The Other News From England.

17 Sept. 2001.

It is impossible to say how much support we would like to offer to the USA after Tuesday's massacre. Being a puny and ineffective website, this will only amount to nothing even if it is our best effort. Perhaps, however, there is a silver lining in there somewhere in that the vast majority of the world seem to have rallied to support the Americans when we were all quite ready to have a go at them over various aspects of their world relations before this week.

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 22nd September 2001 LETSwing with Hanna Heissenbuttel, Steve Barbe, Mark Treasure, Hugh Harris.

WHATEVER it's name suggests, this band do not just play swing. they play swing, jazz, reggae, bluebeat, Latin, Motown, and quite a few of their own compositions, some of which verge on 'classical' - but always with a strong rhythm. This is a rare occasion, because most performances are reserved for Council for Music in Hospitals, hostels for the homeless, prisons, and anywhere where there is an element of 'community'....

Bonnington Cafe is a communally owned cafe in Vauxhall, Central London. The atmosphere is somewhat Bohemian, international, friendly, educated, and much wine (bought from the corner shop across the road) gets 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, and engage in discussion with those on other tables, the caterer, the band, passers through......

Bonnington Cafe, Vauxhall Grove, London SW8 UK. Near Vauxhall underground and mainline station, buses 185, 36, 2, 88, 322 and others. Booking is difficult.

USA.

WORDS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND with regard to this matter. I am not a great expert on world history, but it seems to me that Tuesday's events must have been the biggest single assault the USA has ever had on it's own ground - and certainly the biggest in 'peacetime'. The USA is not perfect, and has (not infrequently), along with this country, been criticised either directly or indirectly in The Other News for one reason or another (it has also been greatly praised from time to time), but it is impossible to find justification for what was done that day.

Interestingly, the first piece of editorial I read on the day following this assault was in one of our most reactionary, right-wing and bombastic papers, which nevertheless contained the words 'the Americans can bomb Afghanistan into the stone age (it's already not far from that), but there will always be someone else who has a chip in their shoulder.....' and went on to suggest that whilst it would be understandable if the USA let loose all it's rage on the offending country, it might be far better if it made an attempt to understand what motivates people to go to such extremes, and engaged in a a great deal of diplomacy to see what can be done to avoid a repeat.

Other less reactionary papers had numerous editorials expressing sympathy and condolences, but the vast majority I saw were talking along the same lines as the above. The remainder were much more along the lines of bombing Afghanistan into the stone age, a few cautioned that if the assailants felt they had had a success then they were quite likely to try something else, and there is no way of telling what form that something else would take, and yet others suggested a selection of measures which should be taken as a matter of urgency to minimise any further risk.

A friend of mine, when asked for his opinion on the subject, said with some rage 'in these days of such easy communication there is absolutely no excuse for such an action,' and refused to discuss or consider the matter any further. What was that about communication?

Some papers talked about the strategic aspects of a US retaliation, and discussed how many allies the US has behind her. The whole thing felt like World War Three on the brew, and might, I suppose, turn out to be just that. This time, however, a full world war would probably end up with no world to have a war about - or anyway no population. Not an ideal outcome.

I don't know what goes on behind the scenes, but president Bush's speeches (he speaks, after all, as representative of the USA) seemed to me to be almost as blinkered as the Taliban in their non-reference to what issues may have led to this fanatical and mad attack. On the other hand, I do not know what I would do in such a situation. It is a very responsible position he has there.

Freemasons.

(held over from last week and the week before.)

Freemasons, by not responding to the article about Freemasons which stayed put on this site for so long in anticiation, have further magnified the idea that they are probably just a self-interest group who hide behind claims of doing good deeds whilst in fact helping themselves (at great cost to the public).

It's a great shame. After all, they make all this effort to tell us that they are honest folks and then when given a chance to prove it they are silent - like some petty criminal who has been told by his brief that his only chance of getting away with his petty crime is to excercise his right to remain silent.

Joe Punter's Shakespeare.

Being the season of holidays and irresponsibility, there is no telling when the next Joe Punter will start. When it does, hopefully it will be something a bit more civilised than KH6th - probably A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest. Now, a friend of mine told me that I needed to keep an eye out for all the erotic and bawdy stuff in these plays. Well, I have to say I always thought they would be the very essence of politeness and propriety......

Erotic I can get enthusiastic about, but bawdy maybe not. We shall see.

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

Alternet News.

Alternet News might appeal to some readers as a regular list of goings-on in the human rights/green areas of life. You can receive it by email. I have put one copy on this site so that you get an idea of what it is about and how to subscribe.

For sample Alternet email click here.

Biotechnology

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

Goforth's social justice e-zine.

This interesting email magazine comes at fairly regular intervals and is of interest to almost anybody who is interested in human rights and green issues. In November 2000 it was going out to about 10,000 addresses. Try it. It won't cost you anything, and you can reproduce the contents without paying. You can subscribe by writing to them at: sjzine@netscape.net, or visit: Goforth's site

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 (this may now have been provided, but please email if you might like to join in in some way - ed.)

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