Tim.emanuel

Those who use street kitchens and food banks deserve more than our sympathy

Recently my attention was drawn to a homeless man in Manchester who describes himself as the Jay Rayner of the streets. He was interviewed as part of Matt White’s brilliant Manchester food podcast Fodder, in an episode raising awareness of those sleeping rough in the city, and how they are fed. White found the man – he calls himself Rachel, a reaction to being bullied as a kid for looking like a girl – in the queue at Not Just Soup. It’s a street kitchen for the homeless which gets the city’s restaurants to cook up full meals for those with nowhere else to go. These dishes are not merely the oft-talked-up wonders contrived from leftovers and scraps; they’re the good stuff. Rachel gives a five out of 10 if the food is properly cooked, rising to six or seven if it is nutritionally balanced, to an eight or above if it’s exceptional. And he will give these scores direct to the cooks’ faces. Harsh.

My first thought: this is a bit weird. My job as a restaurant critic is surely a function of excess? Food reviews are only relevant when there’s little else in life to worry about. If you’ve got nowhere to sleep and are dependent on handouts, reviews are irrelevant. Rachel put me right on that one. Not Just Soup was, he said, “the calmest and least violent soup kitchen in the city”. Why was that, White asked. “People feel dignified by this. I think people come here and feel like somebody gives a damn, that somebody has made an effort to cook for them.”

Related: Massimo Bottura and his global movement to feed the hungry

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Wolverhampton Express and Star: Woman shocked - SHOCKED - after she rings up holiday firm and gets sex line instead

"Luckily, the couple saw the funny side" - What is this? Viz Comic?

Spotter's Badge: Gordy

Plymouth Herald: Bin blows over

RIP WEELIE BIN UR IN HEVEN NOW WIV DA ANGLES XX

So no-one told you free postage was gonna be this way... until we told you just now!

Yes, for the next three days, you can get any or all of my books in paperback without paying any postage (and believe me, that's a massive saving) by using the discount code GMF14. You could choose from...

- Bumper Trivia Compendium The Big Book Of TATP!

- Rarities and Outtakes (and some weird psychedelic zen stuff about Barnaby) collection Super Expanded Deluxe Edition!

- Anthology of columns on films, music, TV and, erm, bandstands Well At Least It's Free!

- late nineties paper'n'ink fanzine fun for the digital age The Very Best Of Paintbox!

- the story of comedy on BBC Radio 1 from Kenny Everett to Chris Morris and beyond Fun At One!

- and intrepid archaeological raid on the corners of archive TV nobody cares about Not On Your Telly!

And if you've read and hopefully enjoyed any of the above, why not review them or give them a nice plug on Twitter/Facebook/Glinner's Super Best ChatApp 2000 or even just recommend them to one of your friends? Every little plug helps... ta!

RESL172 Wimbledon Break Point/New Balls Please - Bass Line



Originally commissioned as backing music for the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage, this upbeat electropop track was extended and bolstered by samples of top tennis ne'er-do-well of the day John McEnroe for single release, to no particularly beneficial effect. The b-side was a remix of the a-side, as if one was in any way actually needed.



RESL185 'Heroes'/A Long Way To Go - The County Line

 
Billed as featured ‘Essex Artistes for BBC Children In Need’, this rather theme-misinterpreting cover of David Bowie’s 1977 hit was one of the less inspired contributions to the mid-eighties vogue for multi-handed charity singalongs, and featured contributions from Suzi Quatro and members of The Kinks, The Rubettes and Bronski Beat amongst many decidedly less famous others.



RESL187 Boss O'The Black/Willie Thorne, King Of The Maximum Break - Jed Ford



UK country music star Jed Ford wrote and performed this bewilderingly-targeted snooker-themed song, regularly used at the time in the BBC’s television coverage of the sport, with the b-side paying oddly specific tribute to the popular snooker player who had won the previous year’s Classic Tournament. Released, it should be noted, in direct competition with Snooker Loopy by Chas'n'Dave And The Matchroom Mob.



