Climate Camp: ha, ha, Hari

So who’s the one reporter invited by the organisers to Heathrow’s increasingly farcical Camp for Climate Change and given free rein to wander around and do what he likes while other journalists must have a “media savvy” climate camper escort at all times (Blogger Passim)?

Why it’s our old mate Johann Hari who announced his arrival aboard his latest political bandwagon from the front page of yesterday’s Independent. With liberal use of the collective pronoun “we”, the fearless reporter explains in gruesome detail how he’s now personally engaged, along with his new-found climate camper friends, on the frontline of the “battle to save the world” no less.

Another conversion from Hari to this month’s fashionable cause should come as little surprise to seasoned Hari-watchers. As Francis Wheen points out in the latest issue of Private Eye, Hari started his career as none other than Jeffrey Archer’s researcher. However Hari’s Cambridge-educated Tory boy image was soon cast aside when Hari was offered a job at The Independent on the back of a couple of soppy articles he wrote about his use of Ecstacy – a drug he’d never actually tried.

A proper job with the woolly liberals of The Independent saw Hari pitching around for some new views that better fitted with his idea of himself as a liberal commentator in the grand moralist tradition of Orwell. Hari eventually alighted upon the then fashionable muscular liberalism of the pro-war left and prosetylised on the evils of Saddam and the moral correctness of the war from the pages of The Indie and various other publications and blogs for the next three years.

This got Hari into problems when he decided to write about Kenneth Joseph, an American pastor who went to Iraq as a human shield in 2003, who was “shocked back to reality” by the discovery that the Iraqi people all supported a US invasion.

Unfortunately this all turned out to be bollocks and was in fact a piece of well-documented fabricated propaganda emanating from the Moonies! No matter because Hari had seen Iraq for himself anyway. He told Indie readers in January 2003:

“Last October, I spend a month as a journalist seeing the reality of life under Saddam Hussein… Most of the Iraqi people I encountered… would hug me and offer coded support [for an invasion].”

Unfortunately more bollocks. He hadn’t gone as a journalist at all but as a holidaymaker! On a package tour visiting archaeological sites in fact. So little sign there of this obsession with climate change and the evils of flying he now loudly proclaims from the front page of national newspapers.

Last year Hari, the great moral voice of his generation, perhaps realising the Iraq war was a disaster and not the great anti-totalitarian cause he had claimed, decided to change his mind. He switched from pro-war to anti-war turning on his former pro-war left allies and hitching up with the anti-war movement and a new, shiny set of views instead.

And now he’s hanging out at Heathrow as a trendy climate change campaigner warning us of impending disaster for the planet if we continue flying. Which kind of makes you wonder why he spent last month in Africa “sitting at the edge of a holocaust, sipping sweet tea with one of the stunned survivors.” How did he get there? Walk?

Before this, in early July, Hari told Indie readers: “I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans.”

So that’s just the two long-haul flights for climate change protestor Hari in the last month. What’s he doing at this camp exactly? Using up all 600 protestors’ carbon rations for the next ten years?

Here’s what the Climate Campers’ official journalist claimss anyway:

By gathering here, we have shown that at least a few thousand people are sane enough to wave and shout as the ice-sheets fall – even if the rest of the world strolls silently by into a shiny new jetplane to Hell.

You just couldn’t make it up really could you?

Posted in Activism, Global warming, Journalism, Media, Transport | | There is 1 comment

"A window into the soul of policing": Bristol's plod blog joy

Andy Bennett's Blog

It was only a matter of time… The latest addition to the Bristol blogosphere is ‘Police Blog’ by South Bristol’s very own Chief Inspector Andy Bennett.

And it looks like the boy might have a gift for poetry (and no doubt fiction too) – ” I will be honest, transparent and hopefully create a window into the soul of policing and this police officer, ” he says on this new plod blog.

Blimey. A window into the soul of a copper. What a treat. Anyway The Blogger’s set the ball rolling by asking him for a comment on Avon & Somerset’s undemocratic imposition of this Dispersal Area on College Green.

I also see that Bennett was originally with the Met. Doesn’t bode well… Here’s what you get if you do a search for “intelligence” on the ‘Ask the Met’ section of their web site:

Ask the Met

Ho, ho, ho…

Posted in Bristol, Local government, Policing | | There are 3 comments

Fancy that!

Who’s this conveniently back from their holidays to provide a nifty soundbite to The Cancer on the improved A-level results at Ashton Park school?

