The picture below (for which Ade Cooper gets a tip of the hat. Ed.) should bring a smile to the face of anyone similarly stricken to me in years who doesn’t share young Nigel’s Little Englander view of the world.
To prevent any further incursion of foreigners and/or Foreigner, perhaps the UK should deploy a squadron of Farage balloons around the coast. Similar to the barrage balloons used in the 20th century’s 2 world wars, these isolationist windbags could soon blow any threat of invasion to the shores of Blighty back to whence it came. 🙂
One of the features of the variety of English spoken in Bristol is the terminal ‘L’ – a final, intrusive ‘L’ on words ending in a vowel sound. As a consequence, Bristolians live in areals of the city and some of them do their shopping in Asdal.
This terminal L found its earliest expression in the city’s name itself, which has mutated from Brigstowe in Saxon times.
However, the terminal L is now under threat from poor writing and editing at the Bristol Post (or should that be Bristo Post? Ed.), as revealed in this blatant advertisement masquerading as news, complete with obligatory screenshot.
More of this poorly written junk can be expected in future as the Bristol Post – along with the rest of the Local World group to which it belongs – will be making increasing use of user-provided content, presumably to save on employing trained journalists.
Will the Staffordshire oatcake be joining Melton Mowbray pork pies, the Cornish pasty and Newcastle Brown Ale by having its status protected by the European Union?
Filled Staffordshire oatcakes. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The BBC reports that the the West Midlands Labour group of MEPs is promising to apply to get it protected by the European Union if re-elected.
One of the candidates, Sion Simon, is reported as saying: “They’re part of our heritage and culture in the West Midlands and they should be protected in the same way other European countries protect their food products.”
Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates are also said to be broadly supportive of the proposal, although UKIP are being curmudgeonly and refusing to support the move (another reason not to vote for Nigel’s Little Englanders? Ed.).
However, I cannot help wondering if this proposal is a local Labour response to the rise of UKIP, particularly amongst Labour’s long-term core voters – the traditional white working class – the people it has taken for granted for far too long.
It is unclear from the BBC’s article which type of protection – PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) or TSG (Traditional Speciality Guaranteed) – will be sought, although my feeling is that it should be one of the first two.
I hope this is not just another manifesto promise from Labour that, like so many others, will be quietly dropped after the election when they have served their purpose.
The historic Ebenezer Chapel, the last remaining non-conformist chapel in the St Philips area of Bristol, is under threat of demolition from its owners, who seem very unconcerned about its value.
As a non-conformist building, it is very interesting architecturally too, looking more influenced by the Romanesque or Norman style (as it is otherwise known in England. Ed.) than the more usual Gothic Revival.
Ebenezer Chapel in its days as an architectural salvage emporium. Picture courtesy of John M (via Geograph)
However, a petition has been started to try and save (some of) it.
The text of the petition reads as follows:
Ebenezer Chapel, on Midland Road, is under imminent threat of demolition. The landowner wishes to destroy this important and beautiful reminder of the history of St Philips and Old Market, to replace it with a modern block of flats.
The chapel was built in 1849, the first Primitive Methodist chapel built in Bristol. Notwithstanding its beauty for local residents and the thousands of pedestrians and cyclists which pass it each day, it is the last-remaining architectural evidence of the education and spiritual support given to the first residents in the area, who settled in the early nineteenth century.
An attempt has been made to get the building listed by English Heritage, while it is a very strong candidate for the Local List. But because it is not listed and is outside of a conservation area, Bristol City Council says it is powerless to intervene and save this beautiful building.
We would like your support for this petition, which aims to show how many people would like this building saved and, at the very least, incorporated into any new development that takes place.
The more public support we receive, the more we can do to persuade the landowner and council to work to save this important historical landmark for future generations, and in so doing create a better development for all.
As well as signing the petition, please consider writing to your local councillor and local media to express your support for saving the chapel, and calling on them to do all they can in the future to protect the heritage of our great city.
German IT news website Heise reports that Andrew “bunnie” Huang has successfully financed his open source Novena Computer hardware, although the crowdfunding campaign is still running until the end of this week.
Novena is an open source hardware of software platform for hackers who appreciate a development platform that’s as open as possible. Huang originally wanted to fulfil his own wish for a laptop specifically for hackers; due to heavy demand the hardware can be ordered via the crowdfunding project until the end of the week.