RESL189 It's 'Orrible Being In Love (When You're Eight And A Half)/Big Sister - Claire & Friends



In 1986, Saturday Superstore launched ‘Search For A Superstar’, a lengthy contest in which viewers voted for their favourite of a group of talented youngsters. The eventual winner, narrowly beating a band of teenaged Duran Duran wannabes, was ten-year-old Claire Usher from Stockport, who sang humorous pop songs in a broad accent. In the final, she had performed It’s ‘Orrible Being In Love (When You’re Eight And A Half), written by Mick Coleman and Kevin Parrott (who, as Brian & Michael, had a number one hit with Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs in 1979), and this became a surprise hit, reaching number 13 in the charts. The 12” also included a ‘Megaminormix’ of the a-side, though is now notorious as one of the lowest-selling 12”s of a hit single for the entire eighties. Usher went on to record REB606 Super Claire.



RESL194 The Wedding Song/Sad Movies – The True Love Orchestra



Issued to commemorate the wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson on 23rd July 1986, this synthesiser medley of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus and Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was largely the work of BBC Radio Clyde presenter John MacCalman, who had a sideline in composing library music to order. The Wedding Song was used several times in television coverage of the event. It clearly served the happy couple well.



RESL196 Superman/Rainbow – Claire



A second single outing for a now friendless Claire Usher, with another two songs lifted from REB606 Super Claire. Perhaps predictably, it failed to repeat the success of the earlier single (though more surprisingly, given what happened that time, there was a 12” featuring an extended version of the a-side), and Claire retired from pop music to pursue a successful career in stage musicals.



RESL198 Power From Within/Power From Within (Instrumental) - International Athletes Club with Steve Menzies



A fundraising effort for the International Athletes Club, this charity singalong featured bona fide athletes Sebastian Coe, Roger Black, Phil Brown, Kriss Akabusi, Todd Bennett, Tim Hutchings, Eugene Gilkes, Myrtle Augee, Kim Hagger, Sharon McPeake, Mary Berkeley, Linda Keough, Lindford Christie, Shirley Strong, Jane Parry, Paula Dunn, Kirsty Wade, Christina Boxer and Wilbert Greaves, and was written and produced by eighties chart star Phil Fearon. You can probably start humming it as it is.



RESL205 You Know The Teacher (Smash-Head)/Don't Stop - Grange Hill Cast


While others recognised its obvious novelty status, the success of the Grange Hill cast's anti-drug anthem Just Say No convinced BBC Records And Tapes that it would be worth issuing an album by the cast of their popular school drama. REB609 Grange Hill The Album featured one side of middle-of-the-road pop covers, and one of original schoolroom-themed songs with lyrics by series creator Phil Redmond. The lead single's bafflingly titled a-side – largely performed by series regulars George 'Ziggy' Christopher and John 'Gonch' McMahon – was drawn from the latter, and the ensemble Fleetwood Mac cover on the b-side from the former, with the 12” also boasting Redmond original Girls Like To Do It Too and actor Ricky 'Ant Jones' Simmonds’ cover of I Don’t Like Mondays. Despite the show’s huge popularity, and the single being afforded the rare privilege of a specially-shot video (oddly featuring the vocalists walking about in silence rather than miming), it failed to chart.



RESL206 Soapy/Al's Way - Top Of The Box


Alan Coulthard, a remixer responsible for many a chart-topping 12” Extended Version in the mid-eighties, was the man behind this peculiar medley of soap opera themes, taking in EastEnders, Dynasty, Dallas and Howard’s Way, and doubtless issued in an attempt to capitalise on the success of certain recent soap-related singles. However, club patrons were to prove to be not quite so keen on soap themes and the record failed to find an audience, despite the presence of – what else? – an Extended Version on the 12”.



RESL226 We Wanna Be Famous - Buster Gobsmack & Eats Filth/ The Toreador From Japan - El Shaftit & The Timeshares

