The Other News From England.

7th August 2000. - LATE EDITION

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.

SORRY TO HAVE MISLED YOU. LETSwing are note here this Saturday after all. Instead there is Phil singing sons with his guitar. The error was due to my misunderstanding the week's arrangements. About 8pm onwards.

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.

THAT WAS A SHORT-LIVED FREEDOM, THAT WAS.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH on the internet is about to disappear in this country.

A bill is on it's way through parliament which will allow the government to require any of us who have something to say that they do not like us saying to remove it from the internet. Although they say they do not intend to use it except in certain circumstances, I have it from reliable sources that the powers it gives them are pretty sweeping, and one must assume it will therefore allow any government in the future to stop their opponents having their say. This may mean that we are doomed to a government as hopeless as the current one and the one before it forever - or even something worse. If you don't want that, do something now before it is too late.

GreenNet say this:

GreenNet is a non-profit organisation who have been promoting freedom of speech via the internet probably for longer than anyone else involved in the internet. I believe they started in 1984! If you want to support them, you could subscribe to them (and pay your bill!). Contact support@gn.apc.org.

Joe Punter's Shakespeare.

King Henry the 6th. part 2 Act 1.

ACT 1.

SCENE 1.

London. A room of state in the palace.

Flourish of trumpets, then oboes. Enter king, Gloster, Salisbury, Warwick and Cardinal Beaufort on the one side, and the queen, Suffolk, York, Somerset and Buckingham on the other.

SUFFOLK:

I have managed to procure for you Princess Margaret (it reads as though he married her by proxy - ed) and am now delivering her to you.

KING:

Stand up, man. Welcome Queen Margaret. You are indeed a right stunner. I hope I may be able to love you properly.

QUEEN MARGARET:

Hello. I think I can manage to love you. I'm quite pleased.

KING:

Things do seem to be going rather well.

ALL (kneeling):

Long live Queen Margaret.

MARGARET:

We thank you all.

SUFFOLK:

My lord protector, here are the peace treaties between this country and France concluded 18 months ago.

GLOSTER (reads):

Imprimis, It is agreed between the French king Charles, and William de la Pole marquess of Suffolk ambassador for Henry king of England, - that the said Henrty shall espouse the Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier king of Naples, Sicilia, and Jerusalem; and crown her Queen of Englandere the thirtieth of May next ensuing. Item, that the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be released and delivered to the king her father -

(lets paper fall)

King:

What's that?........

GLOSTER:

Sorry, I can't read any further.

KING:

Uncle Winchester, please read further.

CARDINAL BEAUFORT (reads):

Item, It is further agreed between them, that the duchioes of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over to the king her father; and she sent over of the king of England's own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.

KING:

That seems entirely satisfactory. Kneel Lord Marquess and rise first Duke of Suffolk, Cousin of York you are discharged from the duty of being regent in those parts of France till a term of eighteen months has expired. Thank you all for your great efforts. Lets get this coronation on the road.

(exit king, queen and Suffolk)

GLOSTER:

Was all our hooliganism entirely to no end? Have we now retracted from that position that we had attained by such persistent marauding, and defacing of monuments. After all that effort we give it all back again?

CARDINAL BEAUFORT:

Why are you so upset? We've still got France, and we'll keep it.

GLOSTER:

We will keep it if we can. Suffolk the newly-made duke that rules the roast (sic) has given the duchies of Anjou and Maine to Reignier, who is poorer than his style suggests.

EARL OF SALISBURY:

These counties are the keys of Normandy, but why are you weeping Warwick?

EARL OF WARWICK:

Grief that we can't just go in and duff the bloody foreigners up again, thereby regaining control. I got wounded getting those cities, and now we just give them back peacefully. My god!

DUKE OF YORK:

That Suffolk should be duke for doing a thing like that! How dishonorable for the English. No dowry! In fact king Henry gives to the French in order to marry a woman who carries no advantages for us.

GLOSTER:

It's a bit of a laugh that Suffolk should charge a whole fifteenth in costs and charges for transporting her. I wish to hell she'd just stayed in France and starved before -

BEAUFORT:

Gloster, you're going a bit far there. It was the wish of the king that things should be like this.

GLOS:

I can read your mind, Winchester. I am aware that my presence offends you, proud prelate, as it did in times past. I can see the fury in your face. I dare not stay as it will only rekindle ancient bickerings between us. I'm going now, and remember- I told you we would lose France soon.

(exits)

BEAUFORT:

Don't be too taken in by him, folks. Although he is protector to the king, he is also the next in line for inheritance of the the crown. I would call him an enemy to us all, and to the king. If Henry had gained some great empire by this marriage he would still have been dissatisfied. Even though the common people favour him, I think you will find him a dangerous protector.

