25 years; the strike was the first political event, indeed one of the first events, I actually remember. At least I remember power cuts and TV news broadcasts with the number of weeks the miners had been out counting up. After that, I recall Chernobyl – they set up a radiation monitor in the car…
Read More alternative YorkshireSo I reviewed the rebuilt St Pancras Station about this time last year. So, in the best Stewart Brand tradition, let’s revisit it; this time of year tends to give you opportunities to revisit major railway stations. The first good news; the square footage of blue plywood and Tyvek has fallen, and is now close…
Read More The New St Pancras, 12 Months OnThis story; from China is predictably horrible: Chinese authorities have sentenced two women in their 70s to a year’s “re-education through labour” following their application to hold a protest demonstration during the Beijing games, a relative said yesterday. Officials said this week they had not approved a single permit for a demonstration, despite designating three…
Read More Can’t we be more helpful and appropriate?So, walking back from dinner, what did I catch lurking in a side street? Yes, but yes, one of these… There it waited, with a 4-way CCTV installation lunging out the roof like a Blairite erection…I took photographs, and the driver suddenly reversed. But he or she didn’t go. So I called the phone number…
Read More Birthday PresentSo, yer National Staff Dismissal Registry. Several people have asked me to comment on this horrible intersection of Blairite justice-style product and the good old Economic League, and they won’t be surprised that I’m against it. For all the usual reasons – you don’t actually need to do anything wrong to be on it, and…
Read More Keeping Britain TidyEveryone is talking about this New Statesman story in which so-and-so visits Westminster Council’s CCTV surveillance control centre, which rather wonderfully turns out to be situated in the bowels of the dire Trocadero on Wardour Street. Apparently we have 20 per cent of world CCTV capability in Britain. But it was this response at Spyblog…
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