 
One of the most convoluted stories behind a BBC Records And Tapes single release started early in 1988, when the production team of That’s Life! received several letters from struggling Manchester-based musicians complaining about a local video producer who hadn’t captured their act to their satisfaction. As part of an investigation, the show sent presenters Adrian Mills and Grant Baynham to make a video with him posing as punk rockers ‘Eats Filth’ (an anagram, in case it wasn’t obvious, of That’s Life!), ‘parodying’ a long outdated youth cult that the show still seemed to find inexplicably hilarious; as the excellent Left And To The Back blog put it, "the shrieks of laughter from the studio audience whenever a London punk was vox popped by Mills or one of his cohorts proved a baffling noise to hear". Though the video they produced was hardly likely to win any MTV Awards, the ‘expose’ on the hapless aspirant film-maker responsible was possibly a little unfair and the story was conspicuous by its failure to progress beyond one edition. We Wanna Be Famous, however, had more staying power, performed on the show – with the instruments actually played by the That’s Life! team, led inevitably by Doc Cox and including Gavin Campbell on drums and Esther Rantzen on percussion, for an authentic ‘punk’ sound – to huge gales of audience laughter, and inspiring so much viewer correspondence that it ended up on a single, which surprisingly failed to chart. It has since become, by virtue of its sheer ineptness both as a piece of music and as a lyrical parody, something of a cult classic. And as if that wasn’t all confusing enough, the b-side related to another That’s Life! Investigation into dodgy timeshare deals, which had resulted in Mills’ strangely Japanese-sounding attempts at a Spanish accent becoming a running joke. This has not quite become as much of a cult classic.

You can read much more about some much better BBC Records And Tapes singles in The Big Book Of TATP!

In 2005 North Manchester was pretty much uncharted territory for a girl who’d been brought up in Stockport.   I started off by getting the tram up to Bury to matches (starting with a solo journey full of trepidation after I’d left the Villa game at half-time in tears to get to that first home game,  who’d have thought?…, etc etc) but I pretty soon got fed up of that trek down to Gigg from the tram stop.  I can’t recall my first encounter with the 135 but by the time I’d moved back to Manchester from London it had become my preferred option.  It got me almost door to door (well, door to turnstile), it was show-offily bendy, and it was a portal to mysterious places you’d only usually read about in fairy tales – Besses o’ th’ Barn, Sunny Bank, Cheetham Hill (though that fort was a bit of a let-down).

So I’ve been a confirmed 135-er ever since.  It’s great for people-watching. There’s always a lot of kerfufflising over buggies and shopping.  Regulars sigh as virgin travellers quiz the driver on ticketing matters – it should be compulsory for would-be passengers to acquaint themselves with the nuances of FirstDay tickets before boarding, we all agree.

And now FC United of Manchester’s exile in Bury is drawing to a close, my last journey on the 135 looms. Or beckons. Whichever, it’s definitely a time for indulging myself and looking back with a sentimental glint in my eye.  I jump on in Lever-or-is-it-Newton Street in my imagination, and off we go (probably rather slowly to start off with, due to roadworks in town).
As I think back so many memories pop up, it’s a right Proustian mode of transport.  How many days have I spent on the 135, if you add it up over the years?  I’ve had a rendezvous with a Russian poet outside Urbis to get her on the bus to come and perform at Malcolmses; the way she said ‘bears and vodka’ still makes me smile.  The 135 was also responsible for an anti-fascist book launch, after a chance conversation planted the seed.

I’ve carried a range of cargoes too, it’s lucky you don’t have to go through customs – a lot of cakes, a lot of books, 65 shot glasses of vodka jelly (strawberry), a foam rubber nun (small), and once a precious stash of Manchester Eggs, cooked to order and wrapped in foil to keep warm.  That was the day there was a bad car accident near the ground obv and I had to abandon the bus and run, well wheeze, up the road carrying a box of rapidly-cooling eggs…

Being someone who lives in town, I like seeing the changing seasons in the gardens we pass en route. The first daffs, cherry blossom, all that sort of stuff.  And there are those fantastic rows of trees that look like giant brandy glasses along the road at one point – I can never decîde whether I prefer them clothed in leaves or in naked winter silhouette. Both are aesthetically pleasing.

Over the years I’ve jumped off the bus to explore different places.  Slattery’s bakery.  An art deco synagogue.  I’m ashamed to say I’d never explored glorious Heaton Park till ‘the 135 years’ – and there’s donkeys there and all. Not to mention alpacas.  I even recently visited somewhere I’ve said for nine years that I must investigate as I’ve admired it sitting grandly on its little hillock, The Woodthorpe, the former home of Edward Holt, yes of Holts’s fame.  I’ve still never been to Armstrong’s chippy, ‘Home of the Jumbo Cod’, though, dammit.

I’ve also had to jump off the bus to throw up, only once though which is not bad in nine years, and if it was your front garden I apologise.

