The Subrosa Blog is now complete
Please be aware that this incarnation of the 'Subrosa Blog' has now ended - why not visit the new Stuart Homfray weblog?.
Of course, that's not to say that the Subrosa blog will never return... I may decide to reincarnate it as a sort of sideblog or something!
If you've arrived here via a search engine results page, you may also wish to consider entering the site via the main entrance, as Subrosa itself has now outlived it's usefulness...
posted by Stuart NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT POSTED VIA BLOGGER!
Saturday, September 28, 2002
Here's a nice one
Apparently, Miss Britney Spears and Mr. Sting are fronting an ad campaign in the States, in the latest attack of illegal music downloads by the record industry. The 'stars' are seen imploring their fans to stop stealing from them by downloading tracks without paying royalties
In one of the ads, Miss Spears confronts her fans, saying:
"Would you go into a CD store and steal a CD? It's the same thing - people going into the computers and logging on and stealing our music."The record industry is hoping to appeal to consumers by conveying the message that downloading is hurting the stars they love (Miss Spears, incidentally, reportedly earned $39.2m last year).
Now, a small article written on Thursday 26 September, 2002, in The Times states the following:
Record companies may be forced to produce raw CD manufacturing data to prove that they do not attempt to reduce their annual $1 billion ($640 million) of royalty payments by deliberately under-reporting album sales.The big five companies, which include EMI Group, may also be forced to assume a fiduciary duty to pay the proper amount of royalties owed to musicians. This would legally bind record companies to act in the best interests of musicians and allow courts to impose severe penalties for any accounting irregularities.Interesting, don't you think?? Perhaps Miss Spears and Mr Sting might like to take a look at money owed to them by the very people that are telling them to pick on consumers... Does anyone have their email addresses??
posted by Stuart 12:00 AM
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
The Death of Satire
Think of the Children, a site that satirises public mob rule (with respect to many of the general public's violent reaction towards murderers, paedophiles, etc.), has been hastily removed from their hosts server due to several complaints from humorless, misguided individuals to the Metropolitan Police. The complainants seemed to believe that the site was actually "...inciting others to engage in mob violence" - talk about missing the point!! The creator of the site has replaced it with this page, showing the initial paragraph, and a nice little breakdown for those who are a little 'hard of thinking'.
Ooohh, hang-on, I've just got to nip downstairs to get my burning torch and pitchfork...
...maybe they're right.....
posted by Stuart 11:52 PM
Monday, September 23, 2002
Oooh, Operation Mandatory Patriotic Tattoo, what a fantastic idea!! Don't let Mr. Blunkett and Mr. Blair see this...
posted by Stuart 1:35 PM
Apparently, it WAS an earth tremor that affected parts of the West Midlands, Wales, North Yorkshire, London, and Wiltshire [current BBC News update]
posted by Stuart 1:09 AM
What was THAT!?!?
Around 00:50am, Mon 23rd September, we've just felt what SEEMED to be a rather large earth tremor. Now for anyone reading this based around the Pacific Rim or many other earthquake zones around the globe, that may not be particularly unusual, but within the West Midlands in the UK, it's not exactly common. In fact it's extremely rare, and personally, I've NEVER felt one before - I must admit, it freaked me out a little as the whole house shook and the window latch behind my shoulder began rattling...Anyway, at least I HOPE it was an earth tremor...
posted by Stuart 12:12 AM
Sunday, September 22, 2002
The Countryside Alliance
Today (Sun 22 Sept 2002) the Countryside Alliance 'Liberty and Livelihood' march takes place in London - an event, which of course, is their democratic right - their aim, to illustrate the rights of the rural population, and to hightlight their grievances regarding the Government and 'townies' intruding on their "...rural liberty and livelioods". Their march credo states:
"We demand that Government:
- Defends the right of rural people to live their lives responsibly in the way they choose
- Safeguards rural people from prejudiced attacks on hunting with dogs and all other field sports
- Respects the values and customs of rural communities
- Ensures any laws directed at rural people have their consent
- Addresses the real problems of the countryside which are destroying its communities, its culture, and its children's future"
Now, let us look at this 'mission statement'.
