Wild Camping ePetition: over 1800

If you think that wild camping in England and Wales is a right worth having. That you'd follow something similar to our Scottish Outdoor Access Code, and its "Leave no trace" ethics, then why not sign up? What's the worst that can happen? We might again get ignored by politicians who listen to the scare-mongering of the landowners who thought that allowing people access to land at night was a licence for burglars.

According to the petition site:

When a serious petition closes, usually provided there are 200 signatures or more, officials at Downing Street will ensure you get a response to the issues you raise. Depending on the nature of the petition, this may be from the Prime Minister, or he may ask one of his Ministers or officials to respond.

Well, they raised 200 signatures in 72 hours. But the petition has already received a negative response from the government. They don't know how many people are interested in this. 2000 would be a nice round number, but the petition closes on the 24th of May. 10 days time.

Wild camping isn't just because people choose not to stay at official reservations, but because they can break up treks or expeditions, because the view is stunning and the noise one of nature and not of cars driving by, because they want to get a start on a hill.

Leave no trace, take only photographs.

Add your name to the petition here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/wildcamp/

Read the background at the official website: http://www.legalisewildcamping.com/

And The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

And so starts George Orwell's "1984".

On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

Orwell was writing it exactly 60 years ago this year, and it was published in 1949.The book is as apt today as it was when I read it in 1984.

He had been appointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing with minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were engaged in producing something called an Interim Report, but what it was that they were reporting on he had never definitely found out. It was something to do with the question of whether commas should be placed inside brackets, or outside.

Following links from Wikipedia, there are copies from Australia and cartoon versions, even a radio play from 1949. I must re-read it before April this year. There was a good series on BBC2 recently about British Science Fiction. I think it came originally from BBC4. I used to read a lot of early sci-fi when I was travelling to/from school on the bus, but I think it was American early and "golden years" stories. Unlike tv programmes and fleeting media, I find that reading things stays more in my brain. But I'm sure that's just a sign of my age. But then again, what's the point in remembering tv programmes if you can't give a copy of the documentary to a mate - but you can point them to a book, or a film. We are losing information into the aether of marginal tv channels where the makers can generate extra revenue in the hope that we, the public, will follow. If the data is out there and we can't find it, then it might as well not exist and we should call the fire brigade.

There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means

If you've never read the book, go to the library and get it. Go to a bookshop and buy it (maybe even from one of these cheap shops or charity shops). Or read the linked file text from Wikipedia. You won't regret it. Or you can get back to your entertainment, being happily advertised as "brain-dead tv".

Past. Present. Future.

International Holocaust Memorial Day Never Again Light a Candle

Letters from America

Read about the ongoing writer's strike at Ronald D Moore's blog. You may recognise his name from the new Battlestar Galactica, others from various series of Star Trek. Most of you probably have never heard of him as you don't bother with the credits, or shows other than the soaps. Your loss, humanity's loss, our enemy's gain.

Underage Voting

From the BBC News:

Proposals to lower the voting age to 16 have been unanimously backed at the SNP annual conference.

Can someone give me a reasonable argument why 16-18 year olds should have the vote? Without the cry of "no taxation without representation", because by that argument any under-16 who buys a sweet should have the vote too.

Come on, who's of that age group? Leave comments on WHY you want the power to vote for government? Why do you think it is important? If you don't want the vote, why not?