jump to navigation

Save Tourism Concern October 15, 2009

Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Travel , add a comment

Tourism Concern is a small charity which focuses on human rights issues in tourism, and is particularly concerned with the rights of indigenous populations in tourist destination countries.

If you’ve had a holiday in the Maldives, been on a gap year volunteering programme, or just done the bucket and spade thing on a Costa, Tourism Concern has been involved.

Over the years they’ve done great work to improve the impact of tourism, and move it closer to an ideal vision of tourism that benefits the host community and provides a happy, enriching experience for the tourist.

They’re a force for good in an industry which is often very far from that vision, so I am sad to see it reported in the trade press today that they are likely to fold this year if they can’t raise more finds.

Please, donate, buy the latest edition of their excellent Ethical Travel Guide, or at least pass this blog post on to your friends!

Bloody Poetry

Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 1 comment so far

The White Bear in Kennington Rd doesn’t really look worth the trip to the wilds of South of the River, with big Sky sports screens, and a few locals nursing pints.  Hidden in a back room though, is one of those tiny studio theatres that pubs with a room to spare and a few eager theatre companies throw up.  Two rows of bench seats around the walls, lights, action!

Tonight, it was Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry, a feast of Byron and the Shelleys.   We start with their first meeting, on the shores of Lake Geneva in 1816.  Shelley (Richard Holt) is there with his mistresses, Mary Godwin (Ellie Turner) and Claire Claremont (Felicity Davison).  Byron (James Russell) has a putative biographer, the deliciously slimy William Polidori, played by Alex Barclay.  The four embark on a relationship which lasts the rest of Shelley’s brief life.

Although the language is often that of the poets, the women are not overshadowed by their talented though severely flawed men.  Mary Godwin, later Shelley, is beautifully portrayed by Ellie Turner.  I make the mistake of thinking of her as little more than the author of Frankenstein, though that would be enough.  Her  radicalism as she urges Shelley to ‘live the life’ rather than just pontificating about it, or accepts his affair with Claremont, is clearly stronger than Shelley’s own.

Kate Malyon, who plays Shelley’s first wife Harriet, spends most of the play as a Banquo-like ghost, but her initial performance as she delivers a soliliquy before throwing herself in the Serpentine is spell-binding and moving.

This is a small fringe production in a tiny theatre, but worthy of much more.  It was a full house tonight, and well worth crossing the river.

Tickets are £10-12. The show runs until 31 October.

Gagging orders – a thing of the past? October 13, 2009

Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Politics , add a comment

Update at 2106 -The injunction was withdrawn at about one this afternoon, and the Guardian have now published in full.  A bit of a total PR CarterRuckup, you might say…

====

I’m having great fun this morning, being distracted from my essay by the growing Guardian Gagging Order Scandal.  In a beautifully nuanced piece on the front page, the Guardian explained that it had been served an injunction preventing it from reporting anything about a question due to be asked in Parliament this week.  It didn’t actually say ‘Bloggers – to your marks!’ but it may as well have.

I read the paper in a cafe at about 9.30am.  By the time I got on the computer at 10.15, three facebook friends had already posted the article along with another article in the Spectator explaining what the fuss was all about and giving the question, and a quick check on a couple of blogs revealed a link to the offending report, which seems likely to be the subject of the question.

This appears to be a sad story of an international corporation dumping, quite literally, on the very poor of a developing nation in pursuit of profit.   They’ve offered to pay compensation, but the whole thing is likely to become a criminal matter, and clearly the company don’t want the evidence of their wrong-doing to get out into the public sphere.  This scandal has been brewing for some months and the Guardian has done sterling work in shining a light in some very dark places.

The new scandal is   that a respected newspaper could be prevented from publishing a question to go before parliament.   Parliament, for all it’s faults, is public, and citizens have the right to know what goes on there.  This horrendous injunction is yet another nail in the coffin of our moribund parliamentary democracy, and the reform of British libel laws must be a top priority for any parliament with self-respect.

This time, the injunction clearly hasn’t worked.  As I write,  #trafigura is one of the most popular tags on twitter, and three of the top four tags relate to this scandal.  Thousands of people, many of whom will never have heard of Trafigura or its unpleasant ways now know about it.

I’d guess that, next time, the injunction will be stronger, and articles like the one this morning will become more difficult to write.  Our media laws need a rapid (though well thought out) rewrite to strengthen consideration of the public interest, and, while we’re on the subject, the fair comment defense against libel.

Stick to paper October 5, 2009

Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , 3 comments

Here’s why I won’t be turning to e-books any time soon.

Right now, on Waterstones.co.uk, the e-book of Iain Banks’ Transition is £14.09. The hardback is a mere £13.99. And the paperback is only £9.09.

Prices for Iain Banks Transition at Waterstones

Prices for Iain Banks Transition at Waterstones

I love my books, but they’ve completely outgrown my capacity to shelve them.  Particularly for textbooks, I’ll be happy to give EBooks a go when, and only when

In my naive 20s, I paid to upgrade my LPs to CD.  I’ve put up with all the clever little software licencing rorts over the years, but with books, that’s enough.