We’re getting nearer Bury now as the memories keep on crowding in.  There’s The Coach and Horses, where we toasted Pauline England in song on the sad but memorable day of her funeral. Then the great view of the elegant wind farms on the hills in the distance as the bus straightens itself out for its final run up unbendy Manchester Road.

Finally you have to decide where to get off the bus. Actually there’s no contest, the stop after the Gigg Lane turning is tons quicker, not least because there’s a traffic island to help with crossing the road more easily. Quite why the most of the rest of the world gets off at the stop before, only to watch me even with my dachshund legs – and carrying half a ton of muffins – turning into Gigg Lane well ahead of them, is a controversy on a par with the claim by deluded pals that they can get back to town quicker by tram after a midweek game than I can on my bendy bus…

The 135 then. For all the above and so much more that’s lost in the haze of these impassioned, hilarious, obstinate, tough, joyful last nine years, I salute you xx

Today, I went to prison the first time. 

My wife was obviously impressed when I told her that I was going to prison for Valentine’s day. 

I have never been in prison and my meetings with former prisoners have been few. The most time I have spent with one was the two weeks I shared a flat with Malcolm Hardee in Johannesburg. 

It was after a gig in Northampton that I was asked if I would come into Leicester prison and talk to some of the men there about whatever I could manage to talk about, writing or shouting or making a living being a dick. I said yes, then worried about it afterwards as usual. It wasn’t visiting a prison that I feared, it was having anything relevant or useful to say to those serving time. What would this middle class milksop have to say of any purpose or use?

Entering the prison felt surprisingly run of the mill. I thought some middle class antsy, pale foppery would make twitchy, but fortunately not. I went through hefty metal door after hefty metal door, the rattling of a multitude of keys, just as my cliched imagination foretold. 

And inside, it looked not far off Porridge of 40 years ago. 

I obeyed my OCD and popped to the toilet before the final few doors, knowing it would be something of a rigmarole of echoing iron and further keys once in the library. 

About here, I suppose I should write, “I was nervous, what would these convicted criminals, with their scars and tattoos and slang and knowledge of intimidation and snooker balls in socks look like? my mind ran wild. The fear turned to sweat”.

But I am not so naive to imagine these examples of humanity would be so different to the ones I had just seen on the streets a few minutes before. By avoiding cod psychology and newspaper hoopla and screeching, I didn’t think I would see faces that betrayed some criminal gene. How easy it might be for those who wish to say intelligence and criminality are all formed in the womb. Education could be for those whose mouth swab reveals the anointed order of ACTGs and crime could just be declared destiny. 

I was pleased to Randal Keynes‘ Creation (AKA Annie’s Box) was on the counter of the little library, I thumbed through it, seeking the “chaos of delight” quotation that I have repeated as a Darwinian mantra on so many occasions. On another shelf, I was Luke Haines’ Bad Vibes

The first men came in. One was writing poetry, and asked me what I thought of John Cooper Clarke, a man he had just found out about a few days ago. I recommended him highly and couldn’t help but recite, “You’ll Never See a Nipple in the Daily Express.” 

I wondered how long he had written poetry. It sounded as if it had been his secret, real men don’t write poetry, but now he was happy, maybe proud, that he was creating stanzas.  

I told him about John Cooper Clarke reciting poetry at punk gigs and how Oscar Wilde was a good boxer. He had been a boxer too. 

Eight more joined us. We talked for a couple of hours. I probably talked too much. Brevity eludes me as usual. A few jokes were told. 

I saw a rose made of bread. It had intricate details and vivid colour. A lump of dough that had been scrupulously sculpted. The sculptor had only started creating them a few weeks ago. He was filling his pad with them, and making them for others, as valentine’s gifts. (I found out they were now pads, not cells).

They told me of their feelings of incarceration and of parole boards and uncertainty. 

Some say that prison is a holiday camp, but you could escape from even the most Stalinistic Butlins. 

You might have a telly, as if that will compensate for all else. It seems there is a desperate lack of imagination in any mind that thinks access to ITV2 trumps an ability to walk out of the door and see a panoramic sky. Can Dancing on Ice make up for the touch of your family? Think of the fury and edginess you can feel when your mobile phone runs out of battery mid journey, then think of the scarcity of phone calls inside prison. When I walked through the gate of that prison, I knew I would be out again in a matter of hours. I don’t think I would be much good at anything much lengthier. Free will may be an illusion, but I like exercising it, whatever a fraud it might be. 

