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Mat Ricardo's London Varieties returns May 30

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:54:22 +0000

London impressario Mat Ricardo writes in with news of the next London Varieties show:

We had a ball last month at London's Leicester Square Theatre with a show that featured the very silly JOHANN LIPPOVITZ, very naughty EASTEND CABARET, very incredible LISA LOTTIE and the very legendary PAUL DANIELS - plus I risk my life! And you can watch it all right here, for free! The next show happens on May 30th, and it's going to be a doozy. We've got the astonishing hip-hop improvisor ABANDOMAN, One of the UK's hottest stars of magic PIFF THE MAGIC DRAGON, ORIGINAL STREET DANCE, and veteran variety performer MICHAEL PEARSE, and I'll be debuting one of the most complicated juggling routines I've ever attempted!
There are only three more shows in this limited season, and they're all one time only line-ups. You can book tickets at http://leicestersquaretheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873489348/events And find out more about the next show here. You can find out some of the surprises we have in store for upcoming shows, by following me on twitter @MatRicardo.

What UK education czar Michael Gove doesn't understand about creativity

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:06:24 +0000

Michael Gove is the UK Secretary of State for Education, the subject of a vote of no confidence from the nation's head teacher's conference that ran 99% opposed to his ideas for educational reform. The major motif of Gove's reforms is an emphasis on rote memorisation and linear learning. Gove insists that he loves creativity, but says that creativity is only possible once you've mastered the basics ("You cannot be creative unless you understand how sentences are constructed, what words mean and how to use grammar.")

Writing in the Guardian, Ken Robinson thoroughly and blazingly rebuts this proposition, and presents a stirring manifesto for embracing creativity in education:

First, creativity, like learning in general, is a highly personal process. We all have different talents and aptitudes and different ways of getting to understand things. Raising achievement in schools means leaving room for these differences and not prescribing a standard steeplechase for everyone to complete at the same time and in the same way.
Second, creativity is not a linear process, in which you have to learn all the necessary skills before you get started. It is true that creative work in any field involves a growing mastery of skills and concepts. It is not true that they have to be mastered before the creative work can begin. Focusing on skills in isolation can kill interest in any discipline. Many people have been put off mathematics for life by endless rote tasks that did nothing to inspire them with the beauty of numbers. Many have spent years grudgingly practicing scales for music examinations only to abandon the instrument altogether once they've made the grade.
The real driver of creativity is an appetite for discovery and a passion for the work itself. When students are motivated to learn, they naturally acquire the skills they need to get the work done. Their mastery of them grows as their creative ambitions expand. You'll find evidence of this process in great teaching in every discipline from football to chemistry.
Third, facilitating this process takes connoisseurship, judgment – and, yes, creativity, on the part of teachers. One concern about the revised national curriculum is that it will be too linear and prescriptive. For creativity to flourish, schools have to feel free to innovate without the constant fear of being penalised for not keeping with the programme. Too much prescription is a dead hand on the creative pulse of teachers and students alike.

To encourage creativity, Mr Gove, you must first understand what it is (via Dan Hon)

ORGCon 2013 - the UK's only digital rights conference, this year with John Perry Barlow and Tim Wu!

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:43:30 +0000

Jim from the Open Rights Group writes in with the announcement for this year's ORGCon, a brilliant UK digital rights event:

Legends of digital rights, Tim Wu and John Perry Barlow, will be leading Open Rights Group's 3rd national conference on June 8th. Join us for ORGCon2013 at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Savoy Place, London for the UK's biggest digital freedoms event. ORGCon has always been a sell-out event so grab your tickets now before they all go!
This year topics covered include:
Snoopers' Charter: What's the situation now?
Jim Killock and the author's of the Digital Surveillance report on what the Government are planning next after the defeat of the Comms Data Bill.
Lessons from creative citizens: How to win at the Internet
Sci-fi author Diane Duane (Star Trek, Young Wizards), Simon Indelicate (The Indelicates) and bassist Steve Lawson will be talking about the creative ways they have developed successful artistic careers in the digital age.
What exactly is ORG anyway? Who we are and what we do
ORG staff, volunteers, Advisory Council and Board will be sharing their role in ORG and explaining what our work is all about.
Who wins when copyright and free speech clash?
Internet law expert Graham Smith (author of the mighty tome Internet Law and Regulation) and Article 19's legal officer, Gabrielle Guillemin, will be tackling this challenging question and looking at some of the conflicting principles.
How to wiretap the Cloud (without anybody noticing)
Caspar Bowden, privacy expert, will be giving explaining the serious threat to European citizens' rights from the American law, FISAA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act).
The right to be offensive: Free speech online in the UK
Policy Head of Facebook UK, Richard Allan and free speech law expert and Jack of Kent blogger, David Allen Green will be sharing their expertise on the danger from increasing use of Section127, and debate where the UK Government stands on free speech online.
and many many more!

