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Monday 29 November 2010

Kiwis behaving badly

First published in The Rugby Paper on 14 November 2010 and reproduced with the editor's permission.

Back in the late 70s, in the company where I worked, we had a spate of people resigning to move to New Zealand.  There were generally two reasons for their decision, the first being that they were convinced that the Soviet bloc and the West were going to go MAD – that’s Mutual Assured Destruction for our younger readers – and that everyone was going to die.  Everyone that is, except those smart enough to be in the Antipodes, and preferably as far south as possible.  You see, they’d all read Nevil Shute’s ‘On The Beach’ where the Northern Hemisphere is destroyed in a nuclear war, and the last places the radiation reaches are the southernmost points of the Southern Hemisphere.  I never quite got the logic of their move – if the balloon was going to go up I’d rather not even see the flash than linger on knowing that the wind would eventually blow the radiation south and get me, and I’d then have to decide when to take the suicide pills the book had the Aussie government handing out! 

The other reason was that pre-hobbitland New Zealand offered a simpler, less materialist lifestyle where authority was still respected, where there was less of a drug culture, the TV screens were free of smut, the streets free of litter, etc. – I’m sure you get the drift.  That always sounded pretty damned boring to me, but each to their own.  So, what does this have to do with rugby?

Last weekend’s Rugby League match at Eden Park in Auckland was marred by alcohol-fuelled fighting in the crowd, and the New Zealand press has reacted with vigour.  There had been hints of trouble to come in the recent past: the Chief Executive of New Zealand Cricket was embarrassed by the behaviour of his country’s fans when he attended a Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne, and in his sport crowds at one-day internationals have been known to get over-excited and chuck plastic bottles at the players.  The worry is that the Rugby League game was the first real test of the newly modernised Eden Park, and its facilities were found wanting.

It seems that a small minority of New Zealand sports fans don’t know how to behave when they’ve had a few beers, and there is real worry that RWC 2011 will be affected.  Make no mistake, the forthcoming tournament, now less than ten months away, is about much, much more than rugby.  This is New Zealand’s chance to show that it is a major country that can welcome large numbers of visitors, and put on a proper show.  There’s always an Australian angle to anything New Zealand, and outdoing what their rivals did in 2003, and maybe even beating them and becoming world champions, would be near the top of any Kiwi’s wish list.  The prospect that this showcase might be marred by crowd trouble is simply unthinkable.

The press coverage in New Zealand has been fascinating, and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party must have been delighted with the exposure they got!  Their premise is that alcohol is the problem, and if the crowd is allowed to freely smoke dope then all will be sweetness and light – presumably the studies that suggest a link between cannabis and psychotic episodes haven’t yet been carried south on the same winds that Nevil Shute wrote about!

The serious but sad point is that the easygoing atmosphere we have at rugby matches in the Northern Hemisphere might not apply at RWC 2011.  The stakes are going to be so high that the authorities will not take the risk of having crowd trouble transmitted via satellite around the globe.  Expect security, which seemingly was virtually non-existent at Eden Park last Saturday, to be a lot tighter come next September.

The other factor on which the New Zealand authorities are pinning their hopes is that League and Union crowds behave differently – that’s their view, not mine.  There seems to be a feeling that one lot don’t know how to behave, whereas the 15-a-side fans do.

A more likely reason why most RWC 2011 matches will pass without incident is the obvious one: Nambia vs South Africa, or Argentina vs Georgia don’t seem to be likely flashpoints, although with Shute’s novel in mind, USA v Russia could get pretty serious!  The home nation should sail into the quarter-finals without much of a problem so it’s really only in the final fortnight that things could get tricky, and a New Zealand v Australia match is unlikely before the final – assuming both sides can win their knock-out games.  Such a final would be so tightly policed that it would be nigh on impossible for anything to go awry.

The imponderable in all of this, of course, is whether the ABs can stand the strain.  Their RWC record is worryingly poor, and the pressure cooker atmosphere caused by the weight of home expectations could work either way: to a glorious triumph on the back of a wave of Kiwi nationalism, or to a countrywide whinge about refereeing standards as happened in France in 2007.  The latter doesn’t bear thinking about!


Sunday 28 November 2010

PCC gets its knickers in a twist

Following last week's session about codes of conduct and the various regulatory bodies, right on cue the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has obligingly shot itself in the foot.  It, and its Chair, Lady Buscombe, have had to formally apologise to lawyer Mark Lewis, and pay him an undisclosed sum in damages.


This is yet another case linked to the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the News of the World (see 'Private eye piracy', 18/11/2010), and involves documents seized by the Met when it raided Private Eye Glenn Mulcaire's offices.  It all goes back to last September when Mark Lewis gave evidence to a Commons' Select Committee.  In that evidence he said that a detective had told him that there were 'something like 6,000 people' who had had their messages intercepted or their phones hacked.  This is in stark contrast to the official line which is that there were only eight victims, including Lewis's client, Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association.  The PCC had endorsed that version of events.