BUCKINGHAM:

Why should he protect the sovereign when he is the right age to be king himself? (these people had some strange logic which led them to believe believe that being king was a desireable role - ed). Somerset, let's you and Suffolk and I manipulate him out of his seat.

BEAUFORT:

This shouldn't be delayed any longer. I'll go to the duke of suffolk presently.

(exits).

SOMERSET:

Buckingham, we need to keep an eye on this situation. That cardinal is an obnoxious git, and if he can manage to get Gloster displaced he will be protector to the king himself.

BUCKINGHAM:

Or one of us will be instead of either of them!

(exit Buckingham and Somerset).

SALISBURY:

Pride went first, followed by ambition! These two guys are only interseted in themselves. We should be working for the whole land, not just individuals. Humphrey of Gloster is much liked by the common people, and you, York, are popular for having duffed up the Irish and brought them to heel, and for your many exploits in France, where you are now feared. For the good of the public we should contrive to foil all of those people's activities and support Humphrey.

WARWICK:

So god help Warwick, as he loves the land, and the common profit of his country! (sic)

YORK (aside):

And I agree, for I have the greatest cause to do so.

SALISBURY:

Right. Let's go and have a look unto the main.

WARWICK:

Unto the main! Maine is lost. You meant main chance, but I meant Maine, and I will take it back or die in the struggle.

(exit Warwick and Salisbury).

YORK:

So we do all that work and the king gives the profits from it away for a good bit of fluff, and they all in their way pander to it. I had some hopes at one stage of taking France for myself. However, with what is left I will devise a way of taking the crown for myself, for that is what I am really after. I shall make a show of love to proud Humphrey to achieve that end. I'll pry into the secrets of the state until the time comes when henry, engrossed in passion about his queen, is not looking, and the others are getting drunk, and at that time my house of York shall grapple with the house of Lancaster, and by force make him yield the crown. I will then be king.

(exit). More next week.

Music.

THEY WERE ALL trying to tune up. There was not a single fixed pitch instrument on the stage. Nobody could agree on a single note. Steve turned to the audience and said "has anyone out there got perfect pitch?"

"Yes," said a voice from the back.

"Good," said Steve, and handing her a kazoo asked, "do you think you could play us an A?"

Politics and psychology.

DURING THE past couple of weeks the nation has been horrified and divided by the abduction and murder of a small girl. A paper that I could only feel happy as describing as our most unsavoury newspaper decided on a campaign of 'naming and shaming' those persons who have been labelled 'paedophiles' in the interests of protecting children. This was done by starting to publish photographs of people who had been convicted by our wobbly legal system for abuse of children. On the face of it, this seems like a fair enough thing to have done, but as it turned out the campaign misfired because several people who looked like certain 'paedophiles' but who were not those 'paedophiles' were attacked by 'vigilante' groups who were intent upon revenge and ignoring the laws of the land. Furthermore, the 'naming and shaming' has probably driven a lot of 'paedophiles' underground, thereby making them more of a danger, not less.

I do not want to go deeply into the psycological aspects of this matter, but it seems to me that it is quite likely that many of the 'vigilantes' will be people who feel a 'paedophile' element in themselves and are so scared of it that they attack it when they believe they see it in other people, and I think it might be compared with the sick sport of bullfighters attacking a bull - symbol of masculinity - in guilt about their own very ordinary sexual drives.

However, I am more interested in other aspects of the matter.

What happened to this small girl is the worst thing that could happen to any small person, and it is also the worst thing that could happen in any parent's life. I cannot think of anything worse, however hard I try, for either the parents or the child. We owe it to ourselves (I am now about to be a grandparent too) and our children to devise the greatest possible defence against such things, and I rather think that this will not happen by the route proposed by the offending newspaper. Given that people are in various ways faulty (all of us), the best we can do is to be fully aware of the potential of all people both for good and for evil. This does not mean treating everybody you don't know as a danger, thereby making them feel unwelcome and alienated and much more likely to offend, as is commonly done in Britain, so much as understanding the potential in all of us to offend, and possibly learning something about psychology and 'normal' human behaviour. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that in present circumstances it will never be possible to absolutely guarantee that no such incident ever takes place again, and our acceptance of that fact might help us to reduce the number of incidents that do occur.

Here is a letter I sent to one of our papers trying to state my thoughts on the subject. It is desperately difficult to say these things without bringing the extreme right wing (who are just as likely to be 'paedophiles' as anyone else, and not necessartily particularly bright) into full cry against 'wooly-minded intellectuals', but we must try:

(written in response to an article expressing shock that the government had advertised on TV for people to work with children)

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

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