(Disclosure: I'm proud to have co-founded the Open Rights Group, and to volunteer on its advisory committee)

Top UK government officials tamper with inquest into Brit assassinated by Russian spies in London, suppress evidence

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:36:08 +0000

Marina Litvinenko, widow of Alexander Litvinenko (a British citizen who was assassinated in London by two former KGB agents who poisoned him with radioactive polonium) has accused the British government, Secretary of State William Hague, and PM David Cameron of sabotaging the coroner's inquest into her husband's death. Hague and Cameron intervened in the coroner's hearing to seal key evidence that implicated the Russian government in Litvinenko's killing.

Sir Robert Owen, who is leading the inquest and who has seen the material, characterised it as "documents that examined whether UK officials could have done more to prevent his murder." 's widow says that this is part of "a secret political deal with the Kremlin." This comes against a charm offensive by the UK government to increase Russian investment in Britain.

The former Labour government severed all contacts with Russia's FSB spy agency in 2007 after concluding it had played a leading role in Litvinenko's assassination. Putin is the agency's former chief.
Mrs Litvinenko added: "This is a very sad day, a tragedy for British justice which has until now been respected around the world, and a frightening precedent for all of those who have been trying so hard to expose the crimes committed by a conspiracy of organised criminals who operate inside the Kremlin."
In his ruling (pdf), Owen said the inquest scheduled to take place later this year might now result in an "incomplete, misleading and unfair" verdict.
The coroner said he would consider inviting Theresa May, the home secretary, to hold a public inquiry instead. The inquiry could hear the sensitive evidence buried by Hague in secret sessions.

Alexander Litvinenko widow accuses William Hague of sabotaging inquest

London's getting a blood-filled swimming pool strewn with floating body parts

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:00:23 +0000

Miss Cakehead writes, "This set of Zombie Swimming Pool Rules was comissioned from graphic designer Pictographik to promote the Resident Evil Revelations blood swimming pool, and was based on an the iconic traditional British swimming pool rules. The pop up 'blood' filled swimming pool opens in London next week to mark the release of Resident Evil Revelations. In addition to its bloody appearance the swimming pool will offer floats in the form of human torsos, feature brains and intestines as lane markers, have Zombie lifeguards on duty and even offer a diving board in the form of a 'freshly killed human corpse'."

Zombie Pool Rules (Thanks, Miss Cakehead!)

Hilda (from the kids' comic) as an 8" vinyl toy

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:05:06 +0000

The good people at London's Nobrow Press have done an 8" vinyl toy for the outstanding kids' comic Hilda, created by Luke Pearson (reviews: Book 0, Book 1; Book 2). The Hilda toy is grownup-collector-expensive, but it's also a very nice piece -- I saw one in person last night when I brought my daughter and her friend to the Nobrow store on the way to our weekly daddy-daughter pizza dinner.

Hilda Toy

Prince Charles's housing charity gets into bed with torturing Bahraini dictatorship

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:38:10 +0000

Prince Charles has joined with Formula One and CNN in supporting the torturing, murderous dictatorial regime in Bahrain. His Prince's Foundation for Building Community and the UK Foreign Office have signed a deal to advise the regime on housing policy, an area of particular contention (Bahrain's persecuted Shia ~~minority~~ majority are systematically discriminated against in the southern territory where Charles's project is sited; they say housing goes instead to imported guard labor from abroad).

News of the deal came as the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee heard warnings from the campaign group Human Rights Watch that the UK government has overplayed the progress of democracy in Bahrain and has underestimated the severity of human rights abuses.
"Credible allegations of torture have been made in the last month," David Mepham, UK director of HRW, told the Guardian. "The UK should be pressing the Bahrainis to investigate those abuses and hold those people to account."
Asked why it had chosen to work with a regime that has a poor human rights record, a spokesman for Prince Charles's charity said: "This project aims to help all the communities that live in Bahrain and is in line with the objectives of the British government. The homes will be for local communities who will be consulted during the design process."