Speaking to the Society of Editors late last year, Lady Buscombe defended the PCC's endorsement of the official line, and went further, claiming that she had received 'new evidence' from Sotland Yard saying that the detective had been misquoted.  She also said that she would send the new evidence to the Chair of the Select Committee, adding that 'Any suggestion that a parliamentary enquiry has been misled is, of course, an extremely serious matter'



Lewis sued the PCC and Lady Buscombe on the basis that her speech clearly implied that he had lied in his evidence to the Select Committee.    

The Baroness and the PCC have now made a formal statement at the high court sying that it was never their intention to imply that Mark Lewis had misled the Select Committee.  The Baroness's original statement, and the apology, can be found on the PCC website:

http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NjA0OQ==

Lord Prescott, that's 'Two Jags' as was, is suing the police for breaching his human rights after they initially declined to hand over details relating to him found in the Mulcaire documents seizure.  His name was on some of those documents and he is claiming damages over the Met's failure to inform him of that fact.  No fan of the PCC, he was quick to turn the knife:



'Today's humiliating apology by Lady Buscombe and the PCC exposes the sham of self-regulation for newspapers. The Chair of a body that is supposed to enforce newspaper accuracy has had to apologise to the high court and settle a libel action prompted by here own misleading comments. 

'The public has rightly lost all confidence in the PCC and I see no other option for Lady Buscombe but to resign her position immediately.' 

As of today, Tory peer Lady Buscombe is still in her £150k p.a. job, but who knows what tomorrow might bring, as there are sure to be further voices raised in support of Prescott's call for her to go?

Friday 26 November 2010

Nice one Eric. Hampshire County Council in a pickle?

Good old Hampshire County Council (HCC)!  In an ever-changing world it's good to know that it's behaving as dimly as ever.  The Freedom of Information Act exists so that citizens can get information about how their money is being spent by public authorities, and it's no surprise, to those of us who've lived in Hampshire for a while, that our County Council isn't comfortable with having to reveal the details of the way it works.



Councillor Colin Davidovitz, the cabinet member for communication and efficiency, led the charge:

'There's no doubt that newspapers use the information they receive from FoIs to benefit a great deal, by putting it on their front page to sell more papers. They are benefiting from research we do on their behalf, at our expense. We also provide information to researchers. I see nothing wrong with charging organisations who benefit from the information we give them, for the service we provide. Why should taxpayers pay for newspapers to benefit?'

He was joined by Council leader Councillor Ken Thornber, who said:

'We will ask the Local Government Association to push for us to be allowed to charge commercial organisations where the data supplied is of commercial value to them.'

Apparently, in 2009/10 HCC spent £318,000 answering 707 FOI requests, which sounds like money well spent to me, especially as openness could have saved a lot of that - they need to understand that secrecy is what drives people to make FOI requests!

Those who campaign for greater public openness found an unlikely ally in Local Government Minster, Eric Pickles, a politician not renowned for his liberal tendencies. 



That's the Eric Pickles whose department declined to answer an FOI request about whether he took legal advice in the in the wake of adversely critical comments by a Department of Community and Local Government 'source' about the electoral commission chair, Jenny Watson. Ministers declined to renew her position as a board member of the audit commission in September.  It's widely accepted that Pickles did get external legal advice on the issue, so for a man so dedicated to the cause of transparency it should have been an easy (and cheap) one to answer: 'Yes' would have done!  I'm not sure how Pickles' reticence on this one fits in with his earlier statement that:
People should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf. They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips.
Still, back to Hampshire where he does support transparency.

"If councillors and council officers are to be held to account the press and public need access to the information that will enable them to do it.
"If town halls want to reduce the amount they spend on responding to freedom of information requests they should consider making the information freely available in the first place.
"The simple act of throwing open the books, rather than waiting for them to be prised apart by the force of an FoI, might even save a few pounds in the process.
"Greater local accountability is essential to accompany the greater powers and freedoms that the new government is giving to local government."

Councillors Davidovitz and Thornber need to think things through a bit more clearly.  Will papers have to also pay for the plethora of Press Releases issued by HCC, or will they be free because they contain the information they want to be made public?  I'll have you a bet that the HCC Press Releases in 2009/10 cost a lot more than £318,000 to produce.

Let's hope that the next time a Council puts its foot on the ball and slows the game down, Pickles' statement will rapidly bring them to their senses.  




Thursday 25 November 2010

Can you ever win an argument with a customer?

