The Other News From England.

11th September 2000.

Index of earlier issues - click here.

(Those who like digging about will find that there are hundreds of articles on many subjects to be found on this site.)

Old issues.

There are some much earlier Other News on this site. Click below.

early Othernews - 1992, 93, 94.

Bonnington Cafe and Bonnington Square.

This Saturday, some members of LETSwing, who play a mixture of old-fashioned jazz, reggae, bluebeat, ska, motown, and their own compositions are playing . From 8 onwards. No charge for the entertainment, but the hat goes round, and as seating is limited it is only fair that you should order something to eat.

Bonnington cafe is a communally owned cafe in Vauxhall, Central London. The atmosphere is somewhat Bohemian, friendly, educated, and much wine (bought from the corner shop across the road) seems to get drunk. Good quality vegetarian. Cheap. The only lighting is usually candles stuck in wine bottles, and the furniture is a collection of odds and sods that people have thrown out. The overall result is relaxed and pleasing. People tend to spend the whole evening over their meal.

The cafe gets very full, but sometimes there is a list of telephone numbers of the people who cater there in case you should wish to try to make a booking. Most Saturdays are catered by Marguerite - but not all.

Bonnington Cafe, Vauxhall Grove, London SW8 UK. Near Vauxhall underground and mainline station, and many buses. Booking is difficult.

Gabriele Gad's workshop to help you cope with computer stress.

Gabriele's computer stress course may help. I have never tried it, but doing things with Gabriele can be fun. Details of this course may be found by clicking below:

Gabriele Gad's computer stress course this October.

Joe Punter's Shakespeare.

King Henry the 6th. part 2.

ACT 2.

SCENE 2.

London. The duke of York's garden.

Enter York, Salisbury and Warwick.

DUKE OF YORK:

Well, guys, now we have dined comfortably, tell me privately what your opinion is of my title (which is infallible) to the crown.

EARL OF SALISBURY:

Please let me hear it in full.

EARL OF WARWICK:

Please tell us. If your claim is just, the Nevils (presumably the Nevils are Warwick's family) are your subjects.

YORK:

Right. Edward the third had seven sons. The first was the Black Prince, the Prince of Wales, the second was William of Hatfield, the third was Lionel Duke of Clarence, next John Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fifth Edmund Langley, duke of York, the sixth Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloster. William of Windsor was the seventh and last.

Edward the Black Prince died before his father, leaving his son Richard, who after Edward the third reigned as king, till Henry Bolingbroke duke of Lancaster (the eldest son of John of Gaunt) crowned by the name of Henry the Fourth seized the throne, deposing the then king and sent his queen back to France (from whence she had come) and him to Pomfret, where Richard was murdered.

(I thought you might find that clear - ed)

WARWICK:

You know, Dad, he's right. That's how the house of Lancaster got the throne.

SALISBURY:

But William of Hatfield died without an heir.

YORK:

The third son had a daughter, Phillippe, who married Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, their son was Roger earl of March, and he had three kids, Edmund, Anne and Eleanor.

SALISBURY:

That Edmund claimed the crown but was imprisoned by Owain Glendwr until he died, and so could not actually assert his claim. What about the rest of the story?

YORK:

Edmund's eldest sister, my mother, who was therefore heir to the crown, married Richard earl of Cambridge, who was the son of Edmund Langley, Edward the fifth's son. As I am her son, I claim the kingdom. She was heir to Roger earl of March, who was the son of Edmund Mortimer, who married Phillippe, who was the sole daughter of the duke of Clarence, so if the elder son succeeds before the younger, I am king, on account of being older than Henry!

WARWICK:

Got it! What could be plainer? Henry claims the crown from John of Gaunt, the fourth son, whilst York claims it from the third son. Descendants of Lionel have priority as long as they keep on breeding. So, Dad, let's kneel together to the true king whilst in this private spot, and be the first to salute our sovereign.

BOTH:

Long live Richard, King of England!

YORK:

We thank you, my lords, but I'm not actually king without being first crowned, and my sword stained with the blood of the House of Lancaster - not a very easy task, I think. But if you will secretly do as I say, we might get there. Butter up Suffolk, Beaufort, Somerset and Buckingham until they have dealt with Duke Humphrey, and thereafter we should be able to deal with them, I think.

SALISBURY:

Go for it. We understand your idea.

WARWICK:

It seems to me that one day I shall make the Duke of York a king.

YORK:

And I promise you, Nevil, that I will make you the most imprtant man in England below me.

(All exit.)

More next week.

Lawyers.

I LEARNT NOT LONG AGO that the person in overall charge of the Law Society up until very recently was in every way politically correct: a woman of an ethnic minority who was the youngest person ever to have held this post, not a Chirstian or a freemason, but an Indian lady of (I believe) non-Christian religion - a solicitor who had grappled with the problems of being unemployed (possibly because of her ethnic origins), and who had eventually been taken in by the Law Society who rapidly elevated her to this position.

The temptation for a person like me who has experienced trying to deal both with the Law Society and with solicitors (the people the Law Society represents) is to believe that the Law Society engaged this lady because it was desperate to show itself to be politically correct rather than because she had the right qualities, but that might well be an unfair assessment of the situation. I was, despite this tendency, impressed.

Does this mean that the Law Society now wishes to behave in an honorable and honest manner in all it's dealings with the rest of the world, or will this new open and honest approach be restricted (as the less impartial approach was in the past) to it's own membership?

Miscellany.

