Although it’s not one of his regular local media reads, your ‘umble scribe might just start visiting the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertizer website more to keep up to date with dynamic, one could even say groundbreaking, developments in use of the English language, if the headline of the report shown below is in any way typical of modern journalism.
The same piece, by the same author, also appears in yesterday’s Whitchurch Herald, where similar sub-editing skills are in evidence.
Six litter louts have been ordered by magistrates to pay a total of £671.84 each for dropping cigarette ends in central Bristol, making a grand total of £4,031.04, yesterday’s Bristol Post reports.
The individual total of £671.84 is broken down as follows: £440 fine, £187.84 in prosecution costs and a £44 victim surcharge.
All the defendants have been given 28 days to pay.
Cigarette ends are litter too. Disposing of them properly will avoid the risk of a fine.
They were all originally caught littering on 9th and 10th November last year by civil enforcement officers working for Bristol City Council (the so-called litter police. Ed.) and were issued with £75 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for their filthiness. Had the penalties been paid within 10 days, the culprits would only have had to pay £50 each.
As it is, they repeatedly ignored correspondence from Bristol City Council, as well as their summonses to Bristol Magistrates Court, as none of the defendants could be bothered to appear in person.
On average, more than 1,000 people have been issued with FPNs for environmental crimes such as littering and dog fouling each month since the ‘litter police’ started their work.
It’s good to see the City Council taking a tough line on litter. However, far more ‘litter police’ are needed to cover the rest of the city in addition to the centre. They have made the odd foray into a council-owned public park or two and an occasional jolly to Stapleton Road, but far more rigorous action is going to be needed by the local authority if it is to have any hope of meeting the objectives of Mayor Marvin Rees’ Bristol Clean Streets initiative, i.e. that Bristol will be measurably cleaner by 2020 in terms of litter, fly-tipping, fly-posting, graffiti, dog fouling, chewing gum and weeds (especially as the latter were only being eradicated last year if residents made enough of a fuss! Ed.).
The simple fact is that there would less strain on the public purse and less work for the council in keeping the streets and parks clean if people didn’t drop litter, allow their dogs to foul all over the place, dump fly-tipping and commit other environmental crimes.
Nevertheless, it is good to see that Bristol City Council and local magistrates are sending out a clear message to litter louts to keep Bristol tidy – or its centre at any rate.
Finally, in an opinion piece in the Bristol Post, Tristan Cork takes filthy Bristolians to task for the deplorable state residents leave the city’s parks in every time the weather gets warm. Meanwhile the council has warned people who leave rubbish in parks next to overflowing bins that they will be fined £100 if caught and that the “litter police” are now patrolling parks and have been instructed to issue fixed penalty notices for rubbish deposited around bins, as well as anything left on the grass.
Within the scope of its own cloud computing environment, the German Federal administration has opted for Nextcloud, heise reports. The software will in future be running by the Federal administration’s central IT service provider, the Federal Information Technology Centre (ITZBund). Unlike services such as Google Drive or Dropbox, Nextcloud is an open source project which users can install in their own computer centres.
The project is targeted at some 300,000 users in various authorities and ministries. They will be able to share and synchronise files centrally using the service. Stuttgart-based Nextcloud GmbH is supporting the ITZBund based on an enterprise subscription for operation and support. However, individual licences per user or per system shall not be incurred.
ITZBund tested Nextcloud with some 5,000 users in a pilot project before making its decision in favour of open source.
The City of Dortmund wants to examine the potential of free software and open standards for the city council until the end of 2019, German IT news website heise reports.
Munich’s decision last year to abandon open source is not the final word in open source matters in German local authorities. Dortmund’s city council has decided to investigate the potential of free and open source software “systematically” in the field of municipal ICT.
Dortmund panorama. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
A free software working group has been established and will work together with the council’s personnel board and Do-FOSS citizens’ action group in developing a free software strategy which should be produced by the end of 2019. Dortmund is thus an open source pioneer in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The NRW E-government Law stipulates that open and standardised file formats shall be used by public authorities for sending files to citizens and companies.
Less dependence, more flexibility
Amongst other things, efforts will be made to reduce reliance on suppliers and become more flexible in software use. The aspect of transparency and “Green IT” are also pre-requisites for the strategy. The German Federal Environment Office has determined that free software could save resources due to lower hardware requirements and longer life cycles. Moreover, a more flexible choice of suppliers could also improve local authorities’ negotiating position with proprietary software vendors.
Do-FOSS, which has been calling for years for a switch in public sector procurement towards free software and open standards, is hailing the decision as a “milestone“. In addition, a draft for the introduction of “Open Data Dortmund” is to be submitted to the local authority by next summer. DO-FOSS is now hoping that a comprehensive approach will now be developed within the council for the free and open source IT.