It's an old cliche, but the customer is always right, even when they're wrong!  The reason I say that is when you run a business there is no mileage - let me repeat that, no mileage - in arguing with a customer.  If you do,then all that happens is that they take their business elsewhere, but they tend to do much more than that.  Do something well in business and the customer is likely to tell a friend, treat him or her badly and they'll tell all of their friends...repeatedly... and in the modern world they're likely to use social media to tell the world about you.  Argue with a customer?  Not if you've got any sense!


Now to the ongoing saga of the University of Winchester shop and its reluctance to to stock newspapers.


You might recall that I complained about them stocking so few newspapers that they'd regularly run out by 09:00, and about the fact that the shop manager couldn't be bothered to pop down and discuss it with me.  Here is the reply that I received.


============

Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately my assistant manager was occupied when you wanted to discuss the issue with the newspapers but I am hoping I can answer your questions. We do not get sale on return with regards to our newspapers and it is only a service we have in place as we do not make any profit on them. We have monitored the sale of the newspapers and have found we are now stocking the right amount to prevent the write offs. However I am happy to set up an order for you  for the newspaper/s you require on the days you require if you pay a week in advance. Please be advice though that there are circumstances that newspapers may not be delivered due to factors such as severe weather or our supplier running low on stock or the delivery boy being off ill, to which then we would refund you the amount of those newspapers that we were unable to obtain for you.
If you could get back to me ASAP with how you would like to proceed.
Kind Regards,
Lynn Morgan | Retail Manger
Winchester Student Union
===============
Never one to give up, I replied:

=============


Lynn, thanks.
I won't ask why you don't get papers on sale or return, or make a profit on them - I'll just say that most newsagents do both of those things!

 However, your point that you've monitored sales and found that you are stocking the right quantities to avoid write-offs is bizarre. If you order no newspapers, you will have no write-offs - why not do that? If I 
was trying to buy a Times / Guardian / Indie at midday then I'd understand, and think I should buy one elsewhere before I come in.  However, you're often out of all of those papers by 08:45 (you were on Tues, Wed and Fri of this week - I bought the last one at 08:40 today!):  that's before most lectures start ,so what you're saying is that you know  that the majority of your potential customers - the ones who come in after  08:45 - won't want to buy a broadsheet paper. Let me suggest that some of them look in the window, see you're out of stock yet again, shake their  heads in disbelief, and don't even bother to come into the shop. How  would you prove to me that I'm wrong in that assertion? No, I won't order a paper because, as a journalism student, I tend to buy different papers each 
 day - and I know a number of other journalism students who are just as  frustrated as me by the crazy lack of quality papers in your shop.

 Finally, when a customer asks to see the manager of the shop, it is, in my  opinion, totally unacceptable for that person to come on the phone, ask  what it's about, and then say that they won't come down to speak to the 
 customer. I know you run a Uni shop but it's still part of the real  world - retail doesn't work that way. 

===================


I copied the note to Lynn's manager and his or her manager, and the elected President of the Students Union, but heard nothing.  I chased it and eventually got this from someone describing himself as the General Manager of the Students Union.  

=======================


Dear Mr Boag, 
Thank you for your observations and comments regarding our retail provision. It is always nice to hear pleasant constructive feedback from our student members. However I apologise that we are unable to resolve the crux of your issue, the heightened stock holding of national newspapers. As has been explained to you, the supply of newspapers can either be done via a local 3rd party (in our case Stanmore news) or via a national distribution chain. The latter requires extremely high stock turnover as there are high minimum orders involved. We simply cannot make these minimums and thus we supply a handful of papers from a local newsagents, the cost to us being just a few pence less than the retail cost to you. Under these conditions we only stock enough papers to ensure that we sell out. 
It seems that the offer of pre-ordering was untenable to you so I can only suggest that you utilise another newspaper retailer if our store is unable to fulfil your needs.
Regards and thank you
Andrew Hodgson | General Manager
Winchester Student Union 
=========================
Is it me or was there an attempt at sarcasm somewhere in there?  I wrote back to Andrew asking if he was a paid employee or an elected officer of the SU, but surprise, surprise, got no reply.  Equally the President of the SU hasn't bothered to comment on it.  It occurs to me that maybe they could get the papers from their local newsagent and, since that shop will be working on a sale or return basis with its wholesaler, maybe return the unsold one to them later in the day?  If I can think of that you wonder why they didn't manage it?  

It's worth a trip to the shop to see the fine selection of restrictions they place on their customers - from memory they include the statements that they don't take £50 notes and, oddly, only take Scottish bank notes from one of the Scottish banks - present legal tender from Clydesdale Bank or one of the others and they won't take your money.  If they had ever grasped the plot then by now they've totally lost it - retail is about customer service, or have I got that wrong?  


