Mark's Musings
A miscellany of opinions, thoughts, rants and comments
Digital Lunacy, Featured, Internet
Stop the lies from Stop43
I blogged yesterday about the “orphan works” section of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, and explained why I think it’s generally a good thing. Of course, not everyone agrees, and people are free to disagree if they want to. However, there’s disagreeing, and there’s misrepresenting. And some of the opposition to the change goes [...]
Digital Lunacy, Featured, Internet, Politics and News
The copyright orphanage
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act may not sound like the most exciting of laws, but it contains a section which will make some significant differences to the way copyright is applied to photos. And, since a lot of people take photos and post them on the Internet, they may be interested to know what [...]
Evesham, Featured
Evesham Abbey Bridge – closure delayed
Probably not unexpected, but this press release has just been sent out by Worcestershire County Council: Temporary bridge to increase pace on vital Abbey Bridge replacement work delayed by severe weather Flooding, snow and prolonged freezing conditions this winter has meant that some elements of the Abbey Bridge and Viaduct replacement work have been delayed. [...]
Evesham, Featured
Evesham voluntary sector – a plea for help
I’m trying to compile a comprehensive list of all the voluntary, charitable and civic groups that are based in, or work in, Evesham. I’ve already got a basic list, so I’m not starting completely from scratch, but I suspect that it’s missing several that it ought to include! So, if you’re involved in a voluntary [...]
Analog Lunacy, Featured, Politics and News
Lies, damned lies and infographics
There’s a meme currently doing the rounds of Facebook and Twitter, purporting to show that benefit fraud is pretty much too trivial to care about. Here’s the infographic: It’s pretty obvious what we’re intended to perceive here. Big blue circle on the left, little pink circle on the right, isn’t it obvious that the small [...]
Current Events, Politics and News
Licence to swill
Posted on 06 May 2013
Apropos the continuing furore over the late Jimmy Savile and the definitely not late Stuart Hall, the names of Andy Grey and Richard Keys sprang to mind. In case you’d forgotten (or the whole case had passed you by to begin with), Grey and Keys were the megastar presenters of Sky Sports’ football coverage. Unfortunately [...] Continue Reading
Digital Lunacy, Featured, Internet
Stop the lies from Stop43
Posted on 30 April 2013
I blogged yesterday about the “orphan works” section of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, and explained why I think it’s generally a good thing. Of course, not everyone agrees, and people are free to disagree if they want to. However, there’s disagreeing, and there’s misrepresenting. And some of the opposition to the change goes [...] Continue Reading
Digital Lunacy, Featured, Internet, Politics and News
The copyright orphanage
Posted on 29 April 2013
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act may not sound like the most exciting of laws, but it contains a section which will make some significant differences to the way copyright is applied to photos. And, since a lot of people take photos and post them on the Internet, they may be interested to know what [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, Evesham, Politics, Politics and News
Let’s give racism a kicking in Evesham
Posted on 27 April 2013
On Thursday, we’ll be voting in the county council elections. In the Evesham South division, where I live, we have a candidate from the BNP – the only one from that party in our area. I’m confident that the BNP candidate will come bottom of the poll, which is precisely where he belongs. But I [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, Politics and News
Greatest Prime Minister?