Back in January Mayor Ullrich Sierau and the personnel board signed the Digital Dortmund 2018-2030 Charter (PDF, German), in which the use of open standards was agreed for the council’s ICT.
Today I’ve written to my MP, Thangam Debbonaire, about Whitehall’s plans to rename the Second Severn Crossing and lumber it with the uninspiring and sycophantic moniker of the Prince of Wales Bridge.
Second Severn Crossing seen from Severn Beach. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
This move went down really badly in Wales, particularly in view of the total lack of public consultation and many tens of thousands of people have signed a petition objecting to the move, as reported by Wales Online.
Besides the renaming being described variously as “pathetic“, “insulting” and “patronising” (and there is more than a hint of (neo-)colonialism about it. Ed.), many Welsh residents would like any change of name to be made in honour of someone who has actually done something for Wales, rather than sit around for decades waiting for his mum to die before he can take on her job.
It now looks to be turning out to be equally unpopular in the West Country as the comments on this Bristol Post report seem to suggest.
It’s not just the Welsh that object to it being renamed after Charles Windsor with no public consultation. I, one of your constituents and a long-term republican, also signed the petition. There are enough structures sycophantically named after the royals in any event.
Perhaps you would like to join your Welsh colleagues in campaigning against this arbitrary change dreamed up in Whitehall and now being imposed insensitively upon the Westminster Village’s colony over the Severn! 🙂
Regards, etc.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that most locals either side of the Severn estuary will still continue to refer to it as the Second Severn Crossing, no matter what the sycophants in London SW1 ultimately decide what to name it.
On Thursday, The Document Foundation (TDF), the organisation behind the free and open source Libreoffice productivity suite, announced the release of LibreOffice 6.0.3, the third minor release of the LibreOffice 6 family.
Compared to the previous release, LibreOffice 6.0.3 around 70 bug and regression fixes.
LibreOffice 6.0.3 represents the bleeding edge in terms of features and as such is targeted at early adopters, tech-savvy and power users, while LibreOffice 5.4.6 – provided as an alternative download option – is targeted at more conservative mainstream users and enterprise deployments.
As per usual, technical details about LibreOffice 6.0.3 bug and regression fixes can be found in the change logs for RC1 and RC2.
Professional support
TDF advises mainstream users and companies to deploy LibreOffice with the support of certified developers, migrators and trainers.
Several companies on TDF’s Advisory Board provide either value-added LTS versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migration and training.
Donate to help LibreOffice development
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation. Donations help TDF to maintain its infrastructure, share knowledge and fund attendance at events like LibreOffice Conference, which this year takes place in Tirana.
As I sit in my sister’s apartment on the coast of Brittany this Easter, the thought comes to mind that it’s nearly five decades since my first visit to France as a callow schoolboy in 1971.
This realisation has prompted me to consider just how much France has changed – albeit gradually but nevertheless steadily – over the intervening years. Below are four (for the sake of brevity. Ed.) obvious changes your ‘umble scribe has noticed have changed, haven’t changed and are completely new.
Things that have changed or are now apparently rare
The distinctive smell of French built-up areas, the odour being composed mostly of bad plumbing and the pungent aroma of Gauloises and Gitanes.
In one and a half weeks here, I have yet to see someone working for the French state wearing a kepi. This headgear is now only worn by Customs officers and gendarmes on ceremonial occasions and by the military on “appropriate occasions”.
The lack of public conveniences; the average small French local authority now has more public loos than even large city authorities in the UK (who’ve been shutting theirs under austerity and costs-savings measures. Ed.).
The Solex and the kepi – destined for obsolescence?
Things that haven’t changed
Grumpy-looking gendarmes and police officers.
The excellent quality of food on markets and in supermarkets and shops, plus affordable prices for alcoholic beverages.
French motorists’ psychopathic attitude to other motorists and contrasting extreme courtesy to cyclists.
Drinkable coffee and lovely hot chocolate in bars and cafés.
Novelties
Ubiquitous cycle helmets, along with cycle routes and cycle lanes.
Roundabouts working on the same principal as in the UK (traffic on the roundabout has priority over that entering) have proliferated in the last 2 decades.
Pre-packed British style sandwiches on sale in supermarkets, along with ready meals: definitely a retrograde step. 🙁
Major stores opening on Sundays.
If any readers wish to add to either list, comments are welcome below.
In Brittany collecting seaweed off the beaches and out at sea for use as fertiliser on fields has a long tradition.