1. Defend the right of rural people to live their lives responsibly in the way they choose
Generally, this is a fair point, BUT, this depends of course, on your definition of 'responsibly'. If we add to that, the point "...in the way they choose", then surely ALL sorts of opinions could be argued: from gun ownership to heroin usage, or even MORE extreme values (racism, etc)2. Safeguard rural people from prejudiced attacks on hunting with dogs and all other field sports
It's strange that all this talk about rights and liberty only seems to apply to the PEOPLE. What about the rights of the animals? Are they somehow of lesser importance? Surely if we are THAT superior, we should actually be able to come up with more humane ways to enjoy ourselves, utilising our 'greater intelligence'. Isn't sport SUPPOSED to be a competition between relatively even opponents? I cannot see how, for example, a group of people on horseback and a pack of hounds vs a fox is SPORT!! I cannot, therefore, see how, or even WHY, country BUSINESSMEN (and lets face it, unless I'm very much mistaken, it's not generally your normal, average, working country folk who take part in fox hunting, for example), should be 'protected' from "...prejudiced attacks on hunting with dogs and all other field sports".3. Respect the values and customs of rural communities
ALL communities customs and values should be respected, UNLESS, they are immoral, barbaric and downright wrong. For example, it was the custom in Great Britain once, to burn those suspected of witchcraft. It was also the 'custom' to hang those accused of murder. Both were abolished as inhuman, immoral acts (and also, in the case of hanging, in case of error!). Therefore, simply implying that ALL rural community values and customs should be respected is just downright wrong. They should ALWAYS be CONSIDERED, and when seen to valid (as most of them no doubt are), should THEN be respected. This should be the case in all areas of life - whether urban or rural - no value or custom is beyond reproach, and all should be continuously evalued.4. Ensure any laws directed at rural people have their consent
Again, a perfectly valid point. This is SUPPOSED to be the point of MPs - each community or area vote for their MP and he/she represents that constituency's interests in parliament - any laws or directives aimed at a constituency are addressed by their parliamentary representative. What seems to be the problem here, is that MPs do not always FULLY represent the opinion of their constituency - they CAN occasionally tend to try and push themselves 'up the ladder' - so this is a separate democracy issue.5. Address the real problems of the countryside which are destroying its communities, its culture, and its children's future
Once more, a valid point - one that we could all make. Unfortunately, this point is rather hazy in it's meaning, allowing for many interpretations...Points such as 1, 3, 4, and 5 seem to have been inserted in an attempt to acquire support from the average, working rural folk, and unfortunately it seems to have worked. The main issue with those running the Countryside Alliance is made quite clearly by Richard Burge (Alliance Chief Executive), when announcing the march: "Anyone who does not subscribe to all five principles of our march - and these crucially include the right for people to decide for themselves whether they may hunt - will not be welcome on it"
I am not one of these 'townies' who wish to take over and ruin the countryside - yes, I live in a city (Wolverhampton), but I am far more at home in rural surroundings - I agree that the countryside needs to be managed correctly, but I think that Government should be able to work actively with rural communities to come up with newer, more civilised and humane methods of looking after it. The Countryside Alliance SHOULD be focusing more on the REAL issues of rural communities, as stated by Nigel Henson, the CA's director of communications in an article on Guardian Unlimited:
These are amongst the true problems that these communites have today, not these outdated, ridiculous and frankly immoral practises of rough shooting, driven shooting, wildfowling, coursing, mink hunting, hare hunting, fox hunting and deer hunting (see the Countryside Alliance Country Pursuits page for descriptions). I must, however, argue with the point made at the bottom of that page:
- Farming, particularly moving farmers off subsidy dependence
- The stranglehold of supermarkets over the food chain
- Investment in information technology for rural areas - particularly broadband access
- Under-investment in rural areas, particularly unequal per capita expenditure on social services in rural areas as compared to urban areas
- A joined-up government policy for the countryside
How popular are they [country pursuits] ?
With between 130 and 156 million activity days per year the numbers participating in country pursuits is broadly equal in number to those who play soccer (Cobham 1997)Interesting comparison, because I can't remember too many animals being ripped apart or shot when I've been playing football!! Perhaps Richard Burge may like to point out what I've been doing wrong...
posted by Stuart 2:56 PM
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Commercial Alert's Parents' Bill of Rights [pdf]
With increasing pressure on parents to buy little Kevin those new Nike trainers or Gap shirt, maybe the UK and Europe might also be interested in adopting something of this nature, because if we don't, inviting more and more commercial culture into our lives is going to make it all more and more difficult, and, overall, less civilised...
posted by Stuart 11:38 AM
Friday, September 13, 2002
davidjnett.nett - weblog extraordinary
I don't think that I, or anyone else for that matter, can compete with this, the greatest weblog in the world, ever. To quote the author it's "kick-ass"!!!
posted by Stuart 5:35 PM
Has THIS got to be one of the greatest pieces of s**t that you've EVER seen?? What a tasteful memorial....
posted by Stuart 12:53 PM
Monday, September 09, 2002
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, more than a third of Britons have no savings, and guess what?? - people on low incomes and single parents are also less likely to have savings than other groups
I don't know why those 46% of low-income families on less than £10,400 and those 67% of single parents don't start saving just a little more money! Jeez, I don't know what planet some people live on - just how much of 10 grand p/a can you put aside for a rainy day - they've got to live in the meantime!!!
Another interesting stat is:more than 93% of all wealth is held by the richest 50% of the population, with the top 2.4 million households owning assets worth around £1,300 billion, while the poorest 12 million have assets of just £150 million-- seems a slight imbalance there, I think...
posted by Stuart 6:24 PM
Women talk more than men because they know more words - claim
This, from Ananova
A German psychologist claims that women talk more than men because they know twice as many words.Constanze Fakih says women have a vocabulary of around 23,000 words but men use and recognise only half this number.She believes this is the reason why women talk more, and men often do not understand them.Another German scientist claims the part of the male brain responsible for conversation shuts itself down in the evening.Communications experts Allen and Barbara Pease told German women's magazine 'Freundin' that after a hard day's work, the left part of the male brain, which is responsible for speech and listening, just shuts itself down and goes to sleep.This is why men are not very talkative in the evenings, said the experts.Another reason, of course, is that they can't get a bloody word in edgeways...
posted by Stuart 6:06 PM