You'd be hard pushed to find a better way to really hack-off a customer, but if you find a more spectacular example of lousy customer service, post a comment and I'll gladly write it up.


Tuesday 23 November 2010

Aviva Premiership looks like an East Midlands final

First published in The Rugby Paper on 07 November 2010 and reproduced with their consent


With the Aviva Premiership season almost one third through, it’s timely to have a look at how things are stacking up, and how the pre-season predictions are doing.

The first, and biggest surprise, is the performance of Exeter Chiefs.  I put my hand up for getting them totally wrong, and I’m in very good company in that camp.  Even after they’d beaten Gloucester in their first game in the big time I still believed that the analysts would rumble them and that, come Christmas, they’d be relegation certainties.  I’m delighted to have been wrong, and with the discreet squad building that they’re doing, it seems they’re confident they can cement their Premiership place for next season.  They may have a limited game plan but it’s working, and they also have the most important qualities in top-flight rugby: team spirit and commitment.

That means that Leeds and Newcastle are the current relegation candidates, with Sale teetering on the brink of being drawn into the dogfight.  Last season Leeds did their Lazarus impersonation, and survived after being seemingly dead and buried.  Who’s to say they won’t do that again, but they just don’t seem to have the same spark this time around.  Having had the misfortune to watch the Leeds v Sale encounter I have no hesitation in saying that if that is as good as they can do, I’d be happy to see both of them drop through the trapdoor – it was a game designed to give rugby a bad name.  My hunch is that Newcastle will manage to turn things round and leave the other two to stage a latter day version of the War of the Roses, with the winner being too hard to call.

At the other end of the table I have no hesitation in saying that Northampton Saints are the best side in the Premiership, despite being a point behind London Irish at this stage.  It may be unfair but I just can’t see Toby Booth’s men as potential champions – the memory of how they fell apart last season refuses to go away.  Saints, on the other hand, seem to have progressed from last season and have to be worthy favourites to go one better and at least make the Premiership Final.

Beneath those two the surprise packet has to be Gloucester.  They started the season in tentative style and the fickle Glaws natives were getting very restless, but four wins on the bounce – admittedly three of them were at home – has bumped them up to third spot, one point ahead of Sarries who showed a very brittle side to their character when getting thumped at home by Exeter.  Not too many people saw that one coming!

Then we have Leicester and Bath.  Tigers will come good in the second half of the season – it’s just one of the immutable laws of English rugby that they do.  Bath, however, seem to have problems.  Last season they played an exciting brand of rugby, scoring at will, but without Butch James they’ve lost the knack of scoring tries: unless something changes dramatically they could well find themselves struggling to make next season’s Heineken Cup.

Quins and Wasps find themselves in the bottom six at this stage of the campaign and it’s hard to say anything other than that’s where they deserve to be.  Of course, a good run of results can still change things dramatically, but there has been precious little evidence that is just around the corner for either club.

At this stage Saints and Leicester are my reasonably confident choices to fill two of the play-off spots, with Irish, Gloucester and Sarries to fight it out for the other two semi-final places.  I fancy an all East Midland final at Twickenham is on the cards.   

=============================================================

The news that James Hook is leaving Ospreys rounds off a rotten week for the West Wales region, coming as it does on the news of Gav’s departure over the bridge.  It brings home once again the problems associated with trying to keep a squad of international players happy – they all want to play in their preferred position, and if that doesn’t happen as often as they like, then they pack their bags and go.

What price now Warren Gatland’s words about preferring his star names to stay at home?  While only one or two of them are abroad then the implied threat not to select them can work, but once there’s a critical mass of players in the Top 14 or the Aviva Premiership it will be hard to ignore their claims.  Eventually the WRU will surely have to dip its hand into its pocket and reach a financial settlement with the clubs who employ their stars – if they want to deprive a club of a top player, especially for mere money-spinning matches like the Autumn internationals, then those clubs need to be compensated, just as the RFU now does.

Sunday 21 November 2010

Interview with Bellowhead

Interview: Bellowhead (first published on http://www.forfolkssake.com/  and reproduced with their permission)

18 November 2010
By FFS writers
bellowhead
Photo by David Angel
As an 11-piece outfit, you’d be forgiven for thinking Bellowhead were a travelling orchestra rather than a folk band.  Currently touring their third studio album, Hedonism, they took a break to talk numbers, Abbey Road, awards and residencies with FFS.