In the early 1960s, the job of collecting seaweed was given a major mechanical boost with the invention of the “scoubidou“, a corkscrew-like tool that is used for the commercial harvesting of seaweed, consisting of an iron hook attached to a hydraulic arm. Its invention is credited to Yves Colin and it is largely used for gathering oarweed.
A scoubidou can be seen in action below.
A scoubidou in action off the coast of Brittany
Let’s fast forward to the USA in 1969. At animation company Hanna-Barbera, a character in the shape of a male Great Dane called Scooby-Doo has just been invented and becomes the eponymous hero of an animation series featuring amateur detectives.
The franchise proved very successful with the cartoon series being shown all around the world, culminating in a feature length film in 2002.
News has now emerged that Breton seaweed harvesters, also known as “goémoniers“, might now be considering suing the animation company for copyright infringement.
Breton seaweed harvesters’ spokesperson Avril Fouelle has commented: “It’s only right that we seek recompense. If it hadn’t been for those darn kids in Hollywood stealing our terminology for financial gain, Brittany’s géomoniers would today be living more comfortably than they do.”
During my first visits to France in my teens one frequently saw blue-enamelled signs mounted on gates and walls and bearing the words “Chien méchant“, the French equivalent of “Beware of the dog“. However, we used to translate it literally and, as the only other creature we’d come across which could also be described as “méchant” (= naughty*) was children, we settled on “naughty dog” as the accepted definition or translation and had a good chuckle. However, as time progressed and language studies reached higher levels, one gradually came to realise that literal translation is often unreliable, as exemplified by our French four-legged friends.
The classic French “Chien méchant” sign from yesteryear
Yesterday afternoon in Sainte Marine when out walking with my sister we came across the sign below.
The alleged four-legged friend to which the sign refers is clearly a canine which has strayed well beyond being merely “méchant“, is clearly mentally unstable and would – if human and resident in England and Wales – be admitted to hospital against its will under the Mental Health Act.
However, for we open source enthusiasts, “mad dog” – or in this case “maddog” – has other connotations. “Maddog” is the nickname of programmer Jon Hall, the Executive Director of Linux International, a non-profit organisation established by computer professionals with the aim of supporting and promoting Linux-based operating systems.
Finally, any mention of mad dogs by an Englishman would be incomplete without a passing nod to Noel Coward, so here it is. 😀
* = With enhanced vocabulary knowledge one subsequently became aware of other meanings of “méchant“, such as nasty or spiteful, which although laden with anthropomorphism are particularly pertinent to dogs and their bite. 😀
When it comes to advertising, your correspondent shares George Orwell’s opinion as expressed in 1936 in “Keep the Aspidistra Flying“, i.e.:
The public are swine; advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill-bucket
However, I’ll make an exception for a local fishmonger’s van seen on Good Friday in Fouesnant market in Brittany and depicted below.
Click on the image for the full version
Billing themselves as a hard-working/responsible/serious company (Maison sérieuse), Poissonnerie Cabioch & Fils’ signwriter clearly has a humorous streak when it comes to advertising her/his client’s common items of trade.
For those not well versed in French, the bounties of the sea shown on the side of the van are listed below with their equivalents in English. Some also have slang meanings in French. Each link in the list leads to the relevant Wikipedia page in the respective language for the species concerned.
Talking of fishy things, it’s very nearly April Fools’ Day, or for the French “Poisson d’avril“. For children, “Poisson d’avril” consists of sticking a paper fish on the backs of people they wish to make fun of.
The earliest known occurrence of “Poisson d’avril” in French is found in the “ Doctrinal du temps présent” by the 15th century French poet and priest Pierre Michault, dating from 1466. However, its use to describe a traditional trick played on 1st April is only confirmed in the 17th century, when its earliest known occurrence is found in “La Vie de Charles V, duc de Lorraine” by historian Jean de Labrune published in 1691. It is first recorded in the dictionary of the Académie française, the guardians of the French language, in 1718.
A fish-fingery April Fools’ prank. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Finally fish – in this case rotten fish – also come into play in French if one wants to call someone every name under the sun; the equivalent French expression is “engueuler comme du poisson pourri“.
It’s good to see the City Council taking a tough line on litter. However, far more ‘litter police’ are needed to cover the rest of the city in addition to the centre. They have made the odd foray into a council-owned public park or two and an occasional jolly to Stapleton Road, but far more rigorous action is going to be needed by the local authority if it is to have any hope of meeting the objectives of Mayor Marvin Rees’ 
Within the scope of its own cloud computing environment, the German Federal administration has opted for 
Let’s fast forward to the USA in 1969. At animation company 