The motherboard is on its third revision although the essential performance characteristics have not changed. Freescale i.MX6 is used as the CPU; this has four Cortex-A9-cores with a frequency of 1.2 GHz. The Vivante GC2000 GPU is used for the graphics. The connections and specifications for the laptop are comparable with other netbooks and are on average as follows: up to 4 GB of RAM (1 SODIMM, DDR3-1066), SATA II interface, USB 2.0 interfaces, HDMI output and Mini-PCI Express. A dual channel LVDS LCD connector can supply a screen resolution of 2048 × 1536 pixels at 60 Hz. The exclusivity of such a “handmade” product is clearly reflected in the price. Huang has stated in the past that this is not a cheap PC system.
The Novena platform is available in 4 variants. The motherboard on its own costs US $500. The desktop version is available for US $1,195 and the laptop variant for US $1,995. In addition, the Heirloom version is a designer variant for lovers of handmade cases. The work of designer Kurt Mottweiler costs a hefty US $5,000 and this Novena variant comes with a hand-crafted wood and aluminium housing.
As far as the operating system is concerned, Huang is using Debian GNU/Linux.
This morning I discovered the fake HMRC email below in one of my inboxes.
I’m disappointed to note that the senders of this one are only offering me a refund of £830.99; the previous bunch of scammers were offering £1,400.
TAX RETURN FOR THE YEAR 2014
RECALCULATION OF YOUR TAX REFUND
HMRC 2010-2011
LOCAL OFFICE No. 3819
TAX CREDIT OFFICER: Jarrett Horn
TAX REFUND ID NUMBER: 9896077
REFUND AMOUNT: 830.99 GBP
Dear Applicant,
The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and as applicable, copyright in these is reserved to HM Revenue & Customs.
Unless expressly authorised by us, any further dissemination or distribution of this email or its attachments is prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please reply to inform us that you have received this email in error and then delete it without retaining any copy.
I am sending this email to announce: After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 830.99 GBP
You have attached the tax return form with the TAX REFUND NUMBER ID: 9896077, complete the tax return form attached to this message.
After completing the form, please submit the form by clicking the SUBMIT button on form and allow us 5-9 business days in order to process it.
Our head office address can be found on our web site at HM Revenue & Customs: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk
This email was delivered from a Korea Telecom server and came with an attachment -Refund-Form-ID_9896077.zip (the number in the zip file varies).
Some of the language used – e.g. ‘fiscal activity‘ – is also a clue to its bogus nature. HMRC is supposed to use simpler English than that. Furthermore, note that the title seems to suggest the tax return concerned is for 2014, but the refund relates to 2011-2012. Not even HMRC is that slow in refunding money.
If you’re on a Windows machine, opening that zip file is fraught with danger as the archive contains a Trojan which, when run, attempts to drop cryptolocker, ransomware and loads of other malware on your computer.
As stated in an earlier post, HMRC never sends notifications of a tax rebate by email or asks taxpayers to disclose personal or payment information by email.
As before, if you receive one of these emails, you are advised to forward it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and then delete it.
The screenshot below comes from the Bristol Post website early this morning and shows 2 news items in succession about Nick Gargan, the Chief Constable of Avon & Police.
Is being suspended for ‘inappropriate behaviour’ part of a typical light-hearted day for Avon & Somerset’s finest?
Answers in the comments below, Bristol Post hacks and sub-editors. 🙂
Without exception, everyone likes to get money back off the taxman.
That being so, how would you react if you found the email below in one of your mailboxes?
Genuine email from HMRC or a fake – can you tell?
With the subject line “Error in the calculation of your tax“, all the right colours used by HMRC and genuine links to HMRC website pages on both the left and right of the main message, it definitely has the appearance of a genuine email from the taxman.
Would your reaction be one of joy that HMRC is prepared to refund you £1,400 of your hard-earned cash? Would that then lead you to click on the link below that figure in green text – the one enticingly indicating My Refvund?
Running my mouse over that link revealed that it did not go to the HMRC website at all, but a phishing page on a website that seems to be hosted in Bangkok, which is not somewhere I suspect that hosts many .gov.uk domains.
In addition to the dodgy spelling of the link, another clue is the incorrect use of capitalisation in the final paragraph.
In case readers were unaware of the HMRC’s procedures, the taxman never sends notifications of a tax rebate by email or asks taxpayers to disclose personal or payment information by email.
HMRC’s advice to anyone who has received a HMRC-related phishing/bogus email it to forward it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and then delete it.
On Friday evening the Open Rights Group organised one of a series of nationwide European Digital Rights hustings at St Werburgh’s Community Centre in Bristol. This was a chance for local people to quiz MEP candidates from the South West about their views on digital rights and ask them to sign up to the 10 point Charter of Digital Rights.
Green European Parliament candidate Audaye Elesedy signs the Charter of Digital Rights at St Werburgh’s Community Centre. Picture credit: Brent Longborough
As Chair of St Werburgh’s and having a keen interest in digital rights, I volunteered my services and was surprised to be asked to chair the event.