“The school’s head teacher, Chris Gardner, has put a lot of effort into raising the profile of the school since he started here more than 10 years ago.

“Back then the school struggled to get parents to send their children here. Now it is over- subscribed.”

Why it’s Derek Pickup, Labour’s education spokesman, who was unfortunately away and unable to comment on the poor primary school results out just last week.

Still no sign of £120k a year education boss Heather Tomlinson though. Perhaps her boat’s run aground as well?

Posted in Bristol, Education, Labour Party, Local government | | There are no comments yet

Protest against climate change – Cheadle Railway Station 11.30 Sat 18 August

Urgent call-out courtesy of Prof Chuck Wilson, Department of Pre-Revolutionary Studies, Cheadle University

Protest against climate change

Cheadle Railway Station 11.30 Sat 18th August

Stop the smokers’ heater at the Headless Chicken!
No to Tommy’s Tanning Centre!

Climate change is wiping out the mung bean and within the next millennium giant snakes will invade most of England and Wales (Scotland has yet to agree this).

Join us for a weekend of low energy sustainable slow political action.

Non hierarchical free form workshops: the case against pushchairs, cancelling world debt, no-cut lawn care, juggling, a history of the lettuce, how to stay in, fighting clown oppression, ethical house buying.

Speakers: Mike Sibling – men against plastic milk cartons, Cheryl Tweedy, an escaped battery hen, Josh from Knightsbridge against Globalisation, Wendy Strasser amateur composting champion Durrelsburg.

Assembly point: Vulva – radical bookshop ask for Irish Gary

Vegan food available. Samba orchestra.

Please bring legal aid form

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Dumb and dumber

Dan the FabricatorAt last The Blogger has found someone even more stupid than public school twit Dan Norris. The Labour MP for Wansdyke, who’s not sure how long he worked as a child protection worker, has been finally out-twitted by… His own brother!

The Gloucestershire Gazette reports that Dan’s brother, John, is refusing to pay his council tax to South Gloucestershire Council as “a one-man stand against the enforcement regime in Thornbury car parks.” Perhaps I should add at this point that, yes, John is a PE teacher.

Apparently the sharp-witted one who teaches at Thornbury’s Castle School was issued with a ticket after parking his car six inches over a white no-parking line and then proceeded to rather aptly blame the incident on a pain in the neck!

Norris says by way of excuse: “I had a trapped nerve in my neck and had an appointment with a physiotherapist.” Adding: “I’m not using that as an excuse – I admit I was just over the line.”

Illegal parking and non-payment of tax. What a grand example Norris is setting to Thornbury’s youngsters. South Gloucestershire Council, meanwhile, are described as “unimpressed” with Norris.

Elsewhere, brother Dan is confused as ever over how long he’s actually worked as a child protection worker. He told The Sun in April that he had “20 years of experience in child protection”, which, as we’ve already discovered, means Dan has worked in child protection since his public school days aged 14.

In July he changed tack slightly and told the Commons about his “professional experience working in child care 15 or 20 years ago.”

Well what’s it to be Dan? 15 or 20 years? That’s quite a difference. If you were a child protection worker only 15 years ago then that means you worked in child protection for 5 years as you’ve been an MP for the last 10 years.

So where did the “20 years of experience in child protection” you told The Sun about come from?

To add to the confusion Dan also appeared on Newsnight on 1 August where he told Kirsty Wark: “I worked as a child protection worker for ten years.”

You might have thought an MP dealing with a subject as sensitive as child protection might be capable of providing a true account of themselves.

Posted in MPs, Transport, West Country | | There are no comments yet

Long live the climate camp! The main event of the 21st century and the beginning of the worldwide historic turn of humanity away from capitalism

Peasants reading Pravda

The thing that’s really struck me about this Climate Camp at Heathrow is the paranoia and control freakery around the press. As The Guardian’s Helen Pidd says: “For a gathering founded on anarchist principles, the Camp for Climate Action doesn’t half have a lot of rules.”

Indeed. Here’s her report of her visit to the camp yesterday that has more than a passing resemblance to one of those stage managed tours organised by the Soviet authorities for Western journalists to Ukranian tractor plants in order that they could witness first-hand the glorious achievements of communism for themselves:

The activists here have allocated one hour a day when journalists are allowed on site, accompanied by a media-literate camper; yesterday the Guardian was introduced to Hamish Campbell, a 42-year-old film-maker. He explained why even anarchists follow rules sometimes, and showed us the site’s own wind turbine and solar panels.