Prince Charles criticised over Bahrain housing deal [Robert Booth/The Guardian]

NewsCorp shareholders make another bid to democratize the Murdoch family empire

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:11:02 +0000

The traditional shareholder revolt at NewsCorp (owner of Fox, Fox News, Sky, Harper Collins, the NY Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Sun) is back for another run, and this time it's gathering steam and may indeed make it. Rupert Murdoch and his family own a minority of the shares in NewsCorp, but their shares are in a special class of voting stock that means that they effectively get to do whatever they want with the majority investors' money. Effectively, Murdoch's initial pitch to investors was, "I'll take your money, but I'm not interested in your advice -- just cough up, shut up, and let me run this thing and I'll pay you some fat dividends."

But it's all gone rather wrong. Murdoch's ideological projects and nepotism have cost the business millions -- between a sweetheart deal that saw the company buying his daughter Elisabeth's startup Shine for £413M of the shareholders' money, and his son James's presiding over a phone-hacking scandal that destroyed News of the World, the bestselling newspaper (sic) in Britain, the investors are getting a bit tired of Murdoch running NewsCorp like his own personal fiefdom. It's one thing to play Colonel Kurtz in the jungle when it's making the shareholders rich, but when you start frittering away titanic assets like the NotW because you need to give your idiot son a job, well, that's another story.

As I said, this isn't the first time the shareholders have taken a swing at Rupert and his spawn, but this is a bigger, more multi-pronged, and better coordinated approach that any to date. Fingers crossed.

Dissident shareholders are pressing once more for the media mogul Rupert Murdoch to step down as chairman of News Corporation.
Shareholders from the US, UK and Canada filed a resolution on Tuesday, calling for News Corp to appoint an independent chairman. A similar resolution attracted strong support at the media company's annual shareholder meeting last year.
The proposal was introduced by Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), which manages $4.6bn for Catholic institutions worldwide. It is backed by the UK's Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, with assets of £115bn ($178.9bn), and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, one of Canada's largest institutional investors.
In a separate resolution, Nathan Cummings Foundation, an ethical investment group, has called on News Corp to end the dual-class share structure that allows the Murdoch family to control its media empire despite owning a minority of shares.

Rupert Murdoch must step down as News Corporation chair – shareholders [Dominic Rushe/The Guardian]

IT Crowd coming back for a final episode!

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:19:14 +0000

Wahoo! It's official: the IT Crowd will reunite for a final episode. My favorite new sitcom of the century will be back -- something that seemed less and less likely as the careers of its stars reached heights that were beyond the scope of UK TV.

During a Q&A session at the German re:publica digital conference, IT Crowd creator and writer Graham Linehan announced that he is bringing the award-winning geeky British sitcom and cast members (Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson and Matt Berry) back to Channel 4 for one last special forty-minute episode. According to Bleeding Cool, this final episode is to be filmed in three weeks time. The script for the special was written over a year ago, but due to a pregnancy and the actors being busy in other TV and film projects, it was postposed.

IT Crowd Creator Graham Linehan Bringing the Geeky British Sitcom Back For One Last Episode (via IO9)

Former Tory mayor admits to beating up woman who videod him parking illegally

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 06 May 2013 00:55:15 +0000

Brian Coleman, a former Conservative mayor and concillor has admitted to assaulting a constituent who was video-recording him while he parked illegally to use an ATM. Coleman had been unpopular for passing strict parking rules, and the woman whom he assaulted was a local parking campaigner.

Coleman, of Essex Road in Finchley, was ordered to pay £1,385, including a £270 fine, prosecution costs of £850 and £250 to the victim as compensation.
Ms Michael, 50, a mother-of-two, who suffered injuries including scratches to her wrist and soreness to her shoulder and chest, called on Coleman to resign.
She said: "[I was] looking at my phone and all of a sudden he's upon me, it was pure shock.
"I think he's bullied and intimidated people for a long long time and I think he has now got what has been long overdue."