Posted on 10 April 2013
A YouGov survey commissioned by The Sun puts Margaret Thatcher, unsurprisingly, at the top of the list in response to the question “Who do you think has been the greatest British Prime Minister since 1945?”. The full order, according to respondants, is: Margaret Thatcher 28% Winston Churchill 24% Tony Blair 10% Harold Wilson 6% Clement [...] Continue Reading
Evesham, Featured
Evesham Abbey Bridge – closure delayed
Posted on 10 April 2013
Probably not unexpected, but this press release has just been sent out by Worcestershire County Council: Temporary bridge to increase pace on vital Abbey Bridge replacement work delayed by severe weather Flooding, snow and prolonged freezing conditions this winter has meant that some elements of the Abbey Bridge and Viaduct replacement work have been delayed. [...] Continue Reading
Evesham, Lists, Rants and Ramblings
Road to nowhere
Posted on 20 March 2013
One of the things that the Town Council are responsible for is coming up with street names for new developments. Normally, the idea is that we come up with some kind of overall theme for a development, and then individual names for all the streets within it. We do, however, have to stick to some [...] Continue Reading
Evesham, Featured
Evesham voluntary sector – a plea for help
Posted on 18 March 2013
I’m trying to compile a comprehensive list of all the voluntary, charitable and civic groups that are based in, or work in, Evesham. I’ve already got a basic list, so I’m not starting completely from scratch, but I suspect that it’s missing several that it ought to include! So, if you’re involved in a voluntary [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, In Brief, Politics and News
More lies and infographics
Posted on 02 March 2013
This time, the infographic is from the Methodist Church, which makes it all the more disappointing as I would have hoped that a Christian organisation would be more concerned about the truth. Here’s the picture: At least this time it is using the official figures, unlike the other meme that’s been doing the rounds. But [...] Continue Reading
Analog Lunacy, Featured, Politics and News
Lies, damned lies and infographics
Posted on 28 February 2013
There’s a meme currently doing the rounds of Facebook and Twitter, purporting to show that benefit fraud is pretty much too trivial to care about. Here’s the infographic: It’s pretty obvious what we’re intended to perceive here. Big blue circle on the left, little pink circle on the right, isn’t it obvious that the small [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, Politics, Politics and News
Why Theresa May is wrong
Posted on 17 February 2013
It’s not often that I find myself writing a blog post which attacks someone on my own side of the political divide, but, in this case, I think it needs to be said. And what needs to be said is that the Home Secretary’s comments about judges supposedly “ignoring” the will of parliament are completely [...] Continue Reading
Evesham, Lists, Personal
Contemporaries
Posted on 12 February 2013
The announcement by the Pope that he is to resign prompted me to do a little bit of research, since I can just about remember who was Pope when I was a teenager but I wasn’t sure how many Popes there have actually been since I was born. Anyway, having looked it up, I have [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, Politics, Politics and News
Nationalising marriage – a few extra comments
Posted on 05 February 2013
As a brief follow-up to my post on Sunday about the same-sex marriage debate, these are a few more, mostly random, thoughts. I should add that, approximately 12 hours after writing that article, I was struck down by norovirus (and no, I don’t think that’s a divine judgement) and I’m still in the process of [...] Continue Reading
Featured, Politics and News
Nationalising marriage
Posted on 03 February 2013
Same-sex marriage. What do I think about it? The executive summary, for the benefit of those who can’t be bothered to read the entire article, is that I’m in favour of same-sex marriage per se, but I’m not entirely convinced by the current proposals to legislate for it. The rest of this article is an [...] Continue Reading
Evesham, Featured, Politics
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of urban sprawl
Posted on 14 January 2013
That’s a contentious statement, of course. Planning applications and decisions always arouse a lot of feeling, on all sides. And some of the strongest feelings are found in those who don’t want anything to be built anywhere near them. Equally, the idea that we might even consider building on greenbelt land is considered sacrilege in [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, Featured, Politics and News
Fixing Jim
Posted on 12 January 2013
Now then, now then. Two reports from Operation Yewtree are out, and we now know what a rotten bounder Jimmy Savile was. Or do we? Let’s start with a few facts that can be gleaned. Firstly, there is no real evidence at all that Savile was a paedophile. Although most of the allegations come from [...] Continue Reading
Current Events, Featured, Politics and News
Cereal killers
Posted on 05 January 2013
There’s been much activity in the Twittersphere regarding the suggestion by the Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, that food manufacturers should be prohibited from selling foods with too much sugar. A lot of these are breakfast foods, giving rise to a number of witty comments including the one which forms my headline. Other tweeters are [...] Continue Reading
Featured, Politics and News, Sport and Recreation
2012 and all that
Posted on 31 December 2012
So, it’s the end of the year. It’s been a bit of a funny one, in many ways. We started with a drought, and ended it the wettest year on record. On a personal note, it’s the year I was elected Deputy Mayor of Evesham, and I’ve enjoyed every part of it. I’m looking forward [...] Continue Reading
Digital Lunacy, Featured, Internet, Politics and News
Cyber-crime, terrorism and the big bad wolf
Posted on 30 December 2012
A rather strange article in the Daily Telegraph claims that Britain is losing the war on internet crime, a leading police officer has admitted, after it emerged that cyber crime cost UK businesses around £205 million in lost revenue last year. That’s a fairly scary headline, and if true is something to be concerned about. [...] Continue Reading
Featured, Politics and News
Some facts about Google
Posted on 29 December 2012
Prompted by yet another economically illiterate tweet criticising Google for the relatively small amount of corporation tax paid in the UK, I decided to do a little research myself and find out a bit more about Google’s financial situation here. Google is, of course, a multiheaded multinational, with a lot of different companies both in [...] Continue Reading
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