These men had found creativity, poetry and art. Before I left, as they were sent back to the cells, one was given a couple of extra minutes to read me his poem. It was direct and heartfelt, with clever flourishes.

It expressed something about his predicament and how he wanted to change it. It had a humanity lacking in some of the daily and political discourse about prisons. 

It’s a popular party conference pleaser to say, “it’s time we thought of the victims” and then some Draconian legislation is mooted and the papers write furiously about the story of a convicted pickpocket who was given a chocolate biscuit. If we really thought about the victims, then we’d be looking to make prison and its aftermath as effective as possible in creating people who are not repeat offenders. What I saw today were people working hard to work out a route. 

I am touring around the country as usual – Norwich, Nottingham, Salford, Chorley, Sheffield, Falmouth, London, Laugharne, Bristol and towns near you. Details HERE

First angry art comedy gang show is in London this Monday HERE 

Abercrombie & Soon.

Via The Internet

Are you serious?

A police officer gave birth to the first baby born on Christmas Day in the new maternity unit at North Middlesex University Hospital – nearly a year after his sister was born on New Year’s Day.

Prepare your eye units for the majesty machine.

It’s hard to focus on this card without tears blurring eyes in grateful joy and supplication, but the NotGraphs GIF Inspection Team did manage to establish the following data points:

• 5 mustaches
• 0 glasses
• ~80% Topps, ~18% Donruss, ~2% other
• 0 Mariners and 0 Devil Rays — presumably because both sets of pitchers spend/spent equal time turning and watching as pitching
• 0 Rays and 0 Nationals — as we might expect from a piece of classical Art
• 0 Red Sox and 0 Cardinals — presumably because they are preparing for the worst World Series ever (for Rays-Cubs fans, such as your humble reporter)

Many blessings on Matt Pfeffer for distributing this unsourced GIF to us!

South Wales Evening Post: Somebody from a dreadful reality show to visit a nightclub in Swansea. After 10pm. On a Wednesday.

Tickets only £2.70, which is about £2.70 too much.

The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) has submitted plans to Islington Council proposing to reopen a section of the Mail Rail beneath Mount Pleasant sorting office, this time for public use.

The scheme forms part of the BPMA’s plan for a major new postal museum and experience in the Mount Pleasant area. The first part of this plan, a new combined museum and archive at Calthorpe House (opposite Mount Pleasant) has already been approved. This will allow the BPMA to fully open up its extensive collections covering over 400 years of postal history to the public – these include photographs, posters, vehicles, pillar boxes, employment records of millions of people and a world-class stamp collection.

Part two of the scheme, however, is perhaps even more ambitious. This involves reopening the aforementioned section of the Mail Rail beneath Mount Pleasant itself.

Moving the Mail

The Mail Rail itself needs little by the way of introduction. In 1909 Sir Robert Bruce, Controller of the London Postal Region, was appointed to investigate whether the sub-surface transmission of mail in London was a matter worth pursuing. Having examined systems to be found elsewhere in the world, he produced a report recommending that the “Post Office (London) Railway” be constructed. Whilst various pneumatic options were considered, his ultimate recommendation was for an electric railway connecting the Eastern District Office with Paddington, passing through six other stations, five sorting offices and Liverpool Street station.

The Post Office itself quickly approved of the scheme, and the Post Office (London) Railway Act was passed by Parliament in 1913 enabling its construction.

That construction was originally intended to take only 15 months, and began shortly after the outbreak of WW1. Initially work proceeded relatively quickly despite the growing conflict. Tunnels were cut by means of a Greathead Shield, with iron ring segments forming the tunnel wall and work proceeded to plan until the tunnels had almost reached Mount Pleasant itself. Here, water began to seep through the tunnel walls and, despite the addition of extra lining, this would remain a problem throughout the life of the system. Indeed like the London Underground itself heavy duty water tight gates were fitted within the tunnel just outside of Mount Pleasant station to lower the risk of the entire network being flooded.