"I FIND IT THOROUGHLY OFFENSIVE," my daughter said, "the Way 'Thought for The Day' (a BBC Radio religious program) speaks to us as though religious people have a monopoly of morality. Mind you, one week they had a Hindu on, and occasionally they have a Rabbi, but generally they just have the standard British religion - Church of England or whatever they call it. They never have anyone like, say, Dennis Cobell (a Humanist), who as far as I know has as much morality as a person could have, without having any religion at all."

Although I had never given the matter any thought before, I rather think I agree with her. It is offensive, and it is much more offensive when one bears in mind that these people who are being moral at us are career people representing organisations which over the ages have caused more wars, burnt more people for being witches, forced more people to follow their creed, used more co-ercion, had more to do with slavery, and tortured more people than almost anyone else in politics. And I have chosen the word 'politics' deliberately, because if one analyses the situation it is not at all difficult to come to the conclusion that churches - the fear of god - have always been a most useful form of government, which was in use (with the possible exception of ancient Greece) long before the demi-democracies that we currently have in the world came into being. The Romans, for instance, seeing how much influence Jesus Christ had over the people, needed to knock him off, create some myths, and turn him into a religion, which they could then use to dominate the world, and they have managed to do so to varying degrees of success ever since. That was one of the more impressive bits of political engineering of the last three thousand years, that was.

Nothing quite like a church to keep the peasants in their place. In some countries they'll even die for it. And of course, if the odd lecture about obeying the lord is necessary to keep the boat afloat, then do it.

.......................................................................................................

The stuff that doesn`t often get changed now follows:

Biotechnology

Click here for an email that arrived in January 2000 concerning a proposed reasoned approach to this tricky subject

This website is about accounting investigations and fiddles. If you like to look at financial scandals (both hidden and public) this might be worth a look. I have not been there myself, but the books produced by these people, although difficult to follow, cover a lot of mysterious ground.

This website is about the destruction of countryside and agriculture. Worth a visit if you want to find out about how it is thought the British countryside will fair under the ongoing creep of the multinationals.

This website is one to do with monetary reform.The British Association for Monetary Reform. If you are interested in economics it is worth a look. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bamr1

This is a website about alternative currencies.Might be worth a look to those who have realised that you don't necessarily have to have money as such to be prosperous.

This is a website for something called The Green Guide. I know nothing about it, but am hoping it is something worthy. Please let me know if it is questionable.

This is a site concerned with one of the most unpopular planning decisions ever made in Greater London, the Crystal Palace Complex. It is so stunningly awful that only a handful of people who do not live near it appear to approve, whilst the rest are not entirely uninclined to mention such things as payola, freemasons....you name it! The site belongs to the London Borough of Bromley, but the aggro generated by it and the destruction of amenity caused by it will be almost entirely suffered by residents of adjoining boroughs and not the people of Bromley themselves.

This is a recycling site based in London, and offering materials to anybody. The organisation is a charity seeking to link suppliers of surplus materials with users. Especially good for the more ingenious designers amongst us.

The email of the people who run the above site is cs@london-recycling.demon.co.uk. They are called Creative Supplies. Look them up for more info.

Here's an interesting education site - particularly for those who have young children and are not quite sure what to do to avoid the worst of what`s on offer in the mainstream of education.They are called www.edrev.org.

early Othernews - 1992, 93, 94.

Early Other News essays.

There were a few essays that went out with the early Other News as a freestanding item. You can read these by clicking below.

Essays.

The Soup Designer`s Handbook.

The Soup Designer`s Handbook.

London Journey - a trip from Docklands through Beckenham and back to Docklands.

Friday Woodworkers.

(Friday Woodworkers are suffering a temporary break due to some of the episodes not having been fully edited at the time of writing. It may take some timne to fix this problem.

Episode 17.

(These articles were written in 1988, and were my first attempt at writing. Some people when shown these fell about laughing, some smiled faintly - and some yawned. I thought I was going to write a technical book, but it soon became apparent that I was much more interested in the people than the technology - and that is the main reason there are no drawings - although it might be rather good to do a couple of caricatures sometime.)

Index of Friday Woodorker articles (and a means of access).

Index of earlier issues.

Gabriele Gad on alternative therapy.

A READER COMPLAINED that it was not possible to go back more than 6 articles in Gabriele`s area. Regrettably this is because there is no index, and I have not the time to organise one yet. However, for those determined enough to find the early ones, they should be accessible by going to an early Other News and clicking through from it. This will not be fast, but I think will do the job. They started about November 1997 I think.

editor@othernews.co.uk

Cartoons and graphics.

drawings click here.

sheet music click here.

Consumers.

LEXMARK 3200 PRINTER.

In an earlier issue I told you about my feelings regarding Tempo retailers and the Lexmark 3200 printer I bought from them.

The Lexmark 3200 printer I got from Tempo must surely be the most uneconomical printer I could possibly have bought. The black cartridge only does about 250 pages of ordinary type - for £28! That makes each sheet cost 11.2 pence plus the cost of the paper and probably another 11.2 pence more if any colour is used! - ABOUT 22.4 PENCE A SHEET! Nearly a pound for every four sheets!

I wouldn`t recommend you to buy it - but also look at my earlier article for an idea of Tempo`s service.

Wanted

A person to help make up a subject index for the growing numbers of articles on The Other News From England. Email editor@othernews.co.uk

8- or more-track tape recorder. email pcj@gn.apc.org

All material on this site is copyright. Contact me if you want to use it. I am quite flexible. Educational non-profit use is free - but ask for permission and print an acknowledgement. If you can`t think what to print, put:

From The Other News From England. http://www.othernews.co.uk

Even better if you print the date of the article.

editor@othernews.co.uk

That`s all this week folks