Monthly Archives: December 2008

Blogging/IT

Elsewhere

It might look like I have been rather quiet here recently, but I have been busy elsewhere:

* Watching The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes by the RSC – if you missed it you didn’t miss a lot, although Wilton’s Music Hall is, as ever, a wonderful venue. It is still mostly faded glory, although they have manage to restore and paint the ceiling in the auditorium, down to the first cornice anyway.

* Hearing about the possibility of a world environment court

* Hearing a debate on have we seen the worst of Aids?

Blogging/IT

Recommendation?

Anyone have a recommendation for a free PDF creator programme? (Mostly from Word 2007 files, but occasionally probably from Excel and other programs.) There seem to be huge numbers of them around, but I’ve had problems in the past with ones that caused crashes, failed to work, and were generally a pain. I’m not looking for bells and whistles, just a basic thing that works

Environmental politics

Things to make you despair

I’ve had cause to drop into Waitrose Bloomsbury a couple of times in the past week (I don’t often go into shops), and found simply shocking the usage of plastic bags. Both times I happened to end up at a till at the far end, with about 10 in use between me and the door. Both times, only one other person was making alternative arrangements to the disposable carrier bags. In fact it was even worse than that – the average use of them must have been over 95%, when I put together all of the people walking around the Brunswick Centre.

Quite what made London councils decide to quietly drop the much lauded plan to the ban the bag I don’t know, but it certainly can’t have been because voluntary measures are working.

No, this isn’t the biggest issue in the world – but as a symbol of humans being prepared to make very minor adjustments to their lives to save the environment, it’s pretty telling.

Not to mention the question of what business is doing. I asked for a comment form at the “help” desk, but I must have looked scary for the man there muttered that he was going to find some, then ran away and didn’t come back.

So Mr Waitrose, with your environmental claims: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!!!!! Why are the bags still casually laid out in free profusion at the end of each till?

Miscellaneous

Weekend reading

Actually from last week, but I hadn’t got around to celebrating the Critical Mass legal victory. Once again we’ve had to rely on the judges to defend basic civil liberties – such as the right to cycle along a street with some other cyclists…

But there are growing concerns about cosmetics. If they aren’t safe for pregnant women, should they really be being spread around in such huge quantities?

And a fascinating piece about Google’s censorship dilemmas – having just been wrestling with a small such question myself, in preparing the Britblog roundup below, I’m feeling sympathetic. But it is a reminder of just what enormous powers one major multinational company (whatever its good intentions) is holding.

Blogging/IT

Britblog Roundup No 198

News-wise it’s been one hell of a week. I’m going to put these into the main categories to make it manageable…

1. Mumbai: Sid on Pickled Politics assembles what’s know about the
alleged attacking group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, while Sunny on the same site contemplates what India might do next.

Blood and Treasure contemplates possible Pakistani involvement, Charles Crawford considers the tactical implications.

2. The economy: Jonathan Porritt, Sunny Hundal, the Daily Mash, and the Diamond Geezer takes a hands-on approach to studying Woolworths’ downfall.

3. The arrest of Damian Green: Craig Murray can hear the jackboots and A Very British Dude says this is the way the world ends and Mick Fealty wonders what the Speaker was doing.

4. Violence Against Women 16 days: the F-Word addresses asylum and rape.

5. The Baby P-case: Lynne Featherstone has seen the serious case review, and is in no doubt that it should be published, and on Heresy Corner, the Facebook Furies are comprehensively slapped down.

6. Miscellaneous politics: the Bristling Badger (great name for a blog), considers a report on climate change technofixes, Jim wonders just how horrible we can be to each other. How can any of us get to the bus stop without being murdered?

And Stumbling and Mumbling explains why Andrew Lansley is a prat who got it right then got it wrong, while Rhetorically Speaking dissects Melanie Phillips in search of logic and Liberal England looks at Phil Willis’s view of university education.

Rather close to home to me, in Camden on Theo’s blog there’s some links made between praise on the environment and political posts, and over the border in Islington a fellow Britblog Host, Suz Blog, has an account of an eviction of an alleged anti-social neighbour.

Okay, you can take a lungful of air after that lot … but there is a blogging world outside politics and world affairs – and it can even be more fun….

To begin, an account of a top secret, dangerous mission.

Ruscombe Green’s guest blogger, a marine historian, explains how he’s been saving an extraordinary graveyard (for boats), but Unmitigated England couldn’t save a mighty fallen giant.

Penny Red’s been trying to found a New Left Media (well not all on her own), while High On Rebellion sets out her views on the Guardian’s coverage of feminism.

On An Overgrown Path pays tribute to Richard Hickox.

Almost finally, let’s have a treble of light relief: Elizabeth Chadwick’s been contemplating how we depict medieval garderobes and their use. Why has King John got his hose around his ankles?

And Kate Smurthwaite’s been finding the real reason for stripping in Mr Stringfellow’s clubs…

And Lady Bracknell’s got the final solution to sorting out those coots and moorhens.

Then really finally, perhaps the most important post of the week, from The Misssy M Missives, how to get through your office Christmas party.

I think that’s quite a large enough collection to keep you going for a week… Next week the roundup will be on Redemption Blues. If you’d like to nominate a post (and please do), email britblog AT gmail DOT com.