Barnet Councillor Brian Coleman admits parking row attack [BBC]

Clever, vintage covers for Orwell reissues

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 02 May 2013 05:14:24 +0000

Spotted these yesterday (though they've been around for a while - see Mark's post from January): Penguin's done a bunch of George Orwell paperback reissues with clever and vintagey covers. The Nineteen Eighty-Four has a black mask over the title that you can scratch off (or leave intact), while Animal Farm and Books v Cigarettes both sport lovely old school covers.

Mozilla to FinSpy: stop disguising your "lawful interception" spyware as Firefox

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 01 May 2013 22:45:45 +0000

The Mozilla Foundation has sent a legal threat to Gamma International, a UK company that makes a product called "FinSpy" that is used by governments, including brutal dictatorships to spy on dissidents. FinSpy allows these governments to hijack their citizens' screens, cameras, hard-drives and keyboards. Gamma disguises this spyware as copies of Firefox, Mozilla's flagship free/open browser.

Gamma International markets its software as a “remote monitoring” program that government agencies can use to take control of computers and snoop on data and communications. In theory, it could be legitimately used for surveillance efforts by crime fighting agencies, but in practice, it has popped up as a spy tool unleashed against dissident movements operating against repressive regimes.
Citizen Lab researchers have seen it used against dissidents from Bahrain and Ethiopia. And in a new report, set to be released today, they’ve found it in 11 new countries: Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Panama, Lithuania, Macedonia, South Africa, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bulgaria, and Austria. That brings the total number of countries that have been spotted with FinFisher to 36.
To date, Citizen Lab researchers have found three samples of FinSpy that masquerades as Firefox, including a “demo” version of the spyware according to Morgan Marquis-Boire, a security researcher at the Citizen Lab, who works as a Google Security Engineer. Marquis-Boire says his work at Citizen Lab is independent from his day job at Google.

Mozilla Takes Aim at Spyware That Masquerades as Firefox [Robert McMillan/Wired]

Why do governments get Internet surveillance so wrong?

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:36:45 +0000

The UK Open Rights Group has just published "Why the Snoopers’ Charter is the wrong approach: A call for targeted and accountable investigatory powers," a digital paper on why and how governments go terribly wrong with Internet surveillance proposals, and what a reasonable and accountable form of surveillance would look like. Jim Killock from ORG sez,

After the Snoopers' Charter debacle, the Open Rights Group asks why intrusive new laws are being suggested, if they are needed at all and what the alternatives are. Some of the UK's most prominent surveillance experts examine the history of UK surveillance law and the challenges posed by the explosion of digital datasets. Contributors include journalist Duncan Campbell, legal expert Angela Patrick from Justice, Richard Clayton of Cambridge University Computer Labs and Peter Sommer, Visiting Professor at De Montfort University.

Digital Surveillance (Thanks, Jim!)

(Disclaimer: I am proud to have co-founded the Open Rights Group, and to volunteer on its advisory council)

Bath salts in Britain

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:00:57 +0000

The Guardian's Mike Power investigated the "legal highs" industry and found a pretty disturbing world where you can get kilos of LSD, cannabis and MDMA replacement couriered to you for a pittance. But unlike the drugs they replace, these ones are potentially lethal, and sold interchangeably to unsuspecting neuronauts and punters.

Akissi: kids' comic about a mischievous girl in Cote D'Ivoire

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:14:30 +0000

Akissi is a French-language comic about the adventures of a little West African girl, now available in English translation thanks to the astoundingly excellent Flying Eye, a new kids' imprint of London's NoBrow. It was created by Marguerite Abouet, whom you may know from Aya, a series of comics for adults set in Cote d'Ivoire, widely available and appreciated in English translation.

Akissi's adventures are both universal and absolutely particular to her milieu. My young daughter -- born and raised in London -- has never kept a pet monkey, had a tapeworm come out of her nose, or had to contend with an older brother who wouldn't take her pigeon hunting; but Akissi's struggles with authority, her close friendships, and her misunderstandings are immediately recognisable to my daughter and her friends when they come over, and I've read the book aloud to them a good half-dozen times since I brought it home last week. It's the perfect combination of gross-out humour, authority clashes, and general mischief to capture a kid's interest.

Akissi comprises seven short stories, each of which stands alone, and, as with all of the NoBrow titles, it is a beautiful package -- great binding, endpapers, paper stock, and spine -- suitable for both your own library and as a handsome gift. It's on sale in the UK now, and will be out in the USA in June.