Construction Pauses

By 1917 the war in Europe – with its demands for both men and materiel – saw work on the Post Office Railway temporarily halted. The tunnels were largely complete, but the railway itself had yet to be fitted out. The tunnels were soon being used to store British Museum treasures safely away from German Zeppelin bombing raids on the Capital whilst serious consideration was given to suspending work completely.

In the end, work finally resumed in 1924 and was completed in 1927. The result was a narrow gauge railway over six miles long running from the Eastern District Office to Liverpool Street Station, then the East Central District Office (King Edward Building), Mount Pleasant Sorting Office, West Central District Office at Holborn, Western District Office at Wimpole Street, Western Parcels Office at Baker Street and then finally arriving at Paddington District Office where it connected with the main railway station.

This route changed slightly in 1965 when the Western Parcels Office, and its station, were closed and the Western District Office was moved to Rathbone Place. For the rest of the railway’s life, Rathbone Place would remain something of the “odd station out” as a result, looking very much like the office block basement it was in opposition to the more tube-like stations elsewhere on the line.

Trains were controlled by a switch system at each station and could be stopped at any station for loading or unloading of mail or could be run straight through. Mail was loaded via bags or trays into special containers which themselves were then loaded onto the trains. Mail was sent down to the platforms from the offices above via chutes and transferred up via conveyor belt or lifts. Indeed at Paddington a lengthy conveyor system was used to get bags of mail from the Post Office Railway directly onto the mainline platforms.

The End of the Line

For the next thirty five years, the Post Office Railway would be used to move mail around London. In 1987 it was refurbished and rebranded as the “Mail Rail” in celebration of its 60th anniversary. Finally, in the nineties, it was upgraded to then-state of the art computer control (indeed it would later be boasted that the system was run by a then-incredible “254 megabyte computer”).

By the new millenium though it had become clear that the Post Office no longer wished to maintain the system. The network, they claimed, cost five times more to run than the equivalent cost of moving the mail by road. This was a figure that was soon subject to a certain amount of dispute. The Communication Workers Union claimed that, to a certain extent, Royal Mail were cooking the figures – that they had pursued a deliberate policy of running the railway down and only using it at one third of its true capacity. A report by the Greater London Authority also supported its continued use. Despite this, the Royal Mail announced in April 2003 that they would close it down at the end of May, and the railway moved its last parcel in the early hours of 31st May 2003.

Since then the system has remained unused beneath the sorting offices and streets of the capital. Although much of the railway infrastructure has been removed – not least by the BPMA itself – the tunnels, tracks and various elements of the original system do remain in situ and in relatively good condition. Indeed Crossrail briefly investigated the possibility of reusing the tunnels as part of an elaborate system to remove tunnel spoil without recourse to road haulage, although this ultimately proved unworkable. Ultimately, this has been for the best as it has left open the possibility for the BPMA’s proposal today.

The Mail Rail Experience

The BPMA’s plan is to take advantage of the fact that the Mail Rail, for the entirety of its operational life, was designed to be a fully self-supporting enclosed system. This means that, lying beneath Mount Pleasant itself, are not just a set of original platforms but also an extensive Workshop space and mail car depot. These can all be seen on the map below.

If the plans are approved, the Workshop area will be used to house a visitor centre and cafe, whilst the larger depot space will be converted into both an events hall and exhibition space covering various aspects of the system’s history.

Looking through the supporting documentation, the intention is to try and avoid as much structural change to the system itself as possible, in recognition of its crucial heritage role. Lifted floors with grills and vents to expose the workings beneath will be used throughout the depot, and exhibits set apart from the original fixtures and fittings that still remain, allowing these to be exposed wherever possible.

It’s an admirable design goal, and one that should be impressive if achieved. The most interesting element of the plan, however, comes with the tunnels linking the car depot to the original platforms themselves. The intention appears to be to restore this section of line to full operation, running trains carrying visitors from the depot through to the platforms, where more exhibits on the system’s industrial history – and indeed the history of moving mail by rail in general – will be found, and then back again. The rolling stock used will be specially designed replicas of the original battery powered trains used to transport the mail. The network beyond Mount Pleasant will remain physically open, but running will be fixed to the confines of the new museum site.