FFS: You’re in the middle of a lengthy tour promoting Hedonism – how difficult is it taking an 11-piece band on the road?
Andy Mellon (AM): I think it’s all in the preparation, for which we have our excellent manager Mark Whyles to thank. Once all the transport, accommodation and venues have been booked we can simply get onto our tour bus and be whisked away on a whistle stop tour of the UK! Simple.
Is 11 a big enough number or might you take it bigger still in the future?
JON BODEN (JB): It’s surprising how often you want someone in the band to be able to do 2 things at once – I think however big the band you would always find a reason for adding one more instrument. But actually having limits is very important creatively and in that sense 11 is quite big enough. I would love to get a saw player in though…
With everyone having their own careers outside of Bellowhead, scheduling tours must be a nightmare?
AM: We book tours quite far in advance to alleviate any major scheduling issues. We’re already holding a period late next year for a UK tour, which means we can ensure we’re able to tour with the original Bellowhead line-up.
How would you describe your music now – you’ve clearly stepped beyond the bounds of ‘Traditional Folk’?
JB: Someone once said we were taking traditional folk songs on their holidays, which I think is a nice way of looking at it. We’re not trying to set up models for how folk songs should be done – we’re just taking each track as it comes and seeing what styles and approaches would work with that particular song or tune to give it a bit of a makeover.
When it came to recording Hedonism, how hard was it to decide on which tracks would go on the album?  Was it a democratic process, or did someone have the final say?
AM: Making decisions in a band of this size can sometimes be tricky. We took the decision to put all our faith in our producer – John Leckie, whose opinions we highly valued and trusted. We therefore left it to him to decide which tracks were to go on the album and in which order.
Is there a feeling of everyone having to have their bit on the album?
AM: We would never do anything musically for the sake of it – just so someone got to do their thing. Obviously the band works to the strengths of each individual musician and when we’re working on arrangements things might change, musically, to play to those strengths or because of limitations of certain instruments. Everyone in the band is committed to Bellowhead the band, rather than their own individual moment in the sun.
Were you pleased with the experience of recording at Abbey Road with John Leckie?  What did that add compared to your previous albums?
It was an incredible experience recording in studio 2 of Abbey Road. Despite all the history associated with the place and the seminal albums and the phenomenal bands who have recorded there, the whole experience was really relaxed and fun. That was largely down to John Leckie, who has a long history with the place and seemed so happy to be there, which completely put us at ease.
Working with John was a huge pleasure in itself. He has the most incredible set of ears and was able, quite quickly, to really get into the nuts and bolts of what we were trying to achieve. I think in the end he probably knew our arrangements better than us.
Compared to our previous albums, we made a conscious decision to try and make a more commercial sounding record that would, hopefully, appeal to a wider audience. We were so lucky to get John involved. He added clarity to our sound, and a kind of commercial sheen on top creating a noise that we’re really proud of.
Does it irritate you that some people see Bellowhead as a Spiers & Boden project?
AM: I think on the whole the band find it irritating. It sometimes feels like lazy journalism and does a huge disservice to the remaining 9 members of the band whose commitment, musical talent and creativity makes Bellowhead what it is. I’m sure John and Jon would wholeheartedly agree.
JB – I’m not sure people do any more, or at least not so much. We’ve always been careful to make it clear that the band is a band, not a project. We still perform a fair few S&B tracks with Bellowhead so obviously the link is there, but the band has totally moved on as well and the difference between a Spiers & Boden gig and a Bellowhead gig now is enormous – two totally different experiences.
To Jon Boden:  You’re currently doing your A Folk Song a Day project – how is that going?
JB: Very well thank you! I’m enjoying it, we’ve got lots of subscribers/website users who all seem to be enjoying it. I’m on tour now so need to be learning loads of songs if I’m going to make it to 365.
To  Jon again: apart from Bellowhead being Best Live Act of 2010 at the Radio 2 Folk Awards 2010, you also won Folk Singer of the Year – that must have been a great thrill?  Will there be a follow-up to Songs from the Floodplain?
JB: A fantastic thrill and quite unexpected. I am planning to write a follow-up but it will need a long incubation period. I’m really enjoying performing all the Floodplain material with The Remnant Kings (touring again in February) and I do feel that the songs on Floodplain need space to be out there. Engaging creatively with the future is a long term continual process, not just a one-off project, so it’s something I will be exploring for a long time to come.
Are you still one of the ‘Artists in Residence’ at the Southbank Centre – what does that involve?
AM: We are still the band in residence at the Southbank Centre, and are extremely proud and honoured to be able to say so. It means so much to us. It enables us as a band, and as individuals, to experience creative music making and artistic endeavours that stretch and challenge us whilst having a great platform to express ourselves.
After this tour, you’re all back to your separate careers, what does the future hold for Bellowhead?
AM: More projects and performances at the Southbank, more tours, more records….. We’ve only just started!
FFS looks forward to seeing what the future holds for Bellowhead, who perform this Saturday 20th November at Shepherds Bush Empire.
Interview: Colin Boag & Helen True

Thursday 18 November 2010

Private eye privacy?