When I arrived, Ed Paton-Williams from the ORG had already shown up and there was little to organise in the room apart from setting up the wifi, a couple of notices with the wifi details and the last minute provision of water for the top table.
In alphabetical order, the candidates who attended were:
Hadleigh Roberts (Labour) (who, incidentally, is a fellow translator. Ed.).
We were supposed to have been joined by Julia Reed from UKIP, but she pulled out at the last moment. Could this have had something to do with a little Twitter bother?
After a brief introduction from Ed Paton-Williams and a warm welcome to all to the Centre from me, we were off with candidates’ opening statements. All stuck fairly well to the 2 minutes limit for speaking (and many thanks to Hadleigh for the use of his phone with the stopwatch app! Ed.).
As chair I got to ask the first question: has the EU done enough to allow open source software to compete with proprietary products such as Microsoft Office?
Some interesting answers followed: Hadleigh and Jay both raised the cost of licensing for small businesses; Audaye raised the use of open standards such as Open Document Format.
The meeting was then thrown open to questions from the floor. The first concerned data protection and the UK’s government’s desire to make money from selling data provided by citizens. Once again there were some fascinating answers of which I’m reminded of two points in particular: Jay believed people should be compensated financially for the use of their data, whilst Hadleigh stated that companies shouldn’t be buying people’s data. A point made from the floor was that people are very mistrustful of the way the government uses – and loses – data.
The next question from the floor raised the matter of TTIP. Some candidates, particularly those with links to business, favoured TTIP’s implementation; Georgina said it should be given a chance. Other, more wary candidates feared the consequences of TTIP’s proposals to allow corporations to take governments to court for changes to the competitive commercial landscape. TTIP was also seen as a big threat to personal control of data. Snowden’s revelation of US spying on the EU during TTIP negotiations were mentioned by Audaye.
This led neatly into the next matter: surveillance. Georgina thought there was too much scaremongering going on about data collection. It’s there to protect us from paedophiles and terrorism, adding: “States knew perfectly well that surveillance happening… on the internet there’s no such thing as privacy.” Jay responded that we’re struggling with oversight in the UK and that access to communications data shouldn’t be a habitual thing. Hadleigh remarked that the public have to be given a guarantee that they won’t be spied on unless they’ve committed crime. Audaye stressed that Germany has gained a competitive advantage in digital sector because its far stronger privacy culture compared with the UK.
Thangam Debonnaire, Labour’s candidate for the Bristol West parliamentary constituency and a former musician, asked about how the EU should make sure copyright law helps creators protect their income. There was general agreement in the responses that Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) hadn’t really done anything to stop so-called ‘piracy’, (better known to some of us by its correct definition of ‘copyright infringement’. Ed.). Furthermore, artists deserve better compensation from the likes of iTunes and Spotify. The general impression is that this area still needs attention as the music and film industries are still struggling to come to terms with the internet after a couple of decades.
In one of the final questions, the power of the UK in the EU was raised from the floor. Candidates pointed out that the UK hadn’t really lost any power, but had lost influence due to its attitude. As regards attitude, the behaviour of UKIP in the European Parliament was criticised severely by the candidates. Proceedings in the Parliament were described as generally civilised and polite. However, UKIP’s MEPs were criticised for being rude to their fellow parliamentarians and failing to do any work on the committees on which they are supposed serve.
The hustings concluded with closing statements from all candidates and a vote of thanks to them from the chair.
For me it was a baptism of fire, never having chaired a hustings event before. But the candidates were – apart from a minor bit of mudslinging – models of politeness and made my job in the chair a pleasure. There was none of the two speakers talking at once that I witnessed the previous week at Radio 4’s broadcast from Bristol of Any Questions?
The tenor of the meeting is perhaps summarised by this tweet from local councillor Rob Telford.
Very open debate this evening, lots of audience participation and intelligence, more of a conversation really! #EUDigitalDebate
Earlier today, the news section of the Bristol Post transported the city’s affluent district of Clifton to the countryside, describing it as ‘rural’, as shown in the following screenshot.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary rural has many meanings; the one implied by the Post’s usage is the OED’s definition 1c:
Employed or stationed in country districts.
Are the people of Clifton yokels?
Bristol absorbed Clifton in the 19th century, so any green wellies seen will be very clean and not covered in cow’s muck; they’ll be worn for fashion not for necessity. Although Clifton’s renowned Downs are still common land, the locals don’t seem to graze much livestock upon them. Nevertheless, some activities which may be regarded as animal take place up there.
The word rural has since been removed from the headline.
I always believed press articles supposed to be sub-edited before being posted. Apparently this does not seem to be the usual practice down at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth.
On Friday evening the 