Akissi [Amazon UK]

AKISSI [Flying Eye]

Snooper's Charter is dead! (for now)

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:50:34 +0000

Aw, yeah! The UK Communications Data Bill -- AKA the "Snooper's Charter," a sweeping, totalitarian universal Internet surveillance bill that the Conservative government had sworn to pass -- is dead! Yesterday, Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats in Parliament, announced that his party would not support the bill, and effectively killed it. Though I've been bitterly disappointed with some of the terminal compromises the LibDems have made, this makes me grateful to have them in Parliament. The kind of universal surveillance proposed in the Snooper's Charter was broadly supported by the last Labour government, which radically expanded state surveillance powers, and by the Tories -- thank goodness for the LibDems mustering a scrap of backbone at last!

The only downside is that the Open Rights Group had a whole series of great "Professor Elemental" videos that used pointed, excellent humour to mock and undermine the bill and drum up opposition to it, and now that's all going to go to waste (I blogged episode one yesterday).

Aw, who'm I kidding? This kind of thing never stays dead.

The snooper's charter has reminded Nick Clegg, finally, he is a liberal

The Zoom: great satirical comic created by 12-year-old British schoolboy

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:01:06 +0000

The Zoom is a great British satirical comic written and drawn by a 12-year-old named Zoom Rockman. I picked up his eighth issue last weekend at a comics show in London and it was a delight, and not in some patronising "Oh, it's quite good for something done by a kid" way. The Zoom is funny, pointed, and satirical, and Rockman's busy, dark drawings and crowded lettering are excellent camouflage for a sophisticated and irreverent wit. Issues 1-7 (created while Zoom was between the ages of 9 and 12) are online as free reads, while the new issue (which is excellent) can be had for a mere GBP1.99. It's money well spent.

The Zoom - Comic - UK - Home Page

UK Home Office commissions a super villain-catching-machine from Prof. Elemental

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:34:27 +0000

In this startling debut episode, the renowned Professor Elemental receives a commission from the government to build a marvellous snooping machine with which to catch the badduns. The Home Secretary has the right man for the job -- with the good professor's marvellous device, the Home Office will be able to spy on every communique that traverses the British Information Superhighway!

(It's all about the Snooper's Charter, the barmy UK legislative proposal to give nearly unlimited snooping powers to the government and police, and this video is courtesy of the good people at the Open Rights Group.

Professor Elemental build a Great Machine for Catching Villains Chapter One (Thanks, Jim!)

Wyndhamesque missives from Scarfolk, an English horror-town trapped in a 1969-79 loop

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:42:17 +0000

I'm loving the Scarfolk site, where "Dr R Littler" chronicles the mysteries of an English town stuck in a Wyndham-esque loop betwen 1969 and 1979. It's full of the most lovely horrors. It's all so perfectly wrought and so grisly and freaked out and perfectly aged. If only we could all retire to Scarfolk and never grow old!

Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979. Instead, the entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. Here in Scarfolk, pagan rituals blend seamlessly with science; hauntology is a compulsory subject at school, and everyone must be in bed by 8pm because they are perpetually running a slight fever. "Visit Scarfolk today. Our number one priority is keeping rabies at bay." For more information please reread.

Scarfolk Council (via Die Puny Humans)

8-bit tubemap

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:56:29 +0000

Chris Evans sez, "I made this 8bit London Underground map a while ago, entirely in Tile Studio with a bit of Gimp to add text."

Finished Super Mario Bros 3 Zone 1 tube map. Now without stupid watermark and decent resolution.

UK ISPs betray customers, collaborate on government surveillance

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:00:26 +0000

Britain's Communications Data Bill -- AKA the Snooper's Charter -- would effectively eliminate private communications in the UK, giving government and the police the power to spy on virtually everything you do online (which is rapidly merging with everything you do, full stop). The major ISPs in the UK have apparently been turned to the government's cause, and have been quietly supporting the bill, which strips their customers of any semblance of privacy.