The private eye at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal must reveal who his client was.   A High Court judge yesterday ruled that Glenn Mulcaire could not refuse to reveal the name, even if doing so would incriminate him.

Mulcaire, who has 'previous' for invading people's privacy - he was jailed in 2007 for intercepting voicemail messages - has fallen foul of Section 72 of the Senior Courts Act which says that certain commercial information has to be given, irrespective of the risk of self-incrimination.  Mulcaire will be asked questions such as: "Did Ian Edmondson (the news editor of the News of the World)  ask him to investigate Max Clifford's assistant?"  A range of people and organisations, including News International, and the former NotW employee, Andy Coulson (now the Prime Minister's media adviser) have strenuously denied that the NotW asked Mulcaire to tap phones.

At the same time the judge ordered the Metropolitian Police to disclose paperwork seized when it raided Mulcaire's home in 2005: it is thought that some of that paperwork refers to Clifford's assistant, Nicola Phillips.  When Clifford sued the NotW last year for breach of privacy, Scotland Yard was told to disclose paperwork that might identify the senior journalist who ordered Mulcaire to do the voicemail hacking.  However, Clifford settled out of court after the NotW paid him £1M - withdrawing the action removed the need for the paperwork to be disclosed.

The judgement also affects a raft of legal actions being brought by Mulcaire's alleged victims, including John Prescott, the former Met Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick, Sienna Miller, and Andy Gray.

It isn't known whether Mulcaire will seek leave to appeal against the judgement, so we may not be that much closer to getting towards the bottom of this affair.  As they say, this one will run and run.      

Wednesday 17 November 2010

MA Coursework: photos, action and identification

Action:

Aftermath of Air India plane crash in Mangalore on 22 May 2010

Indian plane crash


A demonstrator smashes a window at Tory Party HQ
 
 
Millbank student riots
 
 
St James' Park, west Belfast
 
Belfast pipe bomb



Identification:

Ikechukwu Tennyson Obih
 
Ikechukwu Tennyson Obih was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2004.
 
 
Former Iraqi deputy PM Tariq Aziz appears before a tribunal in Baghdad (26 October 2010)
 
Tariq Aziz
 
 
Shrien and Anni Dewani
 
Murdered bride
 
 
 

Monday 15 November 2010

Copyrighting the Haka?

New Zealand (NZ) rugby is a weird world all of its own.  Follow it for any period of time and your jaw will drop in disbelief at the way that its coaches and administrators can, in a seemingly effortless way, get up themselves given any opportunity!  Following on from last week's session on copyright, I spotted an article which asserts that the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) is trying to reach agreement with the Ngato Toa - a Maori tribe - which is trying to trademark the Ka Mate haka.

Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru
Nana nei i tiki mai, Whakawhiti te ra
A upane! ka upane!
A upane! ka upane!
Whiti te ra! Hi!!


Which roughly means...

I die! I die! I live! I live!
I die! I die! I live! I live!
This is the hairy man
Who has caused the sun to shine again
The Sun shines!!

For the benefit of those who inhabit the real world, a few words on the haka.  It's the wardance done by the All Blacks before international rugby matches: they pull funny faces, dance on the spot and, so I am told, issue a challenge to the opposition.  It's the subject of much debate in rugby right now, with other nations questioning why the All Blacks are allowed to fire themselves up in this way while the opposition have to stand there watching and getting cold.  On the current All Black tour the crowds are, in my opinion rightfully, singing over, and in some cases booing, the haka.  It hakas off the New Zealanders no end, but hey ho that's no bad thing!  To continue with the lecture, there are different versions of the haka, including an unsavoury one which involves a throat-slitting gesture, but the one currently favoured is the Ka Mate, supposedly written by the legendary Te Rauparaha (pictured below), leader of the Ngato Toa back in the 1700's.  Still with me?



Anyway, the Ngato Toa reckon this haka is theirs, so they're trying to trademark it - I kid you not!  They tried to trademark the whole thing, but when that looked doomed to fail, they opted for key sections of the dance.  There have been ongoing negotiations between the NZRU and the Ngato Toa, involving the Intellectual Property Office in NZ.  We know this because the NZ equivalent of our FOI Act, the Official Information Act, has been used to disclose the correspondence.

Over the years the tribe has tried and failed to trademark the haka, but in 2009 the Crown acknowledged Te Rauparaha as the author of Ka Mate, and this set the ball rolling once again.

It's all about money, of course.  The Rugby World Cup (RWC) takes place in NZ next year and already merchandise - tea towels, t-shirts and so on - are appearing with pictures of the haka on them.  The tribe says it wants to end inappropriate use of the images of the haka - no Ka Mate pants then I suppose - but the suspicion is that what it really wants is dosh.

