of hungry school kids and tent cities of the homeless poor was a pretty appalling thing to watch take place in the 