We lost Hamish after getting distracted by the stereo system in the West Midlands social tent, where a cheeky song called Revolution for Sale by a band named The Propaganda and Information Network was banging out of the speakers.

We got told off, and after promising to behave gained a new companion, a care worker called Jessica Alba. She was not fazed by the prospect of a week without showers and was keen to point out the damaging effects of most chemical-laden cosmetics.

Welcome to a future of low-impact Stalinism.

Meanwhile the campers have now set up their own Indymedia Centre at Heathrow to provide their own spin on events. So far the output seems to be limited to constant whinging about the coppers interspersed with stirring tales straight out of the boy scout summer camp about the joys of mutual cooperation and jolly japes courtesy of the on-site clowns.

Posted in Activism, Global warming, Journalism, Media | | There are 3 comments

Rock 'n' Roll Bristol style

Massive Attack - Daddy G

James Barlow today blogs about this tool that reveals where anonymous Wikipedia edits have originated from. One entry from someone at Bristol City Council throws up this little gem about Grant from Massive Attack:

“On the morning of Friday, 8 December, Marshall visited Herbert’s Bakery, on York Road in the Montpelier district of Bristol. He bought a single pasty and asked for a carrier-bag. On being told that, for sustainability reasons, he would have to pay 5p for the bag, he demanded to speak to ‘whoever is in charge’. Another customer pointed out that it was reasonable to charge for carrier-bags in order to discourage their excessive use, and particularly so in this case as he only had one pasty and lived just around the corner. However, he insisted on being given a name and address, to whom he could write and complain about what he saw as the excessive cost of a bag.”

Rock ‘n’ Roll or wot?

(Mind you, bet he’s in favour of free corn starch bags for recycling food waste)

Posted in Blogging, Bristol, Montpelier | | There are 3 comments

The it's August and getting desperate post

“It’s quite interesting, y’know, the number of biscuits that are named after revolutionaries. You’ve got your Garibaldi, of course. You’ve got your Bourbons then of course you’ve got your Peak Freens’ Trotsky Assortment.”

The Young Ones House

While aimlessly surfing ’round the internet I found this. A recent photo of The Young Ones’ house on Codrington Road, Bishopston.

“Still, it’s a laugh isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“That noise you make when you think something’s funny.”

There’s also one here of ‘The Fascist Pig Bank’…

Fascist Pig Bank

“The bathroom’s free… Unlike the country under the Thatcherite junta”

And finally… A moody black and white study of ‘The Kebab and Calculator’:

Kebab and Calculator - The Young Ones

Er, that’s it.

Thanks to Floyd Nello and rbrww for the photos.

Posted in Bristol, Media | | There is 1 comment

Trees for the chop

Poplars

Bristol City Council has announced today that the row of 30 ageing Poplar trees on the former Imperial Sports Ground at Knowle are to be removed.

The council attempted to chop the trees down last week but protests from local residents prevented them.

The council now say:

A row of 30 ageing Poplar trees on the former Imperial Sports Ground at Knowle will sadly need to be removed urgently and replaced for public safety reasons, the city council has concluded today (Thursday, August 16th 2007) after receiving an independent report from specialist arboricultural contractors.

This is disputed by residents. The Blogger predicts a row.

Update: Residents aren’t disputing that the trees are unsafe. However Vowles the Green is pointing the finger of blame for making the trees unsafe firmly at Bristol City Council and their private developers for the site. Cock-up or conspiracy?

Posted in Bristol, Knowle | | There are 4 comments

Bristol Radical History Group reclaiming public space

Brandon Hill

Brandon Hill, this Sunday August 19, 3.00pm

From the Bristol Radical History Group…

We will be highlighting Bristol’s history of re-claiming public space on Brandon Hill, the oldest public space in Bristol, on Sunday.

We have chosen this date because it is the anniversary of a party on Brandon Hill in 1832 for the ‘great and good’ of the city, which was gate-crashed by over 14,000 uninvited Bristolians.

The party was meant to celebrate the passage of the Reform Act which granted a tiny percentage of the population suffrage (tinier than the already small and exclusive population allowed to vote.)

Most Bristolians were both unimpressed with the act and unimpressed with their exclusion from the party. The barricades were stormed, beer was stolen, barrels of pudding were wheeled away and the party was effectively taken over.

Posted in Activism, Bristol | | There are no comments yet