Although the planning documents make no mention of proposed timescales, it is clear that the BPMA are keen to press forward in line with their work on the wider museum. It is hard not to wish them success with their endeavour.

You can read the full submission, and its supporting documentation, on the Islington Council planning website. It’s worth a look, not least because the supporting documents contain some photos of the current state of the system, although we have included some of the best ones here.

The post Reopening London’s Mail Rail appeared first on London Reconnections.

Henley Standard: Fence kicked

Where were you last Wednesday?

Client: Where’s the rest of the video? There are 5 parts missing!

Me: What’s missing? I thought I had covered everything.

Client: No, there’s a lot more work to do. I sent you all the assets and videos that you needed.

Me: I covered everything in the storyboards and script. What, exactly, is missing? 

Client: The storyboard and script is just part one. You were supposed to do six parts.

Me: Really? I don’t have a script or anything for that.

Client: But I sent you all the footage! Why didn’t you edit it all?

Me: Because I have no script, or storyboard, or any information here to tell me what you want me to do with all this extra footage. I thought it was just extra rushes.

Client: Well we need it all cut by the end of the day.

Me: It’s taken four days to cut the first part. Assuming the other parts are fairly similar, it will take another four days for each. Maybe a little less since I’m now familiar with the project.

Client: Why did you say this could be done in a week if you can’t?

Me: Because you only provided me information for one sixth of the project. So if we scale that up, it looks like it’s a six week project, not one.

Client: Well that doesn’t fit the time frame.

Me: I’m sorry about that. Perhaps you can send me the script or storyboard for the other five films and I can give you a realistic estimate for how quick I can finish them.

Client: Okay. As soon as they are finished, I’ll email them over.

(Topical)

Thanks, kashiwaya920!

It's not about him.

Look, I know the government have to make cuts. I wish they weren’t quite so relentlessly targeted at the poorest and most vulnerable members of society; and it would be nice if while enacting them certain ministers could try to look a little less obviously like they’re having the time of their lives, but I get they have to happen somewhere, and it’s naïve to object to them all.


So, when you hear this week that the government are making cuts to legal aid without going through parliament, and lawyers and judges are protesting them, there’s a bit of a temptation to go… do you know, I might sit this one out. I mean, it sounds really complicated, and quite boring, and, hey, at least they’re sticking it to the lawyers! We all hate lawyers, don’t we, for some reason. Bloody lawyers. With their wigs, and their… laws. Boo.

And sure enough, these reforms certainly do hurt lawyers, albeit mainly high street solicitors and legal aid firms, which even if you do go along with the ‘all lawyers are blood-sucking vampires’ line is like Van Helsing starting off by going after Count Duckula. But it turns out the other people the reforms really hurt are- well I never- the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. Wow, the government have really a bee in their bonnet about those guys, don’t they? It’s like they’re their nemesis or something…


HUGH
Ah, the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, we meet again. But this time… the advantage is mine! And indeed it was last time, and every time. Anyway, brace yourself, here comes a kicking!


JOHN
And the nature of this particular kicking is this:


First, Legal Aid will have an eligibility threshold of thirty seven and a half thousand pounds. To be fair, that doesn’t seem like the worst idea in the world. And I can be confident about that, because right there next to it, as if deliberately placed for purposes of comparison, are two of the worst ideas in the world. One. Defendants will no longer have the right to choose their own lawyer. Two. Legal Aid contracts will be awarded, on the basis of price competitive tender, ie who’s cheapest, to private companies. Like Tesco and Eddie Stobart. You know, the lorry guy. Though I’m sure he’s also an excellent lawyer.

So, instead of you picking a solicitor on the basis of how well you think they’ll represent you, the new plan is that the government will choose one for you, on the basis of how cheap they are. And they will be very cheap indeed – a minimum of 17.5% below current rates, but of course with competitive tendering, it’s all about how low can you go… the floor’s the limit! You might almost wonder whether this could affect the quality of the representation in any way at all. But the government assure us it will not, and of course they’re right. We all know from our own lives that the cheaper you go, the more the quality stays exactly the same. But just out of curiosity, how do they intend to ensure quality? Well, Chris Grayling, Minister for Justice and dispenser of none, has given a clear and simple answer- he doesn’t know. Not yet. That’s one of the things they’ll work out now they’ve had the consultation. But they’ve worked out what they want to do, and precisely how much money they know it’ll save, somehow – that’s the important thing, surely? They can fill in the boring ‘how the hell will it work’ stuff later.


