Despite announcements by Transport for London (reported widely on television and in other media) that the underground and buses were working to timetable, thousands of people decided to make their own way around the capital today by running; including six Maasaai warriors using old car tyre rubber for shoes. Just a week ago, university students, unfamiliar with our transport infrastructure in London, decided to row up the Thames to see the capital.
The BBC was able to picture an exhibit from a recent High Court intellectual property case making his way around London.
Meanwhile, the paramilitary wing of the police, Police Community Support Officers, are gearing up for the summer with a plan to issue yellow and red football style warnings to anyone transgressing any laws, including
those relating to the size of hedges, and are ‘cracking down’ on ‘tourists’ who are caught taking photographs of London landmarks (See: post below.) The Police are particularly concerned that photography has reached a point where, a photograph, in the wrong hands, could provide valuable information to terrorist groups on where London is. The government, in what is known as Operation lock the door because the horse has bolted, is particularly sensitive following the report in The News of The World some weeks ago that NOTW had come into possession of the architect blueprints for the M15 headquarters:
“The lost 66-page dossier of floor layouts—once used by trusted CONTRACTORS at the high-security Central London base—would be gold dust to terrorists. The plans were given to us by a worried member of the public, who got them from a friend who worked at the building and never handed them back.”
“Bravo Two Zero SAS hero Chris Ryan said: “If you’re assaulting a building the first thing you look for are the architect’s drawings and blueprints. If just a single person managed to get into the building, this document would lead them to where they could do most damage.”
I had hoped to show you a picture of MI5 headquarters but, unfortunately, a PCSO put a doughnut he was eating at the time in front of the lens of my television camera and the footage was ruined.
Note: I am grateful to fellow blogger, Geeklawyer, for his story on police / PCSO antipathy to photographers
The PCSO discussion board requires registration - I do not know if full biometrics have to be provided.
And…. don’t think it is just the PCSOs who are watching you… now the Council are as well…
Reactionary Snob has the gen on this. I reported on this story in a daily news podcast. Reactionary Snob does it better. Poole Council invoked RIPA (fairly serious anti-terror legislation for those who do not happpen to have it by their bedside) to follow a middle class mum of three children to make sure she wasn’t trying to get her children (’targets’) into a school outside her catchment area.
I can do no better than ask you to read the Reactionary Snob coverage and quote from his blog to encourage you to do so:
Tim Martin, Poole council’s head of legal and democratic services, said: “The use of RIPA procedures ensures that surveillance is properly authorised and provides protection for the subject of the investigation.
Well done, Tim Martin. You have just won an award. The award is very rarely given out but it is only given to those who truly deserve it. You have won The Reactionary Snob Award For Outstanding Achievements in the field of Abject Cuntery. ”Legal and Democratic Services”? What the fuck does that even mean? Provides protection for the subject of the investigation? What? That’s stretching it a bit, non? If you mean they are protected by having two goons follow their every move how can I disagree? I’d contend that it is a bit of an invasion of privacy and a total waste of police and council time?
Reactionary Snob is a lawyer (from Scotland, as is apparent from some of his coverage) and always worth a visit. The BBC also covered the story - in a TV share of licence compliant, post phone-in scandal, sort of a way.
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Meanwhile, before I crack on with my civil liberties oriented Weekend Review - we go over to an item from John Bolch, author of Family Lore - for an amusing bit of film…. here it is. Be back in three.
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The revelation recently that Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg told Piers Morgan, former editor of The Mirror, when asked how many women he had slept with (for GQ magazine) that it was ‘…less than thirty” is remarkable. The Guardian covered the story.
Cleggover as, inevitably, he is now known, should have kept his mouth shut. I may well have an ASBO banning me from appearing in church or at a Register Office for the purpose of marrying anyone - but it would not occur to me to answer a question as crass as that. In fact, it would irritate me to be asked. Boris, by saying less than a 1000, because he is not bisexual, gets away with it. Mind you, his activities are a matter of public record. At least Paddy Pantsdown was vaguely credible when he was caught - and, we really do not need to go back to the era of dogs being shot and the departure of Jeremy Thorpe…. or, for that matter, David Lloyd George
Well… no podcasts this weekend. BUT…. I am loading all my podcasts up to a new server (it takes time) - and from Wednesday 16th April my daily news podcasts and daily news review will be on here. I’ve also set up a newsletter - so if you want to sign up for a weekly (possibly, fortnightly) newswire from me on developments in the law and and a bit of analysis - feel free to sign up here. You can always unsubscribe - and I promise that my mate Mr Cialis will not be writing to offer you pills.
Off for a glass of Rioja - and I won’t be watching “Britain’s got Talent”….
Filed under: Charon, Weekend Review Podcasts
nick ‘less than thirty’ clegg - what a disgrace.
it’s ‘fewer’ you oik!
though i presume he will achieve ‘less’ than previous leaders of his *ahem* party.
Damn right simply - less of a singular thing - fewer of a plural thing….
Less hair, fewer hairs….
On second thoughts, let’s not follow this example…..
Andrew and SW - Is it not possible that Cleggover was thinking about threesomes when he committed grammatical apostasy/ suicide and laid himself open to obloquy and, indeed, opprobium.
Now… the question is this…
If it is fewer than thirty - then is it less / fewer than ‘a thousand’ ? - the latter, of course, a singular - although the meaning would, would it not, be changed if one had said ‘one thousand’ - that would be a plural…
I think, after this, I’ll apply to “Britain’s got Talent”
innit?
PS… I only ask…lest I be committed to a place of detention for committing a solecism by using ‘less than a thousand’ in the main body of my post (supra). I can/may/should/shall/will/would, in any event, excuse such laxity with our language by pleading the defence of inebriation and automatism.
I like a bit of automatism on a Friday night.
Charon, is hedge size in any way related to hedge funds?
James: If I had a hedge fund interest as big as my hedge I wouldn’t need to worry about anything!
i believe the convention is that ‘fewer’ would be used when ‘a thousand’ is qualified by a noun (if nouns qualify anything?). ‘fewer than a thousand men’. ‘less than a thousand’ seems generally accepted. ironically it might well be fewer than 1001… is it the roundness of the number that convinces us of its quasi-singularity (i made that word up)?
of course it would be less than a thousand pounds because the idea has become ‘a singular thing’ as andrew stated above. a jeffrey archer type bag with a grand in it.
if it were in answer to a question ‘how much’ - less; ‘how many’ fewer. again this idea of singularity, although it is clear the rule breaks down at certain points and may soon be considered archaic and pedantic. now that’s a word i hear occasionally. wonder why.
still, a degree in words has to be some good - i even tried to argue that the use of shall in a will provision need not denote the future. didn’t get very far.
fascinated by words though, and given the profession is meant to be all about the interpretation thereof, you do see some sloppiness about.
All good stuff…. SW.
Words are important…
Shall we consider the use of the split infinitive next ? …. very popular these days
i wouldn’t want to definitively advise you on that.
i find the use of contributory negligence/t a bit scary: there appears to be an adjectival phrase: ‘he was held contributory negligent.’
this troubles me, as we appear to be light one adverb. and adverbs have a very hard time of it as it is what with adjectives stealing their work a la solicitor adovcates.
just don’t get me started on the grocer’s apostrophe denoting the plural… get’s right on my tit’s
[...] lost. Not even Cleggover, with his admission that he couldn’t even manage to shag more than 30 women and a 15 year old boy sneezing and wiping snot on David Cameron’s suited back while Cameron [...]