Even if the tribe and the NZRU strike a deal, that might not be the end of the matter, as others want a slice of the action.  The tourism merchadise group, ProKiwi, seem set to launch a bid to have the images and words of the Ka Mate haka available for them to use - so there's hope that there might yet be Ka Mate pants out there!

The IPO lawyers working for the NZRU are arguing that the haka is in the public domain, and that anyone should be able to use the images and words freely, without fear of being sued.

At one level this is all knockabout stuff, but the Maori might just have a different view: not content with having our land and killing our ancestors, these people now want to hi-jack our culture in order to make a fast buck.  I'll keep you posted on the Ka Mate haka saga, and how the hairy man is doing on making the sun shine again.

 

Sunday 14 November 2010

When 'super injunctions' are about more than mere sexual peccadillos

I was up early this morning, and as is my way, I turned on Sky News - their ticker service in bright yellow immediately tells me whether anything major has happened overnight.  The screen was full of the news that Paul and Rachel Chandler had been released from their captivity at the hands of Somail pirates.  I turned over to the Beeb and...nothing but Burma.  It was clear then that something odd was going on, and we now know what it was.  Just last weekend I'd remarked to a friend that it had all gone very quiet about the Chandlers and we wondered why that was.



Some months ago the couple's family sought, and got, a super injunction prohibiting the media from reporting developments on the basis that such coverage might well prolong their captivity.  As the Beeb 'The Editors' blog says, 'The injunction was designed to protect the safety of the Chandlers and prevented us from referring to its very existence'. 

The injunction set out two conditions that had to be met before the media could report the couple's freedom: they must have left the badlands that are Somalia, and they must be in the care of Foreign Office officials.

The Beeb and some others observed the injunction, Sky and some others didn't.  We now have war of righteous words taking place on the internet.  The Beeb has the moral high ground, and arguably is astride its high horse - whereas Sky reports the injunction, but makes no mention of its terms.  Without seeing the wording of the injunction it's impossible to know whether Sky and other s are, as the BBC blog suggests, in contempt of court: the Beeb blog adopts a 'holier than thou' tone when it says 'There is no public interest in breaking the law simply to report a scoop'. 

The Chandlers got away safe and sound, so the risk that Sky and others took in apparently breaking the injuction (if indeed they did  break its terms) didn't rebound on them.  They got their scoop and no doubt audience figures went up accordingly.  However, had things gone awry, the organisations concerned might just have had blood on their hands.

I suspect that a news organisation outside of the UK ignored the injunction and broke the story, and once that had happened Sky and the rest probably made the judgement that, if the news was out there, they might as well run the story.

It's going to be interesting to see what the real facts of this matter are, and whether any further action is taken - I would assume that the Sky lawyers were all over this before a word or an image was broadcast.

Friday 12 November 2010

Warren Gatland a lucky man?

First published in The Rugby Paper on 24 October 2010 and reproduced with their consent



So, the wait is over and Wales have re-appointed Warren Gatland as their coach. Everyone concerned seems very pleased, but should they be? No matter how good a coach is reputed to be, and how good his past results have been, professional sport is about winning, and on the international stage, is Gatland a winner? At club level the question doesn't even need to be asked, but it's a valid one at international level.

His tenure with Wales started in a blaze of glory, winning the Grand Slam in his first season with them, but after that things got a bit more sticky, and his most recent season saw Wales lose eight and win just four – under-pressure Martin Johnson’s results are better than that, and those of Andy Robinson’s Scotland better still!  Those four Welsh wins were all at home and against Argentina, Samoa, Scotland and Italy – with all due respect to those nations, they aren't the top teams around. That set of results is surely not what a rugby-mad nation wants or deserves? Do they merit a four-year extension to his current contract? Well, someone at the WRU believes that they do but it seems to me that they've taken a sizeable risk that things are going to get better in the run-up to RWC 2011.

On that subject, Gatland went public with some pretty harsh criticism of Premier Rugby in the light of its current stance of not releasing foreign players until 35 days before the start of RWC 2011, in line with the IRB's guidelines. Their Regulation 9 declares that the assembly period starts 35 days before the competition, and that is the period when warm-up matches can be played. Similarly, the rules allow for three matches only in the November international window – play a fourth and you rely on the goodwill of a Union if you want your players released.

This doesn't suit the Welsh and all sort of pomposity was spouted. WRU Group Chief Executive, Roger Lewis trotted out 'scandalous', extraordinary' and 'deeply regrettable', and declared that he wouldn't talk to Premier Rugby, preferring to talk to his mates at the RFU. Warren Gatland repeated his scare tactics of hinting that players who dared to go over the bridge might find themselves disadvantaged when it comes to international selection.

England cracked this one when the RFU got out its chequebook and compensated the clubs for the loss of their players. If the WRU feels strongly about the situation the remedies are in its own hands: it either campaigns to get the IRB regulations changed, or it stumps up the cash to 'buy' its players back for the relevant period.  