And hey, at least now you won't have to worry about choosing a solicitor, or be able to. No, even though everywhere else the government is obsessed with getting us to choose - choose our doctor, our school, our hospital - when it comes to poor people who’ve been arrested, suddenly Daddy knows best. Never mind if you don’t trust the solicitor you’ve been given, or if you have a mental illness your regular solicitor understands, or if you’re an ex serving soldier, hoping to use one of the firms which exist now – but won’t for much longer – that specialise in your circumstances. No, whatever your situation, you’ll be just be given some bloke from Eddie Stobart Lawyers the government thinks is best, and like it. And by ‘best’, I literally mean ‘cheapest’. Sir Anthony Hooper, a former court of appeal judge, put the ex-soldier example to Tory MP Bob Neill on the Today Programme. Mr Neill responded:


STEVE
"Well, that relates to a tiny minority of cases…"


JOHN
Oh, no Bob! No! That’s not the argument I want to hear you make. I want to hear how these plans won’t result in people being denied a fair trial, not how there won’t be all that many of them, so hey ho.  To be fair, Mr Neill eventually went say he thought such a case would be ‘picked up’. He didn’t explain how, or by whom. Roving bands of soldier detectors? The benevolent hand of God? Who knows. He just sort of thought it would probably all be alright. And anyway, he had more pressing concerns.  He went on to say:


STEVE
"I don’t actually think the public reckons it should be paying for repeat offenders going back to their regular solicitors."


JOHN
Yeah, well, he’s right. I only want to pay for solicitors for the innocent ones. Is there a way I can do that? An opt out box on my tax form or something?


That is what these changes absolutely reek of – the sense of, well, they’ve been arrested, and they’re too poor to pay a lawyer... they probably did it. Or if they didn’t do that, they probably did something. Wouldn’t be in court otherwise. Stands to reason, dunnit?


Particularly if you compound your mistake by wilfully being foreign. Another nasty little amendment is that legal aid will now only be available if you’re not only legally resident in Britain, but have lived here for at least twelve months. And if you haven’t, or you have but can’t prove it, because for instance you’ve fled from your abusive husband’s house, then no domestic abuse trial for you, my funny foreign friend. Should have thought of that before you decided to be not from round here.


So far, so depressing. But here’s the part that for me lifts it out from merely misguided and mean to absolutely ridiculous, and a bit evil.  The bargain basement Eddie Stobart legal aid lawyers will be paid a flat fee, regardless of results, and best of all, regardless of whether the client pleads Guilty, which is quick and cheap, or Not Guilty, which is not. Yes. Chris Grayling has actually created a system where privately run legal aid firms – legal aid firms – have a direct financial incentive to persuade their clients to plead guilty. Whilst simultaneously being under enormous pressure to slash costs to the bone in order to put in a tender low enough to keep the contract.


Meanwhile, the career crims who annoy Mr Neill so much tend to trust that 'regular solicitor' of theirs, and take their advice if they suggest they’d be better off pleading guilty. But they’re certainly not going to take that advice from Eddie McTesco in his My First Lawyer costume, so they’ll start pleading Not Guilty to everything.

So well done, Chris Grayling, you’ve pulled off the double. Innocent people encouraged to plead Guilty; guilty people to plead Not Guilty. What a merry madcap world of misrule you have created, Mr Grayling, you absolute tit.


This reform will surely lead to a certain number of innocent people going to prison because they’re scared and vulnerable, and their solicitor, with one eye on the meter, advises them they’ll get a shorter sentence that way. How large does that number have to be before it’s not worth the savings?


So, if you think this might, after all, not be the one to sit out, there is an e-petition on the Government’s website called Save UK Justice. It’s on 80,000 signatures; if it gets to 100,000 there is a chance that this radical and malignant change to the nature of the British justice system will actually get to be discussed in, of all places, parliament. Thank you.



LINKS


The Ministry of Justice's outline of their plans
Law Gazette interview with Chris Grayling 
Today Programme interview with Sir Anthony Hooper and Bob Neill MP 
Interesting blog on the subject 
The petition for this to be debated in the House of Commons 

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