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The Other News From England

8 Dec 1997.

The Other News is made up as a single document, so that you can scroll your way through it. I haven`t yet learnt to make same-page links, and if someone could tell me the code please email editor@othernews.co.uk

Blackspot

Bonnington Square

Brixton LETS

Ecology/recycling

Gabriele Gad

LETSSwing

Politics

Unions and work

Small ads

Stop Press

Index of earlier issues.

For conditions see end of document.

foreword

Friends always ask the same question. What will I write about? If I take the trouble to try remember what I have in mind I forget what I`m doing and end up writing even worse rubbish than usual.

So don`t.

This coming week is the last week of the winter term, and so there ought to be some time to write something a bit more interesting, but I doubt it will be that way.

Blackspot.

Blackspot is back again with an article about car design - a subject that most of us would not like to admit is highly pertinent to our lives today - not necessarily because we think cars are a good or a bad idea, but because we have a great many of them. click here to see what he`s up to.

Bonnington Square

There`s always something going on around this area, but I have forgotten for many weeks now to mention the balloon that goes up from nearby Spring Gardens.

Someone rather enterprising has set up a balloon station, and you can go up and see the surrounding district from a helium ballon flying at a goodish altitude. The ballon is anchored, so there is no risk of going on a very long jouney unless a gale blows up. But of course they don`t fly in such circumstances.

I have yet to try it myself, but I do not think it is likely to be very expensive.

Nearest Underground/mainline station Vauxhall (right by the site), and many buses (see a bus map) (dining in the Bonnington Cafe, I noticed I could have Leak Soup With Bread. My, there`s no end to their ingenuity. I suppose they get the leak from the residents of the square.)

Brixton LETS

Brixton LETS (Local Exchange and Trading System) held a trading day on Saturday. I had two lots of lunch because I didn`t want to miss the variety of foods available, met a few pleasant folk I hadn`t met before, bought a few raffle tickets and then had to leave before the draw, so gave them to Steve Barbe from LETSSwing.

Ecology

wood.

My students usually only use the finest timber you can get to make their projects - and they don`t pay for it.

The reason they don`t pay for it is that it nearly all comes from skips, dismantled packing crates (Japanese motorbike crates are particularly good for tropical hardwoods, and so are Indonesian shipping crates) and from the local rubbish tip, and as a result it has certain characteristics that are not found in timber that you have to pay for. Not least amongst these characteristics are the following:

1. It is properly seasoned.

2. There are a great many unusual and rare varieties of timber.

3. It is free.

4. It inspires the students to design in a manner that is not wasteful and is ingenious in it`s careful use of these precious resources.

5. Because it has been collected as it has become available it has dried to the same humidity as the workshop and has attained a high level of stability - it is very unlikely to warp.

Gabriele Gad

Gabriele Gad on alternative therapy: press here.

LETSSwing.

No gig this week, but we may have a bass player. Had a bit of a rehearsal.

Politics

It is sometimes very difficult to concentrate enough to find out what politicians consider to be going on because of all this point-scoring twaddle, but Daisy who runs the local music school told me the other day that the prime minister is preparing to tell the whole world how to behave like a proper Englishman.

This is a rather frightening thought, when you consider how politicians behave, and particularly in the light of the fact that if the world takes him seriously we will all be in danger of being thought of as of a similar type.

I don`t fancy it at all.

Unions and work

I have related to you how the college wanted to be perceived as being good employers and so wanted staff representatives to stand for election.

It may be a little unfair to start off on this foot, in that at least some of the people in charge of the administration of the college might actually be bright enough to realise that good staff relations make for a successful college.

We (those who were elected to represent the staff) had our first meeting to discuss what we were going to do on Friday. I managed to get waylaid on my way to the meeting and never actually arrived, but a brief resume will be sent to me.

Having polled more votes than anybody else seems to have already caused a certain amount of animosity. I went into the office to arrange the ordering of bandsaw blades and found myself confronted with a secretary who told me that unless I could give the exact details of the supplier they could not be ordered.

"The same supplier we always use is probably the best bet, in that we have tried several and this one has proved the most helpful and the cheapest."

"Give me details of them, then."

"Well, I don`t actually have their address, but they are called ....."

"I can`t order if you don`t have the address."

"Well, you presumably can get it from previous orders."

"No."

"You don`t keep records of previous orders, then?"

"No." (!!)

"There are telephone books...."

I did eventual: 234: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat: 195: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Domain Report

(Go To: Top: General Summary: Monthly Report: Weekly Report: Daily Report: Daily Summary: Domain Report: Host Report: Virtual Host Report: Directory Report: File Type Report: File Size Report: Status Code Report: Request Report: Failure Report)

Listing domains, sorted by the amount of traffic.


#reqs: %bytes: domain
-----: ------: ------
  723: 51.07%: .com (Commercial)
  160: 11.96%: .uk (United Kingdom)
  180: 10.77%: .net (Network)
   85:  7.35%: .it (Italy)
   91:  7.29%: [unresolved numerical addresses]
   91:  4.10%: .gr (Grg. It is the best I`ve ever seen. Contact editor@othernews.co.uk

musical

LETSSwing (the London all-LETS-members band) need a bass player. Suit someone who thinks of playing and writing music as a creative, co-operative, gentle activity, who likes out-of-date pop and jazz, and who doesn`t like making a noise. We play so quiet you could have it in your livingroom without bothering the neighbours most of the time, and are looking at the possibilities for involvement in `the community` (playing in hospitals and so on). Contact editor@othernews.co.uk

stop press

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