The government defends this proposal by saying that they're not intercepting "messages," only "envelopes." That is, they'll get the subject lines, social graph data, who is talking, where, how often, and who replies, how long the messages are, and so on. I like to imagine Alan Turing taking this approach to informational significance: "Mr Churchill, I'm sorry, there's no point in what you're asking us to do: all we can decode from the Nazis is who is sending messages, who receives them, what they're about, where they're sent from, how often they're sent, and how long they are. Nothing compromising." (Then I imagine the ghost of Turing haunting Home Secretary Teresa May, who claims that none of that kind of data compromises Britons' privacy).

In an open letter to the major ISPs, the Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, and Privacy International accuse the ISPs of entering into a conspiracy of silence on the surveillance system:

It has become clear that a critical component of the Communications Data Bill is that UK communication service providers will be required by law to create data they currently do not have any business purpose for, and store it for a period of 12 months.
Plainly, this crosses a line no democratic country has yet crossed – paying private companies to record what their customers are doing solely for the purposes of the state.
These proposals are not fit for purpose, which possibly explains why the Home Office is so keen to ensure they are not aired publicly.
There has been no public consultation, while on none of your websites is there any reference to these discussions. Meetings have been held behind closed doors as policy has been developed in secret, seemingly the same policy formulated several years ago despite widespread warnings from technical experts.
That your businesses appear willing to be co-opted as an arm of the state to monitor every single one of your customers is a dangerous step, exacerbated by your silence
Consumers are increasingly concerned about their privacy, both in terms of how much data is collected about them and how securely that data is kept. Many businesses have made a virtue of respecting consumer privacy and ensuring safe and secure internet access.
Sadly, your customers have not had the opportunity to comment on these proposals. Indeed, were it not for civil society groups and the media, they would have no idea such a policy was being considered.
We believe this is a critical failure not only of Government, but a betrayal of your customers' interests. You appear to be engaged in a conspiracy of silence with the Home Office, the only concern being whether or not you will be able to recover your costs.

ISPs In ‘Conspiracy Of Silence’ With Government On Snooper’s Charter (via ./)

Short UK documentary about woman threatened with terrorism charges for videorecording cops while they stop-and-searched her boyfriend on the tube

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:00:38 +0000

Gemma sez, "You wrote a blog post about how I was assaulted by the police after filming my boyfriend being searched, back in 2009. The publicity we got from your post and the other press we got (Guardian and BBC) helped make thousands more people aware of this issue which led to the Metropolitan police eventually having to change their guidelines on photographing and filming the police. It was always my aim to get section 58a of the terrorism act clearer to all citizens in the UK and this hasn't changed. Today I'm releasing the animated short film about the case - It deals with broad issues of police accountability and citizen''s rights as well as the specifics of my case. We also hope it entertains you on its way."

Act of Terror

No, universal daycare doesn't destroy the national character

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:35:05 +0000

The Brit papers have been full of news about the Swedish daycare expert brought in to address Conservative MPs about the iron-clad, data-driven link between Sweden's universal daycare and the rise of teen mental health issues there. Jonas Himmelstrand was there to warn Britain that sending mothers to work and kids to daycare was bad for the family and the nation. Only one problem: he has no formal qualifications to speak on the subject, and the scientist whose research he cited says he got it all wrong.

Video of Mat Ricardo's London Varieties show

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:54:10 +0000

Mat Ricardo sez,

Mat Ricardo's London Varieties Episode Two is now up online for anyone to watch, enjoy and share - for free to course! In the show I host The Boy With Tape On His Face, the hilarious Elliot Mason, and the amazing magician Peter Wardell, plus I interviewed Al Murray, away from his Pub Landlord persona, about his life and career. It was very fun. We somehow ended up talking about pixies..
The next show happens at the Leicester Square Theatre, in the heart of London's West End, at 9.30pm, on Thursday the 25th of April, and features cabaret stars Eastend Cabaret, the astonishing Lisa Lottie, the very silly Johann Lippowitz, and to top it all off I'll be interviewing the legendary Paul Daniels, and he'll be treating us to a couple of his classic routines.
Oh, and I'll be attempting the single most dangerous trick I have ever tried, because I'm a bloody idiot. Come see the show live! You can book tickets by calling 08448 733433, or by clicking here. For more info about the shows, go here.

Mat Ricardo's London Varieties: Show Two (Thanks, Mat!)

Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:45:43 +0000

Russell Brand's obituary for Margaret Thatcher is a beautiful and incisive piece of writing, and a good example of why he's not just another actor:

When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring – I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. She remained in power till I was 15. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning?
I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. I don't know if they ever voted for her, I don't know if they liked her. My dad, I suspect, did. He had enough Del Boy about him to admire her coiffured virility – but in a way Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant.
As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. And the miners. And the single mums. The dockers. The poll-tax rioters. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually.
Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman.

Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children' (via @TimMinchin)

(Image: Anti-Margaret Thatcher badge, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from dannybirchall's photostream)

Walk 1.4 mi. in London, take photos of 140+ CCTVs

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:34:32 +0000

James Bridle photographed every CCTV between his home in east London and Dalston Junction, a 1.4mi walk with about 140 cameras. Welcome to London, where we have 11 CCTVs per red blood cells.

Every CCTV camera between my house and Dalston Junction (via Super Punch)

How the global hyper-rich have turned central London into a lights-out ghost-town

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:01:19 +0000

In an excellent NYT story, Sarah Lyall reports on "lights-out London" -- the phenomenon whereby ultra-wealthy foreigners (often from corrupt plutocracies like Kazakhstan and Russia) are buying up whole neighbourhoods in London, driving up house-prices beyond the reach of locals, and then treating their houses as holiday homes. They stay for a couple weeks once or twice a year, leaving whole neighbourhoods vacant and shuttered through most of the year, which kills the local businesses and turns central London into something of a ghost town.

“Some of the richest people in the world are buying property here as an investment,” [Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour opposition in Westminster Council] said. “They may live here for a fortnight in the summer, but for the rest of the year they’re contributing nothing to the local economy. The specter of new buildings where there are no lights on is a real problem...”
Meanwhile, prices are rising beyond expectation. For single-family housing in the prime areas of London, British buyers spend an average of $2.25 million, Ms. Barnes said, while foreign buyers spend an average of $3.75 million, which increases to $7.5 million if they are from Russia or the Middle East...
The most visible, and also the most notorious, of the new developments is One Hyde Park, a $1.7 billion apartment building of stratospheric opulence on a prime corner in Knightsbridge, near Harvey Nichols, the park and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which functions as a 24-hour concierge service for residents. Apartments there have been purchased mostly by foreign buyers who hide their identities behind murky offshore companies registered to tax havens like the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands.
It is rare to see anyone coming to or going from the complex, and British newspapers have been trying since it opened two years ago to discover who lives there. Vanity Fair reported recently that as far as it could discern after a long trawl through records, the owners seem to include a cast of characters who might have come from a poker game in a James Bond movie: a Russian property magnate, a Nigerian telecommunications tycoon, the richest man in Ukraine, a Kazakh copper billionaire, someone who may or may not be a Kazkh singer and the head of finance for the emirate of Sharjah.

A Slice of London So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors [NYT/Sarah Lyall]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

Attacks on punks and goths are now hate crimes in Manchester

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:58:22 +0000

Manchester, England has expanded its hate-crime laws to include attacks on the basis of dress or an "alternative sub-culture identity." The expansion follows on the fatal 2007 attack on Sophie Lancaster, whose attackers chose her because of her goth identity.

"People who wish to express their alternative sub-culture identity freely should not have to tolerate hate crime," Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said.
Manchester police said the change would enable officers to give more support to victims of anti-punk or anti-Goth crime. But it won't necessarily mean tougher sentences.
Although British judicial guidelines call for people convicted of hate crimes to receive tougher sentences, the Manchester decision has not been recognised nationally.

Manchester police to record attacks on goths and punks as hate crimes [Guardian/AP]

(Image: Lancashire Police)

Queen goes on austerity footing, receive mere £5M pay-rise from the taxpayers

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 01:27:23 +0000

At only £36.1M from the public purse (up £5M from last year), the poor Queen is positively underpaid. After all, she was divinely chosen to be monarch. God will be angry.

Gas masks for babies, 1940

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:03:35 +0000

From the Imperial War Museum in London, a couple of incredible photos of nurses testing out infant gas-masks: "Three nurses carry babies cocooned in baby gas respirators down the corridor of a London hospital during a gas drill. Note the carrying handle on the respirator used to carry the baby by the nurse in the foreground."

GAS DRILL AT A LONDON HOSPITAL: GAS MASKS FOR BABIES ARE TESTED, ENGLAND, 1940 (via Kadrey)