As for the players themselves, let's hope that they hold their nerve and don't allow themselves to be spooked by Gatland's stance: if they're good enough, and playing well, then my hunch is that he'll come calling irrespective of where they're plying their trade.

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The cabaret that is All Black rugby provided yet another fascinating moment recently.  In the past the ABs have named their side on the Tuesday before a Test Match, but they now want to delay the announcement until the Thursday.  Steve Hansen explained that this is because they fear they’re making life too easy for the opposition analysts.  Fair enough, if that’s what they want to do then there’s some good sense in it, although some might think that this is justt another sign of the pressure building on the coaches ahead of RWC 2011.  However, it was what came next that caught my eye.

The AB management plans to call upon the NZ press corps to be patriotic and hold back on speculating about the starting XV until the announcement has been made because, as Hansen put it, “We’re all New Zealanders and we’re all in it together”!  So, the NZ press will see the likely combinations at training sessions, but they’ll be asked not to publish it in the national interest.  The word that comes to my mind is ‘poppycock’, and we have to hope that the members of the press down there aren’t daft enough to allow themselves to be controlled in this way.

If they gave in to that pressure, what would come next: a patriotic request only to write nice things about the coaches, or maybe a voluntary ban on reporting Tests that didn’t go well for the All Black team?  What about those journalists who aren’t at the training sessions but fancy having a punt on guessing the AB side?  After all, it’s hardly rocket science, and the opposition analysts will have done their homework on pretty well every likely combination well ahead of a Thursday announcement.

 Here’s what any self-respecting journalist should do: they should treat Hansen’s daft suggestion with the contempt that it deserves, and tell him and his colleagues to get on with the coaching, and leave the writing to them.

Crunch time for the home nations

First published in The Rugby Paper on 31 October 2010, and reproduced with their consent.



With RWC 2011 just ten months away, the forthcoming Investec Autumn internationals are crunch time for the home nations, and especially for their coaching teams. A successful autumn campaign against the Southern Hemisphere teams and confidence will be high, but if it goes badly then it will be time for them to receive the dreaded vote of confidence.

England play New Zealand, Australia, Samoa and South Africa and that might just be a propitious order of play. Lose badly against the All Blacks and the Aussies and there is still a chance that things can be redeemed in the final two games: a win against the fading RWC 2007 champions could be spun as a great success, when in all honesty it might be no such thing. The RFU's newly-appointed Chief Executive, John Steele, wants to see England heading into RWC 2011 on a high, and he recently made clear that he's prepared to do whatever is necessary to make that happen, pointedly refusing to rule out changes to the coaching set-up even at this late stage. That is in stark contrast to the view of RFU Chairman, Martyn Thomas, back in May when he was adamant that Johnson would stay in position through to the RWC.

Back in 2002 England beat the Tri-Nations sides at Twickenham in the Autumn and went into the following RWC as hot favourites, and anything other than a good set of results over the coming months will be, despite the spin that would emerge from Twickenham, a total disaster. England has the players, the infrastructure, and the money, and the coaches have much greater access to the players than ever before: all that is now needed is success. England expects, and the time has come for Johnson and his team to deliver – the stakes could hardly be higher.

Warren Gatland, new contract safely in his back pocket, sends the Welsh out against the Tri-Nations countries plus Fiji.  Dramatic improvement is needed on the back of a pretty dreadful run of recent results, but will it happen? Frankly, it's hard to see why it should. A poor Autumn in 2009 was followed by a disappointing Six Nations, and an even worse summer. All the indications are that Wales are in decline and a minor miracle will be needed for them to become a force in the RWC – let's hope I'm wrong.

Ireland too must be approaching the coming Tests with some trepidation. There are losses and then there are hammerings, and shedding 66 points to New Zealand back in June is something that won't readily be forgotten. Once again, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that it's a time of change for the Irish, with old stalwarts fading and new blood not delivering as quickly as was hoped; not what is needed with the RWC fast approaching.

In contrast, Scottish results in recent months have exceeded the expectations of all but the most diehard of fans. After his rotten experience with England no-one will surely begrudge Andy Robinson some success, and with the limited resources at his disposal he has, so far, worked miracles. Two away wins in Argentina over the summer were not to be sniffed at, and they came after a strong end to the Six Nations where they drew with the 'auld enemy', and then destroyed Ireland's Triple Crown ambitions at Croke Park. New Zealand, South Africa and Samoa will be stern tests but none of those nations will dare take the Scots lightly.

Sweaty palms times for the home nations' coaches then, and if the Tri-Nations sides maintain their recent form there could yet be some coaching blood spilled as the Unions start to panic about their 2011 prospects.